by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Adapted from a press release dated September 27: The Washington Center for the Performing Arts regretfully announces that the Northwest tour of A Night with Janis Joplin has been canceled, including the performance scheduled at The Washington Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday, October 12. “We were so …
by Rosemary Ponnekanti for OLY ARTS Cymbeline is a romantic Shakespeare play with a ridiculously big cast and totally random plot devices, so why is Harlequin Productions’ Scot Whitney mounting a production this October? For the story. “It’s a handful,” Whitney admits. “People are terrified of this play, but at heart it has a gorgeous, …
by McKenzie Murray for OLY ARTS Beginning September 29, the iconic Cat in the Hat himself will appear on the Olympia Family Theater mainstage. OFT’s fall production, based on the Dr. Seuss story, follows a curious cat who comes to wreak imaginative havoc in the home of Sally and her (unnamed) brother. A cast of …
by Kelli Samson for OLY ARTS Let Olympia Family Theater take you on a fantastic voyage during its 2017-2018 season. “All good stories take us on a journey in some way,” says artistic director Jen Ryle. Each season, OFT strives to bring us something old, something new and something original to the theater, plus something …
by Adam McKinney for OLY ARTS Some musicians have managed to Zelig themselves throughout the history of rock, placing themselves alongside legends at such perfectly opportune times that it’s astonishing to consider. One person who’s justifiably ubiquitous in rock is Dave Mason. Starting with his work in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Traffic, …
Thespian David Wright was born near Christmas in 1946. He died this week in Olympia at age 71. Wright was considered a master of the stage and worked regularly as an actor at many theaters along the West Coast. Wright began working with Harlequin Productions in 1992 in their second season, and performed on the Harlequin …
THEATER REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Before there were machines called computers, there were women called computers, meaning, according to Peter Shaw (Drew Doyle) in the play Silent Sky at Olympia Little Theatre, “one who computes.” Female scientists who were highly overqualified and severely underpaid were hired to do dull, routine jobs the …
THEATER REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS The Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play August: Osage County by Tracy Letts is a play unlike any other. The story unfolds, or should we say erupts, over a few weeks in the rural Oklahoma home of Beverly and Violet Weston. It opens with Beverly, a crusty but kindly …
by Kelli Samson for OLY ARTS Nine years ago, Studio West Dance Academy had two studios, four instructors and one office administrator. Flash forward to this, the company’s 10th season, and to say it’s grown is an understatement. SWDA now has five studios, 15 instructors and six office administrators. Not only that, it now serves …
by Christina Butcher for OLY ARTS There isn’t a ballet dancer or aficionado in the South Sound who’s unfamiliar with Ballet Northwest, one of Olympia’s premier, longest-standing ballet companies. That fact is built on Ballet Northwest’s reputation for holding performances with all the beauty and grace for which ballet is known. This August, the dance …