posts by Molly Gilmore
The summer print edition of Oly Arts magazine is published! Copies of the printed version are available free of charge throughout the area – find out where you can pick up a copy and see a list of articles in this issue.
Revel in the weather or escape into air conditioning:
Party with legends at Harlequin – “Million Dollar Quartet”
Shakespeare in the trees – Animal Fire Theatre’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost”
Semiquincentennial celebrations – Lacey and Tumwater 4th of July
Molly Gilmore’s popular arts and entertainment column, is moving to “Oly Arts” beginning Wednesday, July 1st. She’ll keep readers in the know about much of what’s new and important in South Sound’s vibrant arts scene in her “Arts Aficionado.” Molly has been an excellent and consistent writer for Oly Arts since the very first edition of Oly Arts.
At summer’s height, when many theaters are dark, two South Sound companies go out to play in picnic-perfect parks. Both Animal Fire Theatre and String & Shadow Puppet Theater stage major shows when the days are long and the skies most likely blue. Animal Fire is producing the seldom-staged and seriously silly Love’s Labour’s Lost, opening July 3, and String & Shadow. is producing a return of 2025’s Night at the Grand Opera. These outdoor productions will be performed in Olympia’s Decatur Woods Park and Wonderwood Park.
The Washington Center for the Performing Arts’ 2026-27 season, announced Tuesday, June 17, features the center’s traditional mix of Broadway shows, comedy, music, dance and family — plus two leading lights of literature.
“We’re very excited to have Amy Tan and Tim Egan coming in this season.” said Jill Barnes, the center’s executive director. Also among the season’s big names are satirical singing sensation Randy Rainbow (Oct. 15), comedy icon Tig Notaro (Nov. 13) and gospel giants The Blind Boys of Alabama (April 1).
“In the play, Love/Sick by John Cariani, now playing at Olympia Little Theater, you’ll meet a bunch of what I call desperate optimists — people who believe in love but are terrified that it won’t last,” Cariani said in a 2013 interview with The Public Theatre of Lewiston, Maine, then producing the show. Love/Sick is a series of nine vignettes about love and relationships, adds fantastical details to relatable situations, said Kathryn Dorgan, who’s directing the OLT production which opened on April 24.
“The point of the studio tour is to allow people to go behind the scenes and see how the work is made.” said Susan Aurand, acting president of the South Sound Studio Tour’s board of directors. Many artists are sharing their studio space with colleagues for the tour, happening the last weekend of May in Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater, so there’ll be about 80 artists involved, showing their work and offering insights into their methods.
Plans for Olympia’s Rebecca Howard Park, named for a Black pioneer and pillar of the community in the city’s early days, would transform the downtown green space into a cultural hub including a covered stage, layers of public art, multiple gathering spaces and even a café.
The café, envisioned as a public-private partnership, would be the first of its kind in an Olympia park. Plans call for another first: a festival street — which functions like a plaza and is easily closed off for festivals — along 9th Ave. SE between Adams and Franklin.
The South Puget Sound Community College Theatre Collective production of Single Black Female is not a stage version of the 2022 thriller about a woman trying to steal another’s life. Rather, this Female, a comedy by Lisa B. Thompson, centers on two close friends, both successful single Black women, dealing with society’s expectations — chiefly, that what each needs is a man.
“It’s funny,” said Raessa Patterson, the SPSCC alumna directing the show. “It’s bold. It gives us a chance to laugh at the stereotypes that surround us, but it also reminds us that those stereotypes don’t define us.”
‘How Much the Heart Can Hold’ (Saturday, Feb. 14 only) is a multi-faceted celebration of love featuring scenes, poetry, quotes and even love notes penned by audience members. “It’s such a fun piece,” said Bryan Willis, who created the show with the late Linda Kalkwarf and included pieces by other local writers. “This is not a play I could have written 30 years ago. The nature of love changes as we age. We have successes and failures. … In the course of the play, we follow this couple who meet as grade-school students, and we follow them until they are in their golden years.”