posts about live theater, live performances, actors, acting, shows, and other theatrical things…
By MOLLY WALSH Vignettes of holiday celebrations, royal battles and sugar plum dreams will be illuminated on the Kenneth J. Minnaert Center stage with Studio West Dance Theater’s 11th annual production of The Nutcracker. Over 230 dancers will bring Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker score to life from December 14-22. The cast and crew at Studio West are …
By Melinda Minton A stage full of talent and a guaranteed belly laugh is something many of us could use in our lives right now. Director Steven Wells explains why You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown is so timely. “Charlie Brown shows us that the best person you can be is yourself,” says Wells. “As …
THEATER REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS The Women by Clare Boothe Luce, now playing at Harlequin Productions, is a beautifully staged, lavish comedy or errors satirizing 1930s upper crust Manhattan socialites. The piece opened on Broadway in 1936 and is best known for the 1939 film starring Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Rosalind …
By Molly Gilmore This season, The Washington Center for the Performing Arts has the blues — and the world music, and the dance, and the touring musicals, and the comedy, and so on. “We’re continuing to provide something for everyone,” said Jill Barnes, the center’s executive director. “I say that every year, and I feel …
By Melinda Minton Lakewood Playhouse celebrates its 81st anniversary season with five shows. “All of next season’s shows,” says artistic director John Munn, “embrace some of our established past productions as we evolve into a playhouse that produces modern works fresh off of Broadway and off Broadway. We are very excited about this year’s lineup …
By CHRISTIAN CARVAJAL Starting in January of 1942, Wonder Woman took to the skies in her Invisible Plane. Nine months later, nonfictional superheroines took flight. Sadly, it was their story rather than their aircraft which soon became invisible. On September 10, 1942, Nancy Harkness Love recruited over two dozen female pilots to form the Women’s …
By MELINDA MINTON The Women is an American play, a comedy of manners by Clare Boothe Luce from 1936. It’s billed as a commentary on the pampered lives and power struggles of various wealthy Manhattan socialites and up-and-comers, and of the gossip that propels and damages their relationships. While men frequently are the subject of …
By JONAH BARRETT “Picking the new season is one of the hardest parts of my job,” said Jen Ryle of Olympia Family Theater (OFT), “and I really agonize over it. I want it to fit the time and place we are.” OFT’s 2019-2020 mainstage season has been announced. Ryle mentioned there were a handful of …
By Alec Clayton Actor, director, writer and educator Christian Carvajal has written a play that will have a reading at La Vida Wine Bar in Lacey. Carvajal’s brand-new, comic script is loosely based on Volpone by Elizabethan and Jacobean playwright Ben Jonson and features the talents of actors Heather Christopher, Michael Christopher, Gabe McClelland, Scott …
By Alec Clayton Local comedian Sam Miller has teamed up with storyteller and StoryOly co-founder Elizabeth Lord to bring to Olympia “Choice Comedy,” an evening of all-female standup comedy to benefit reproductive rights in Alabama. The show will be hosted by Lord and will feature Amanda Biddle from Olympia plus Jill Silva from Tacoma, and Portland’s Tory …