A Valentine’s Oratorio: How Much the Heart Can Hold

“How Much the Heart Can Hold” by Bryan Willis and Linda Kalkwarf will be performed one night only at Harlequin’s State Theatre. Inspired by the words of writer and artist Zelda Fitzgerald: “Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” Directed by Kathryn Dorgan, the play is a series of illustrative scenes tied together with readings of what Willis calls “snippets of wisdom, culled from a variety of writers and thinkers, that guarantee inspiration for lovers of all ages.”

Shake It With Olympia Funk Festival

The Funk Fest is seen by the organizers, Ecstatic Sound Collective, as “more than just music—it’s a celebration of community and culture.” To that end, downtown Washington Street will be transformed into a lively street party. This 2nd annual Olympia Funk Festival is an incredible lineup of talent coming to three Capital City venues—the Olympia Ballroom, the Olympia Center, and the historic Capitol Theatre!

Critic’s Corner: Best Visual and Performing Arts of 2024

Many of the South Sound’s best theater and visual arts critics write for OLY ARTS. We asked six of them to highlight some of their favorite visual and performance art shows from 2024, and we congratulate and celebrate the Olympia and Tacoma-area artists selected. Due to the limitation we put on the critics of no more than two or three shows, we are aware of and acknowledge that many great shows and artists were not picked. We are lucky to live in such a vibrant creative community.

Preview: Sondheim’s Theatre-of-Revenge Masterpiece, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Stephen Sondheim’s theatre-of-revenge “musical thriller” masterpiece, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is at Washington Center’s main stage. Working from Victorian popular fiction (“penny dreadfuls”) and Christopher Bond’s 1970 play, it is presented in a limited run on Oct. 11, 12, and 13 as a collaboration by Harlequin Productions, Olympia Symphony Orchestra, and Masterworks Choral Ensemble.

Fall/Winter 2024 Print Edition

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!

Review: Our House, an Evening in Three Acts

The new play Our House by Olympia’s John Longenbaugh is a charming little ramble through the lives of the house and its imagined inhabitants over the course of close to a hundred years. Our House breaks the rules in its own way and enlarges what theatre can be. By all means, find your way to Our House.

Preview – Our House: an Evening in Three Acts

The setting of Our House, written by John Logenbaugh and co-directed by Logenbaugh and Bryan Willis, the stage, is an actual small house in which the story and the action take place. It’s located on the edge of a cemetery, in what was still country and farmland when the play begins in 1934 and Olympia had a population of just over 11,000 people. Produced in Olympia by Battleground Productions.

Review: Wonderful Wizard of Oz at Olympia Family Theater

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz at Olympia Family Theater comprises both young and not-so-young actors, smoothly stirred into a well-tuned ensemble; part of the fun of watching it is the speed and energy with which the story is rolled out, almost like street theater, or commedia, or circus.

South Sound Reading Foundation Benefit Brings Ethan’s Smile

The South Sound Reading Foundation will host its annual benefit breakfast fundraiser, “Readers are Leaders,” at the Lacey Community Center on Thursday, April 11. Keynote speaker Stacy Chapin’s son Ethan is one of the four University of Idaho students murdered in Moscow, Idaho on the night of November 13, 2022.

Deathtrap by Ira Levin: Murder Most Queer at the State Theater

Once the action begins at State Theater, you’ll find yourself in the post-and-beam framed, antique-studded, expensively repurposed barn that serves as the living room/study of playwright Sidney Bruhl. Harlequin Productions’ Deathtrap by Ira Levin is a classic thriller, with five actors, two acts, and one set. And therein hangs a gun.

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