“I’ve been doing salons for about 20 years through the Northwest Playwrights Alliance,” playwright Bryan Willis explains. “I really love the format.” Happily for Willis, executive director Jill Barnes was eager to host a salon in The Washington Center’s black box theater, a utilitarian space adjacent to its main auditorium. It returns this May after a three-year hiatus.
Consider the gift of a fictitious Olympia or Thurston County: a story set in our home, a gift that supports a local author. What’s great about such a gift is showing out-of-state friends and family a part of our home as only a writer can capture it.
By Jonah Barrett Following the closure of Yelm’s Triad Theater in 2019, Thurston County’s community theaters were relegated to only Olympia. That will change soon with the opening of a new community theater just 30 minutes south of Washington’s capital. Tenino Young at Heart Theatre (TYT), the town’s oldest theater […]
By Molly Gilmore Jonah Barrett wouldn’t be insulted if anyone said their first book was monstrous. That’s because Barrett’s short-story collection “Moss Covered Claws,” dropping March 18, is all about monsters. Barrett of Olympia, a filmmaker, fantasy writer and OLY ARTS contributor, is launching the book with an online reading […]
By Aigner Loren Wilson Poet laureates have a unique job of melding the ethereal magical art of poetry with the very real struggle of the world around them, the one we all inhabit. By definition, a poet laureate is “a poet appointed to, or regarded unofficially as holding, an honorary […]
By Aigner Loren Wilson Recently, local artist Nancy Thorne-Chambers won the 2020 Peoples’ Prize Winner for the Percival Plinth Project for her work Girl Reading in a Story Place. Oly Arts hosted an interview with the artist about the sculpture and recent win. This article is a highlight of the […]
By Aigner Loren Wilson Artist communities have been around since artists have been creating. It is what keeps many artists going through the rough patches in their craft or career. Take the Harlem Writers Guild for example — the longest running forum for Black writers aimed at helping them develop […]
By Aigner Loren Wilson Every writer, and possibly every creator, knows the stress and joy of having a debut work premier. Tireless work is spent on the project in hopes that a personal vision of the world will resonate with at least one person. In a way, it is an […]
By Anna Schlecht In early July, I first saw one of the Little Brothers statues at twilight while driving across the Isthmus. My eyes were sweeping back and forth from the harbor to the Heritage Fountain in the fading light. Suddenly my eyes fixed on the small statue of the child near the fountain because […]
By Aigner Loren Wilson Music fans in the area are familiar with two of the bigger names in the music scene: Olympia Symphony Orchestra (OSO) and Emerald City Music (ECM). Both groups have a long history of bringing music to the community and supporting each other’s missions to do so. […]
