VISUAL ARTS REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Now showing in The Washington Center for the Performing Arts are paintings by Lois Beck, Becky Knold and Mia Schulte, three women whose paintings have a lot in common—so much so, in fact, that unless you’ve studied their paintings in detail over time you’d be hard …
by Christian Carvajal for OLY ARTS Most theater fans are aware women were banned from the stage during the Elizabethan period, which meant all female Shakespearean roles were played by men in drag. Even lifelong Olympia theater artist Michael Christopher, however, knew little about the end of that male-only era. When the troupe for which …
by Christian Carvajal for OLY ARTS The world of theater production is as diverse as its international cast and crew, but certain commonalities do exist. The stage manager, for example, is the most undervalued, overworked member of almost any crew. Actors tend to date actors, so it doesn’t take long before a town’s theater community …
by Molly Gilmore for OLY ARTS Olympia Little Theatre’s latest production, entitled Or, (including the comma), involves sexual freedom, lime-green fabric printed with butterflies and an invitation to tune in and turn on. “It’s a bedroom farce with a more serious message of love and tolerance,” said director Toni Holm. Yes, it is set in …
by Christian Carvajal for OLY ARTS To read Sarah Vowell’s bestselling nonfiction works or hear her frequent appearances on public radio is to experience our history through the eyes of, in her own words, a “partly cloudy patriot.” Her most recent book, Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, is a quirky biography of a French …
THEATER REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS At long last Rachel Corrie has come home to Olympia in the theatrical form of My Name is Rachel Corrie at Harlequin Productions. This is Olympia’s first-ever locally produced performance of the play, which is based on the life and writings of the Olympia native. Written completely …
by Jonah Barrett for OLY ARTS Heliocentrism isn’t a radical idea anymore, but that wasn’t the case 400 years ago. Olympia Family Theater will premiere its production of Kari Margolis’s Starry Messenger, with Brian Tyrrell directing. Starry Messenger is a historically based play about imagination and discovery. It follows the life of Galileo Galilei as …
by Christian Carvajal for OLY ARTS Even now, 13 years after her death at age 23, few names are more controversial in Thurston County than that of Olympia activist Rachel Corrie. Corrie died in a Gaza combat zone under the tread of an Israeli bulldozer. The driver of that vehicle insisted he never saw her. …
by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS In mid-January 2017, Olympia Little Theatre will produce a staged reading of A Lollard in the Wind: Chaucer’s Dilemma by local actor-turned-playwright John Pratt. Pratt was most recently seen in the leading role, Arthur Putnam, in OLT’s An Act of the Imagination. Based in part on Chaucer’s stories from …
by Christina Butcher for OLY ARTS Imagine you have five days to rehearse and perform the musical Les Misérables. Now add that you’re still a teenager and have little to no professional acting experience. It sounds overwhelming, but for 32 elementary, middle and high school students of the South Sound, it’s a welcome challenge. The …