Even contemplating the upcoming annual chaos known as Free Comic Books Day at Danger Room Comics on May 3rd elicits a hearty chuckle from Frank Hussey. “I like to say it’s my favorite holiday where I work all day long.” Hussey is the proprietor, and the garrulous mirror-universe twin of Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons. Instead of a sour-faced and patronizing comics geek, he’s a smiling and loquacious shopkeeper who’s equally informative and open-hearted.
Up in the loft at Browsers Bookshop, genderqueer writer, filmmaker, and multi-media phenom Jonah Barnett will be performing a series of readings from their 2021 short-story collection “Moss-Covered Claws,” which mashes dreams and reality together in 11 macabre tales of speculative fiction: tales of anxiety-feeding demons, anti-fascists that travel dimensions, and the vengeful spirits of dead seabirds.
Olympia Family Theater’s new Magic Curtain Morning shows engage and delight toddlers and preschoolers. Each show runs no longer than 30 minutes, providing littles a playful introduction to the magic of live theater. The first show is “Little Red and the Dancing Wolf,” offering a new take on the old tale, running April 18, 25, and 26.
Gallery Director Sean Barnes said of the 2025 Juried Invitational Exhibition at South Puget Sound Community College, “This show has this nice balance of kind of spirituality and observation of the natural world. We have these temples and this little chapel for (Charles Pitz’s) work and then a goddess dress, and they are surrounded by
representational images of nature. It really came together in an interesting way.”
Theater Artists Olympia’s “The HEAD That Wouldn’t DIE!” at Lakewood Playhouse is a takeoff on one of the worst B movies ever, “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die,” with additional dialogue and lyrics by the TAO collective. It is two hours of camp and insanity, not recommended for children younger than 13 according to a warning posted in the theater and not recommended for people who don’t get satire according to this reviewer.
Past and present blend together in “Bloomsday” at Dukesbay Theater through April 6. If you could talk to your younger self, would you try to change the past? Should you? Is it possible to turn back the hands of time and make things right with the one that got away? “Bloomsday” is a melancholy play, but not without its world-weary laughs. As the older Robert and Caithleen, Gonzales and Lockett are suitably impatient with their younger selves, lamenting their tastes in clothes, literature and partners.
Oly Arts Walk * Bucoda Spook-Tacular * Anna Schlecht * Tacoma Film Festival * Enterlope * Eileen Bochsler * OFT & More! You can read our 31st print edition here. It is hot off the press and distributed free in the area plus available online!
Speaking of the Center Salon at The Washington Center, Jill Barnes, executive director of the center, said, “It’s really fun to see so many different genres of art in one night. It’s pretty special. The center hosts touring artists from all over the world, and this event showcases our homegrown talent. It complements the rest of our programming and who we are and what we do.” Co-curated by Olympia’s own, Bryan Willis, the Center Salon will fill the center’s black box on the evening of Saturday, March 22.
In Lorca in a Green Dress at Tacoma Little Theatre, the “Lorca Room” is neither heaven nor hell, but rather a space for the poet Lorca to spend 40 days coming to terms with his death, and the Lorcas around him represent different sides of his personality. …the conversations and events that take place feel very much like a dream. It’s as if the mind of Lorca has shattered into pieces, creating the hall of mirrors that is the Lorca Room; everyone’s dialogue shares a musicality, as they trip through lush language and finish one another’s sentences.
Aaron Lamb, director of Harlequin Production’s Is This a Room, has created a piece of moving, powerful theatre with a light and confident artistic hand. Jeannie Beirne’s set design, Savannah Van Leuvan’s lighting design and Keith Jewell’s sound design with its weird cover of the redacted dialogue rendering it unspeakably inaudible, accomplishes a trifecta. The strange stage set enables us to take in the equally strange encounter that occurred on June 3, 2017, when 11 FBI agents arrived unannounced at the home of Reality Winner (portrayed most affectingly by Olivia Finkelstein, in her Harlequin debut).
Even contemplating the upcoming annual chaos known as Free Comic Books Day at Danger Room Comics on May 3rd elicits a hearty chuckle from Frank Hussey. “I like to say it’s my favorite holiday where I work all day long.” Hussey is the proprietor, and the garrulous mirror-universe twin of Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons. Instead of a sour-faced and patronizing comics geek, he’s a smiling and loquacious shopkeeper who’s equally informative and open-hearted.
Up in the loft at Browsers Bookshop, genderqueer writer, filmmaker, and multi-media phenom Jonah Barnett will be performing a series of readings from their 2021 short-story collection “Moss-Covered Claws,” which mashes dreams and reality together in 11 macabre tales of speculative fiction: tales of anxiety-feeding demons, anti-fascists that travel dimensions, and the vengeful spirits of dead seabirds.
Olympia Family Theater’s new Magic Curtain Morning shows engage and delight toddlers and preschoolers. Each show runs no longer than 30 minutes, providing littles a playful introduction to the magic of live theater. The first show is “Little Red and the Dancing Wolf,” offering a new take on the old tale, running April 18, 25, and 26.
Gallery Director Sean Barnes said of the 2025 Juried Invitational Exhibition at South Puget Sound Community College, “This show has this nice balance of kind of spirituality and observation of the natural world. We have these temples and this little chapel for (Charles Pitz’s) work and then a goddess dress, and they are surrounded by representational images of nature. It really came together in an interesting way.”
Theater Artists Olympia’s “The HEAD That Wouldn’t DIE!” at Lakewood Playhouse is a takeoff on one of the worst B movies ever, “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die,” with additional dialogue and lyrics by the TAO collective. It is two hours of camp and insanity, not recommended for children younger than 13 according to a warning posted in the theater and not recommended for people who don’t get satire according to this reviewer.
Past and present blend together in “Bloomsday” at Dukesbay Theater through April 6. If you could talk to your younger self, would you try to change the past? Should you? Is it possible to turn back the hands of time and make things right with the one that got away? “Bloomsday” is a melancholy play, but not without its world-weary laughs. As the older Robert and Caithleen, Gonzales and Lockett are suitably impatient with their younger selves, lamenting their tastes in clothes, literature and partners.
Speaking of the Center Salon at The Washington Center, Jill Barnes, executive director of the center, said, “It’s really fun to see so many different genres of art in one night. It’s pretty special. The center hosts touring artists from all over the world, and this event showcases our homegrown talent. It complements the rest of our programming and who we are and what we do.” Co-curated by Olympia’s own, Bryan Willis, the Center Salon will fill the center’s black box on the evening of Saturday, March 22.
In Lorca in a Green Dress at Tacoma Little Theatre, the “Lorca Room” is neither heaven nor hell, but rather a space for the poet Lorca to spend 40 days coming to terms with his death, and the Lorcas around him represent different sides of his personality. …the conversations and events that take place feel very much like a dream. It’s as if the mind of Lorca has shattered into pieces, creating the hall of mirrors that is the Lorca Room; everyone’s dialogue shares a musicality, as they trip through lush language and finish one another’s sentences.
Aaron Lamb, director of Harlequin Production’s Is This a Room, has created a piece of moving, powerful theatre with a light and confident artistic hand. Jeannie Beirne’s set design, Savannah Van Leuvan’s lighting design and Keith Jewell’s sound design with its weird cover of the redacted dialogue rendering it unspeakably inaudible, accomplishes a trifecta. The strange stage set enables us to take in the equally strange encounter that occurred on June 3, 2017, when 11 FBI agents arrived unannounced at the home of Reality Winner (portrayed most affectingly by Olivia Finkelstein, in her Harlequin debut).