ART REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS The Abstract Expressionist painter Adolph Gottlieb is most famous for his many variations on a single image: a nebulous circular form floating above a rough burst of energetic paint. The similarities between Gottlieb’s “Burst” paintings and Olympia painter Becky Knold’s paintings at the Washington State Department of …
By Tom Simpson Last June, the Broadway revival of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America won Tony awards in multiple categories, including best actor for Andrew Garfield and best revival of a play. Director Lauren Love is now bringing this 25-year-old, groundbreaking drama to South Puget Sound Community College’s stage. Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia …
By Lucy Volker Children’s classic The Velveteen Rabbit is a spotlight of the season at Lakewood Playhouse. Offering themes of love and imagination, this production is a partnership with Lakewood Playhouse Youth Theater Group and features a combination of adult and young actors. “The Lakewood Institute of Theatre spotlight show,” says managing artistic director John …
VISUAL ART REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Three painters whose style and subject matter differs greatly yet whose work look good hanging together can be seen at Olympia’s Allsorts Gallery. Currently on display are half a dozen paintings by Barlow Palmenteri, portraits and cityscapes by Nathan Barnes, and assembled landscapes by Liza Brenner. …
By Molly Gilmore In its 2018-2019 season — its first full season under the direction of conductor Nicholas Carlson — the Olympia Chamber Orchestra will go beyond the expected classical repertoire. Small by orchestra standards, the group of 40-odd musicians in their 20s through 80s aims to have a big impact on Olympia’s classical-music scene. …
By Molly Gilmore On Saturday, Oct. 27, Emerald City Music invites you to the musical version of a Parisian café — warm and intimate. Café Music spotlights a group of 20th-century French composers known as “Les Six,” who hung out with other avant-garde artists at Paris’s celebrated Le Boeuf Sur Le Toit. It also showcases …
By Molly Gilmore Broadway Olympia’s production of The Rocky Horror Show — opening, oh so fittingly, on Halloween — was more than two decades in the making. That’s quite a feat considering the musical-theater company launched its first season just two months ago. It all began in 1995, when managing director Kyle Murphy first saw …
By Karen Lunde At the conclusion of the 2017-2018 season, after 18 years with Student Orchestras of Greater Olympia, conductor John Welsh retired. With Welsh’s blessing, Portland native Cameron May has taken up the baton as SOGO’s new conductor and music director. He comes to Olympia by way of Champaign, Illinois, where he’s finishing a …
ART REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Susan Christian returns to Salon Refu (now the studio of artist Lucy Gentry and renamed LGM Studios) with an exhibition of new paintings and constructions called Take a Break. In Christian’s most recent previous exhibition, she showed a group of long, thin paintings that were all about …
THEATER REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Dry Powder is billed as a comedy, and yes there is a lot of humor in this tale of high-finance shenanigans. But there’s a lot of searing drama as well, as Jenny (the versatile Helen Harvester), Jeff (the comedic Ryan Holmberg), Seth (film actor Brian S. Lewis) …