Six years ago, Shantel Porter decided to break out of her shell.

Growing up in Oak Harbor, she’d driven by the Whidbey Playhouse for years and wished she had the courage to get up onstage. In 2010, she drove by again and saw a sign out front advertising auditions for “Cinderella,” then boldly announced her intentions to her husband Troy Haugen, who was her boyfriend at the time.

“’I’m doing that,’” she told him.

Porter landed the part of Queen Constantina in that play and “got the bug” for acting that she can’t shake.

Since then, she’s focused her energies on devoting herself to one play per year and this year aimed high for a challenging lead role in the popular musical “South Pacific,” which opens June 3 at the Whidbey Playhouse.

She got the part as American nurse Nellie Forbush, requiring her to up her game vocally.

“This has been truly the most difficult because I am not a vocalist,” Porter said. “I don’t read music. I don’t know technique. I don’t know anything about music really.”

But Porter, a dental hygienist since graduating from Oak Harbor High School in 1992, knows how to work hard and has impressed some of the more seasoned actors in the cast.

“She’s just wonderful to work with and just a delightful person,” said Ron Wohl, an accomplished actor from Anacortes who founded Skagit Opera. “She’s really talented.”

Wohl plays the part of a French plantation owner who falls in love with the Navy nurse in the play set in the South Pacific during World War II.

The musical, which won 10 Tony Awards as well as a Pulitzer Prize for Drama when it first opened, is the work of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein inspired by the James Michener book, “Tales of the South Pacific.”

The play revolves around two love stories threatened by both war and prejudice.

“I think it’s kind of a timeless story,” said Rusty Hendrix, the show’s director. “There’s never going to be a time in our world when there isn’t prejudice. But I hope that by giving the message of South Pacific that people will look at themselves and go, ‘You know what? It isn’t worth it.’ ”

Some of the cast was unfamiliar with the musical, which dates back to its premier on Broadway in 1949, or even the popular 1958 screen adaptation that starred Mitzi Gaynor and Rossano Brazzi.

But not Wohl. He’s seen the musical several times and relished the opportunity to sing the songs he remembers hearing as a child while living in New York.

“My parents would see things on Broadway and if they’d like it, they’d get the cast album,” Wohl said. “That’s one of the ones we had when I was a kid. It’s been in my memory for a long time.

“I get to sing some beautiful stuff that everyone bass-baritone wants to do once in his lifetime.”

The cast involves many newcomers to the Playhouse, however, one of the key characters is veteran Oak Harbor actress Allenda Jenkins, who plays Bloody Mary, the local grass skirt peddler.

It is the third time “South Pacific” has played at the Whidbey Playhouse. The last time was 1988.

Hendrix thanked the PBY -Naval Air Museum for sharing insight and allowing the Playhouse to borrow props for the play.

“We thought it would be a really good show to put on here, especially in the Navy community,” Hendrix said.

South Pacific

The Whidbey Playhouse’s 50th anniversary season concludes with the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “South Pacific,” starting Friday, June 3 and continuing through June 26. The 1950 Tony Award-winning musical is directed by Rusty Hendrix. The show is set in the South Pacific during World War II and involves two parallel love stories that are threatened by the dangers of prejudice and war. The lead roles are played by Oak Harbor’s Shantel Porter, who plays American nurse Nellie Forbush. She falls in love with French plantation owner Emile de Becque, played by Anacortes’ Ron Wohl. Tickets are $20. The playhouse is located at 730 SE Midway Boulevard. Shows are every Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. on Sundays. To learn more, go to www.whidbeyplayhouse.com