Theater

  • The Book of Mormon arrives in Olympia
    In his New York Times review, critic Ben Brantley compared The Book of Mormon, coming to Olympia’s Washington Center, favorably to The King and I and The Sound of Music, adding “… “but rather than confronting tyrannical charismatic men with way too many children, our heroes must confront a one-eyed genocidal warlord… and a defeated, defensive group of villagers, riddled with AIDS… In setting these dark themes to sunny melodies, The Book of Mormon achieves something like a miracle.”
  • Oregon Shakespeare Festival Celebrates its 90th Season
    Melanie Ransom, Harlequin Productions’ costume department manager, says, “We go (to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival) every year. When we’re driving down and we get to the Ashland exit, my heart starts beating a little bit faster. I am just so excited to be there. It’s always a slam dunk for me. it’s a really special place.”
  • Unique Immersive Show “Our House” Revived for July-August 2025
    Our House, written and directed by John Longenbaugh, is inspired by Thornton Wilder’s classic play Our Town. This unique immersive experience is back for a limited run beginning on July 17. The 2024 production received rave reviews: “Nothing short of a triumph. By all means find yourself to Our House,” Margie Deck, Ineffable Twaddle; “enlarges what theatre can be,” James O’Barr, Oly Arts; “there’s also magic…a liveliness that theatre strives for” Gemma Wilson, Seattle Times — as well as a Critic’s Choice from Oly Arts.
  • Animal Fire’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in Lacey’s Wonderwood Park
    Animal Fire Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Lacey’s Wonderwood Park in July “is something that I think we all need back in our lives — the magic and the mystery of all the human connection, love and lust and grandeur and all of that,” Director Brian Hatcher said. “We need to bring this levity back. “The last couple shows we did had a heaviness to them — Measure for Measure and King Henry IV,” he added. “We decided that this was the time to go light.”
  • Oly Arts Summer 2025 Print Edition
    The Summer print edition of OLY ARTS N0. 33 is published! Here is a list of where in the Olympia area you can pick up your FREE copy, and a link to the PDF file so you can read it online. Enjoy!
  • For Colored Girls who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf
    “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf,” now being staged at Lakewood Playhouse, is a show that mainly consists of poetic monologues delivered by seven emphatically engaged performers, interspersed with wildly physical musical numbers. It’s a show that demands that you be as present as possible — a show of giddy highs and devastating lows.
  • ‘Lizzie’ rocks at South Puget Sound Community College
    SPSCC Theater Collective’s rock musical “Lizzie” about Lizzie Bordon, accused of the ax murder of her mother, assumes Lizzie’s guilt, according to its director. It also doesn’t shy away from suggesting that Lizzie’s relationship with her father included sexual abuse, a theme explored in the song “This Isn’t Love,” one of the 26 songs that tell Lizzie’s story.
  • Bug at Tacoma Little Theatre
    In Tacoma Little Theatre’s production of Bug, Peter starts to see bugs in Agnes’ room, and soon enough, Agnes thinks she might see them, too. Bug, written by Tracy Letts, and directed for Tacoma Little Theatre by Blake R. York, has a reputation for its intensity, and it’s well-earned: once tensions begin to mount, they never let up, building to a manic crescendo as we helplessly watch two people spiral into madness. The play elicits plenty of nervous laughter from the audience, as they witness some truly horrifying events, but there are also audacious moments of humor.
  • Magic Curtain Mornings at Olympia Family Theater
    Olympia Family Theater’s new Magic Curtain Morning shows engage and delight toddlers and preschoolers. Each show runs no longer than 30 minutes, providing littles a playful introduction to the magic of live theater. The first show is “Little Red and the Dancing Wolf,” offering a new take on the old tale, running April 18, 25, and 26.
  • TAO Revives The HEAD That Wouldn’t DIE!
    Theater Artists Olympia’s “The HEAD That Wouldn’t DIE!” at Lakewood Playhouse is a takeoff on one of the worst B movies ever, “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die,” with additional dialogue and lyrics by the TAO collective. It is two hours of camp and insanity, not recommended for children younger than 13 according to a warning posted in the theater and not recommended for people who don’t get satire according to this reviewer.
  • Bloomsday at Dukesbay Theater
    Past and present blend together in “Bloomsday” at Dukesbay Theater through April 6. If you could talk to your younger self, would you try to change the past? Should you? Is it possible to turn back the hands of time and make things right with the one that got away? “Bloomsday” is a melancholy play, but not without its world-weary laughs. As the older Robert and Caithleen, Gonzales and Lockett are suitably impatient with their younger selves, lamenting their tastes in clothes, literature and partners.
  • Lorca in a Green Dress — a Surreal Eulogy for a Poetic Mind
    In Lorca in a Green Dress at Tacoma Little Theatre, the “Lorca Room” is neither heaven nor hell, but rather a space for the poet Lorca to spend 40 days coming to terms with his death, and the Lorcas around him represent different sides of his personality. …the conversations and events that take place feel very much like a dream. It’s as if the mind of Lorca has shattered into pieces, creating the hall of mirrors that is the Lorca Room; everyone’s dialogue shares a musicality, as they trip through lush language and finish one another’s sentences.
  • Review: Is This a Room
    Aaron Lamb, director of Harlequin Production’s Is This a Room, has created a piece of moving, powerful theatre with a light and confident artistic hand. Jeannie Beirne’s set design, Savannah Van Leuvan’s lighting design and Keith Jewell’s sound design with its weird cover of the redacted dialogue rendering it unspeakably inaudible, accomplishes a trifecta. The strange stage set enables us to take in the equally strange encounter that occurred on June 3, 2017, when 11 FBI agents arrived unannounced at the home of Reality Winner (portrayed most affectingly by Olivia Finkelstein, in her Harlequin debut).
  • Speaking for Laramie at Lakewood Playhouse
    The overwhelming sensation in The Laramie Project, playing at Lakewood Playhouse through March 9, is not one of anger or of sorrow, but of a kind of cautious hope. Because of our society’s “one step forward, two steps back” approach to LGBT rights, any one of The Laramie Project’s performances since its opening in 2000 could be said to be unfortunately timely, and now is no different. This terrific ensemble cast comes together to paint a picture of a town trying to process a tragedy.
  • 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.”
  • 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.
  • Olympia Family Theater Responds to Financial Challenges 
    Olympia Family Theatre, which has closed its adjacent all-ages space and reduced staff hours, is hard at work on raising the money it needs to keep the theater on solid footing going forward. Dean Shellman, chair of the non-profit theater’s board, said, “We’re carefully looking for savings opportunities that don’t change the experience for our audiences and students. OFT provides magical moments for families, and that won’t change.”
  • It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play at Lakewood Playhouse
    In this rendition of It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play at Lakewood Playhouse there’s an added meta structure where the actors we see on stage are playing actors in the ‘40s, who are then playing the characters we know from It’s a Wonderful Life. “You’re an audience within an audience in the play within a play, which I think some people will be surprised by,” says director Brittany D. Henderson.
  • A Christmas Carol from Harlequin Productions Takes Center Stage This Holiday Season
    “A Christmas Carol,” playing at Harlequin Productions Nov. 29 to Dec. 24, “is the greatest redemption story ever told, wrapped up in the trappings of a ghost story,” said Artistic Director Aaron Lamb. “A story of redemption is fundamentally a story about hope and forgiveness. If audiences leave a little more hopeful and a little more open to forgiveness after they see this production, we have succeeded.”
  • Nightmayor’s “The Oculist” at Wild Child
    ‘The Oculist’ by the two-person punk band nightmayor (Percy Boyle and Stella R.S.) is an irreverent retelling of the true story of John Taylor, an itinerant eye surgeon who traveled through Europe in the 18th century. See it at Olympia’s Wild Child November 14 through 24.
  • Phantom of the Paradise Restaged
    The operatic scale of “The Phantom of the Paradise,” with that awful scarred hero-villain, his teeth metal and his eyes mad, screaming into the night as he watches the seduction of the woman he loved … if all of this is getting your midnight cult classics motor revving, there might not ever be a better time to see it than on November 8th at the Capitol Theatre, where for its 50th anniversary it will be accompanied with a live band and an actor-adjacent performance on the stage.
  • Dukesbay Production of “An Inspector Calls” Examines Social Truths
    This story of “An Inspector Calls” at Dukesbay Theatre is entertaining as a character study and an exposé of moral hypocrisy, but then playwright Priestly subverts his own plot and introduces a whole new dimension. The sense of reality, for both the audience and the characters, seems to dissolve. It is as if a trap door opens and a whole new level of deconstruction begins.
  • Harlequin’s Dynamic, Funny and Provocative ‘What the Constitution Means to Me’
    Harlequin’s ‘What the Constitution Means to Me’ is thought-provoking, serious where it needs to be and outlandishly funny throughout. Director Lauren Love said, “[Protagonist Heidi] Schreck asks us to consider the morality and soundness of our own and our leaders’ judgment and action.
  • 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.
  • Eileen Bochsler’s Arts Walk Cover Art is magical/foggy
    by Molly Gilmore — There’s a glow at the center of Eileen Bochsler’s encaustic painting Forest Awakening, made with layers upon layers of wax mixed with tree resin that give the painting its luminosity and texture featured on the cover of the fall Arts Walk map. Awakening will be on display at Splash Gallery — a cooperative where Bochsler’s encaustics are always hanging.
  • Olympia Family Theater:18 Years Young and Still Growing
    by James O’Barr — The recent announcement of the Olympia Family Theater’s 18th season came with an additional proud flourish: The Olympia City Council has awarded OFT two years of funding as one of its Inspire Olympia creative non-profits. The 2024-2025 performance schedule, together with the additional financial support of Inspire Olympia funding, finds the new year at OFT full of high promise, starting with The House at Pooh Corner.
  • Lakewood Playhouse Stages Spirited Production of Godspell
    Lakewood Playhouse’s production of Godspell brings the original conception into contemporary times and flows with lively good humor punctuated by moments pregnant with pathos. Throughout the performance, the audience comes to delight in and become cozy with the members of the cast.
  • 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.
  • Animal Fire’s “Uncle Vanya” at the Lord Mansion
    Animal Fire Theatre has set its Uncle Vanya in and around Olympia’s Lord Mansion. It’s a setting that’s as enchanting as Anton Chekhov’s play is bleak. Theatergoers are part of the action, and moments of surprise and drama elicit jumps and gasps.
  • 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.
  • Theater Artists Olympia, Juice Box Theater, and Broadway Olympia Need a New Home ASAP
    “One of the reasons that Olympia had such a great theater scene was due to the cross-pollination of companies, actors and theaters. With the loss of Capital Playhouse, and now Oly Theater, opportunities are dwindling.” – John Serembe
  • One Table Brings Underground Theater to Tacoma’s Bars and Restaurants
    Inspired by a chance encounter with Japanese street theater, groundbreaking performance company One Table, launched in early 2024, bringing underground theater blending improv, comedy, and drama to Tacoma’s bars and restaurants.
  • Shadow Spins Sci-fi Fable
    String and Or So It Would Seam: A Giant Puppet Voyage Into the Hidden Universe runs through July 21 in Olympia’s Decatur Woods Park and then tours the Northwest till Sept. 1. You really do want to make time for this confection, packed with visual puns and silly walks. String and Shadow’s worlds of fantasy and fable aim to pluck at the strings of universal wonder, innocence, and joy.
  • Capacity Crowds for Tick, Tick … Boom
    Before there was “RENT,” there was “Tick, Tick… Boom!” From Jonathan Larson, the genius who created “RENT,” “Tick, Tick… Boom!” tells the story of Jon, a 29-year-old waiter and aspiring composer who is running out of time to make his mark in the theater world. Broadway Olympia’s production runs through July 14 at OlyTheater, with a pay-what-you-choose performance on July 8.
  • Shakespearian Treasure in Lacey’s Wonderwood Park
    “I’ve wanted to stage this play for over 15 years because of the vibrant characters. …So, when you talk about them and create their journeys, you have all these different events to pull from.” Animal Fire co-founder, Austen Anderson, returns to the outdoor stage to direct a stellar cast in this new adaptation in Lacey’s Wonderwood Park he hopes will appeal to audiences unfamiliar with the Bard as well as Shakespearian aficionados.
  • OLY ARTS Summer 2024 Print Edition
    You can read the articles that are in OLY ARTS Summer 2024 Print Edition from links on this page, and you can read and download the PDF version linked in the website’s sidebar.
  • 2024 Summer Theatre
    This is on page 16-17 of OLY ARTS Summer 2024 print edition. ANIMAL FIRE THEATRE COMPANY WHAT: Shakespeare’s Henry IVWHERE: Wonderwood Park, 5304 32nd Ave SE, LaceyWHEN: Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings from July 5-28HOW MUCH: FreeLEARN MORE: animalfiretheatre.com BALLET NORTHWEST WHAT: Young Choreographers ShowcaseWHERE: Capital High School Performing Arts Center2707 Conger Ave NW, OlympiaWHEN: Sunday, August 25HOW MUCH: Check website for cost.LEARN MORE: balletnorthwest.org CHILDREN’S THEATER EXPERIENCE (CTE) WHAT: The Arts Festival – classic Dr. Seuss stories and musical numbers. The Showcase musical is Seussical Jr.WHERE: Kenneth J. Minnaert Center, SPSCC, 2011 Mottman RdSW, OlympiaWHEN: Seuss Fest performs July …

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  • Harlequin Productions’ Cabaret
    “More than the well-known 1972 film with Liz Minnelli and Joel Grey, the stage musical digs deep into what the rise of the Third Reich meant in the lives of the German people. Cabaret, finally, is a warning,” said Aaron Lambe, Harlequin’s artistic director of their performance playing June 28 to July 28 in their remodeled theater.
  • Tacoma Little Theatre closes 105th season with Lively Performance of From the Mississippi Delta
    Endesha Ida Mae Holland’s “From the Mississippi Delta” Tacoma Little Theatre through June 23 is punctuated by song and is drawn from the lives of African American people living in the Deep South during the Jim Crow era. Photo of Sonia Alexis & Whitney Crawford by Dennis K Photography.
  • 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.
  • The King in Yellow, a Review
    Theatre Artists Olympia’s The King in Yellow, a world premiere play by Olympia playwright and actor Xander Layden, runs through May 26 at OlyTheater in Capital Mall. The first act is an intelligent and funny comedy of manners with hints of something else beneath the surface. Act Two is an edge-of-your-seat horror show.
  • Xander Layden’s Funny Horror Tale The King in Yellow
    The King in Yellow, a world-premiere play running May 10-26, is penned by well-known Olympia actor Xander Layden. “It’s like nothing I’ve seen around here,” said director Pug Bujeaud, “It’s like nothing I’ve seen anywhere. It’s cosmic. It’s a progression from Victorian romantic comedy of manners to existential horror. It’s not an arc that you see very often in theater.”
  • The Return of Double Shot Festival
    “Double Shot Festival of Overnight Plays” is a weekend play festival produced by Theater Northwest in partnership with Northwest Playwrights Alliance at Tacoma Arts Live at Tacoma Armory, on Saturday, April 20 and Sunday, April 21 in which the same five 10-minute plays are written, rehearsed, and performed, all within 24 hours — a challenge to playwrights, actors and directors — and an opportunity to creatively present new, short-form theater in a dynamic way.
  • Tacoma Spring Theatre Preview
    Tacoma Spring Theatre Preview – by Adam McKinney By now, we’ve become used to the bounty of quality offerings that local theaters in South Puget Sound routinely churn out. No matter where you may find yourself, you’re constantly reminded of just how much talent is bound to be lurking in the woodwork. So, just as a taste from up north, here are some theatrical Spring gems to look out for in the Tacoma area.
  • Losing Your Grip ― The Deeply Affecting ‘Taking Leave’ Examines a Mind in Decline
    Nagle Jackson’s ‘Taking Leave’ at Dukesbay Theater in Tacoma through April 7th is a show that not only depicts a man descending into the throes of Alzheimer’s but gives us a glimpse into his mind’s final moments of connection.
  • This Liar is Full of Lies and Laughs
    Theater Artists Olympia’s production of “The Liar” by David Ives is at OlyTheater in Capital Mall, March 22 through April 7 with Aaron Gotzon as Dorante and Teresita Brimms as Clarice. The play is directed by Tom Sanders who said, “It’s not an absurdist play. It’s actually a straight farcical comedy.”
  • Barney Carey Gets His Wings at Olympia Family Theater
    Olympia Family Theater’s executive director Mark Alford who plays Barney’s dad in “Barney Carey Gets His Wings” said, “The show is hilarious, but it doesn’t sacrifice any heart. At its core [it] is a discussion of self-identity and self-expression.”
  • 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.
  • Gilligan and Gang Make Merry at Mall
    Olympia’s new WineBox Theatre — the grownup wing of Juice Box Theatre — is paying homage to the three-hour tour with “Island Castaway Christmas” at OlyTheater in Capital Mall this Friday and Saturday as a fundraiser for Juice Box, which creates monthly snack-size shows for children 6 and younger.
  • How The Drink Stole Christmas
    The Seafarer at Lakewood Playhouse is a Christmas fable that mightily hoists up the light and the dark on either of its shoulders, resulting in a dark comedy and family drama that still, somehow, defies characterization.
  • Harlequin’s A Christmas Carol Is Evolving
    It’s the third season for Harlequin’s Christmas Carol. Aaron Lamb’s adaptation of the redemption story is both familiar and fresh, and he plans to refine it each year. There’s a twist in casting in this production: The spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future are all female.
  • O Christmas Tea: A British Comedy at the SPSCC Minnaert Center for the Arts
    “Think Mamma Mia with The Three Stooges, plus audience interaction at The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” “Theatre is in its essence an exercise in imagination,” says Alastair Knowles, who plays the eccentric Jamesy. “O Christmas Tea is exactly that, an exercise in imagination, on steroids.” At SPSCC’s Minnaert Center for the Arts on November 25th.
  • Peck Plays Range from Romantic to Ridiculous
    Peck Plays Range from Romantic to Ridiculous at OlyTheater: “It’s quite diverse,” said TAO vice president John Serembe, who’s organizing the event and directing two plays. “There’s a kind of romantic one and kind of a mystery. There’s one that has to do with climate change in a kind of fun, bizarre way. It’s told by trees. There’s one that’s a little bit absurdist with people playing fish. It’s just a real eclectic bunch. There’s a little bit of everything.”
  • Misery – A Darkly Funny Thriller for the Halloween Season
    An author becomes caged by the fan who loves him the most. As days turn into weeks in Stephen King’s Misery at Tacoma Little Theatre, the dynamics between the two shift and change.
  • Every Brilliant Thing at the SPSCC Minnaert Center Black Box Theatre
    Smartly produced and wonderfully performed, Harlequin Productions’ “Every Brilliant Thing” with Eleise Moore is the best of live theatre, up close and personal. It totally engages us in a story that begs to be told and needs to be heard.
  • The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical to Premiere at the Olympia Family Theater
    The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical is full of rock-tinged tunes and is based on the popular book, The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. Featuring a multigenerational cast, Olympia Family Theater’s production of The Lightning Thief [October 6 – 29] is set to be a show that dazzles the stage with singing, dancing, action and adventure.
  • Lily Raabe Retires and Mark Alford steps in at Olympia Family Theater
    Olympia Family Theater Artistic Director Lily Raabe has resigned to spend more time writing and traveling. The company has hired its first executive director, Olympia actor Mark Alford.
  • Play Reveals Hotel’s Little-Known Story
    On Sept. 16 and 17, locals will get a chance to learn the rest of the story at Bryan Willis’ Hotel Olympian Gala Extravaganza, a play that re-creates the hotel’s grand opening.
  • Preview: Harlequin’s The Revolutionists by Laura Gunderson at The State Theater
    Olympe de Gouges announces at the opening of Harlequin’s “The Revolutionists” that she has an idea for a new play, a comedy, and much of the play follows her attempts to right/write the wrongs of the Revolution in a play “about women showing the boys how revolutions are done.”
  • TAO Returns to the Dark with Mystery
    “It’s a little bit of Halloween in the summer,” said Pug Bujeaud, the play’s director and a TAO mainstay. “It’s fun and quirky and dark. It’s very much an old-school TAO show. The basis of the show is ‘What is a forgivable sin? … What lines do you draw? How do you decide what behaviors are acceptable and what behaviors — or people — you have to cut out of your life?”
  • Summer Theater
    Olympia and the surrounding communities are home to many truly stellar theater companies. They are passionate about their work, fabulously talented, truly dedicated, and fiercely hardworking.
  • Fools Travel in a Dream World
    “Comedy and tragedy are just a second apart from each other,” said String and Shadow’s Donald Palardy III, who’s playing one of the fools. “We want people to come and to laugh. That is the goal. It’s like Looney Tunes. Looney Tunes is for kids, but there’s a lot of adult humor, sometimes peeking out of the surface and sometimes just under the surface.”
  • #ThemToo: Animal Fire Theatre’s Measure for Measure
    In Animal Fire Theatre’s Measure for Measure, “… even a casual read of the play makes it clear the Bard had loftier aims than fun and frivolity.”
  • Review: Falsettos at Harlequin
    Falsettos at Harlequin is a sung-through musical. It begins light-hearted and quirky, and soon becomes deadly serious.
  • Capital City Pride: Embracing Sustainability, Diversity and Community Growth
    Capital City Pride 2023 – Embracing Sustainability, Diversity and Community Growth – invites individuals from all walks of life to gather at the Tivoli Fountain on the Capitol Campus at 9 a.m. July 1 for a day of solidarity and positive protest.
  • The Marvel That is Lakewold Gardens
    There’s so much happening at Lakewold Gardens this summer it’s well worth the drive.
  • Leapin’ Lizards!
    “Make no mistake: These are not the killer turkeys from David Attenborough’s Prehistoric Planet (nor our actual, prehistoric planet). No, these are the genetically supercharged Frankenbeasts from the Jurassic movie franchise …”
  • Plays Like Picture Books Come to Life
    “Our shows are colorful and fun and bright and quick,” said Juice Box’s Kate Ayers, who writes and directs the shows. They’re like picture books come to life, and kids are invited to join the action. Next up is “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” opening June 15.
  • In the Gutter at Olympia Little Theater
    “In the Gutter” at Olympia Little Theatre is set to charm the audience with laughs, mayhem and elements of classic film noir.
  • Review: The Half-Life of Marie Curie at Oly Theater
    The Half-Life of Marie Curie, written by Lauren Gunderson and produced by Theater Artists Olympia, is a joyful exploration of a pair of turn-of-the-century women scientists, the celebrated Marie Curie and the less well-known Hertha Ayrton.
  • Review: The Bengson’s Hundred Days At The State Theater
    “Join us as we transform The State Theater into an intimate cabaret for an uncensored, exhilarating, and heartrending true story about embracing uncertainty, taking a leap, and loving as if you only had 100 days to live. With magnetic chemistry and anthemic folk-punk music, creators Abigail and Shaun Bengson explore a fundamental question: how do we make the most of the time that we have?” – Harlequin Productions
  • Review: The Girl Who Swallowed a Cactus
    Olympia Family Theater’s excellent production of “The Girl Who Swallowed a Cactus” is exquisitely designed with consistently engaging work by the ensemble of 12 adult and kid actors. This is the story of a group of kids who discover an all-important connection and value to the natural world is a compelling tale for all ages.
  • Review: Building Madness at Harlequin Productions
    Desperate to keep their architecture company afloat, Max and Paul hire the mob to build a police retirement home in Kate Danley’s screwball comedy now playing at Harlequin Productions. For people who love those great old comedies from Hollywood’s Golden Era of the 1930s, “Building Madness” is a ticket to hilarity.
  • Composer-coach Shaw tackles ‘House of Mirth’
    Terry Shaw’s musical version of Edith Wharton’s “House of Mirth” opens March 4 at Timberline High School. The new musical has a cast of 20 and a 17-piece orchestra.
  • Celebrating Creative Theatre Experience and Kathy Dorgan
    After forty years of productions, and with the upcoming retirement of longtime Artistic Creative Theatre Experience Director Kathy Dorgan, the board of directors invites the community to celebrate at the Anniversary Gala on Saturday, March 11. Students, parents, alumni, supporters, and the business sponsors will join to reminisce on the past collaborations, performances, and creative moments, all while looking forward to the next 40 years and beyond.
  • Baby – a Funny and Powerful Musical About Expectant Mothers at Broadway Olympia Productions
    “I love the show so much,” said actor Carolyn Fry. “It’s a really lovely exploration of three of many, many pathways to parenthood, which is such a personal journey for everyone. There are so many scenes that are relatable for so many people regardless of their circumstances.”
  • OFT whipping up fresh Tales
    “One day there is nothing, and the next day there are six brand-new plays,” said storyteller and impresario Elizabeth Lord, who is curating the festival, which last happened in 2018. “It is mind-boggling. These plays can now be performed elsewhere. They will be scripts that live.”
  • A Plethora of Plays at Tacoma Little Theater Companies Converge on Tacoma for the first round of this year’s AACTFEST competition
    Five Washington state Theatre companies converge on Tacoma to present five one-hour plays in competition for American Association of Community Theatre’s top regional honors over one weekend in February.
  • Review: Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery Harlequin Productions at the State Theater
    Harlequin Productions’ “Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery,” an “adventure in theater making itself,” theater magic itself, that will take children of all ages on a giddy, breath-taking, uproarious ride, over, under, behind, and through the fourth wall, stopping at nothing that does not surprise, astonish, and delight you.
  • Review: Jerome Bixby’s “The Man from Earth” Tackles Life, Love and Philosophy at Olympia Little Theatre
    Science fiction writer Jerome Bixby’s “The Man from Earth” explores the nature of life, culture, faith, philosophy, and human history through the lens of John Oldman, who has lived countless lifetimes, ten years at a time. Olympia Little Theatre’s production of “The Man from Earth” was originally penned as a screenplay by Bixby.
  • Broadway Olympia Productions ‘Taking a Break’
    Broadway Olympia Productions is back — but not for long. The black box theater in Capital Mall will remain open. Theater Artists Olympia (TAO) will take over the lease for its own productions and as a space for other performing arts groups.
  • Review: Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol
    A classic reimagined. So yes, Marley is dead. To save himself from eternal damnation, he is told he must find a way to redeem Ebenezer Scrooge. “Impossible!” TAO’s Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol is a journey of laughter and terror, redemption and renewal.
  • Revels and the Queen of the Americas
    Expect miracles, at least those of the theatrical kind, at The Midwinter Revels in Tacoma’s Rialto Theater this holiday season.
  • Review: One Christmas at the Evergreen Mall at Olympia Little Theatre
    Stealing Baby Jesus, Marly and Scrooge fighting over “A Christmas Carol,” selling fishing rods for Christmas, love lost and found — all of this and more happens at the Evergreen Mall one Christmas Eve.
  • Old Tales Get a Twist in Digital Festival
    “Our community spans all time zones of the United States,” says Olympia actor Stephanie Kamau whose onstage acting experience includes productions at The Evergreen State College and who is now performing in the digital festival of one-act plays, “Twisted Tales.”
  • Review: A Christmas Carol at Harlequin Productions – & – Art by Becky Knold
    “A story about redemption is fundamentally a story about hope,” director Aaron Lamb says. “And forgiveness. May you too find ghosts that change you for the better this holiday season.” Lobby art by Becky Knold.
  • The Washington Center Celebrates a New Interior and Equipment After a Multi-Phase Renovation Project
    The Washington Center celebrates a brand-new interior look, increased seating and new equipment.
  • Review: The Moors at South Puget Sound Community College
    There is evil afoot on the dark and stormy English Moors. And outlandish humor in SPSCC’s “The Moors” by Jen Silverman.
  • Review: Dragons Love Tacos at Olympia Family Theater
    Dragons Love Tacos at Olympia Family Theater is a whimsical and fiery play suitable for all ages based on the popular children’s book.
  • Review: Leaving Iowa at Olympia Little Theatre
    Olympia Little Theatre takes audiences on a trip in search of America with the Brownings, a typical family then and now.
  • Halloween at Harlequin
    You are about to spend an evening with Edgar Allan Poe in a play by Olympia playwright Bryan Willis, plus a reading of a new short story by Olympia’s own Jim Lynch in a one-night-only Halloween celebration at Harlequin.
  • The Armory Creative Campus: An Inclusive Collaborative Space for the Olympia Arts Community
    Olympia begins planning of city arts space.
  • REVIEW: Fun Home at Harlequin Productions
    Harlequin Productions ends their 2021-2022 season with the riveting musical “Fun Home” based on the autobiographical graphic novel of the same name by Alison Bechdel.
  • REVIEW: The Secret Garden at Olympia Family Theater
    Olympia Family Theater with String & Shadow Puppet Theater is performing a modern adaptation of “The Secret Garden.” This one is set this year in the Pacific Northwest and written by award-winning playwright Mabelle Reynoso with a Latinx perspective. And it has punk rock music, talking creatures, magical plants and puppets.
  • A New Season of Resilience for Live Theater in Olympia
    Harlequin Productions calls its 2023 season a “Resilience Season.” That appellation could well apply to all local live theater after more than two years of Covid. Here’s a great season preview for all local theaters, including Harlequin, Olympia Family Theater, Olympia Little Theatre, Broadway Olympia, and SPSCC.
  • REVIEW: Twelfth Night, or What You Will, at Squaxin Park
    by Alec Clayton What better way to welcome theater lovers to the newly named Squaxin Park (formerly Priest Point Park) than a riotous evening of Shakespeare at sunset? It’s even better on a grassy slope with a scrim of trees and a peek of Puget Sound in the background. The play is Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will, one of the bard’s most hilarious comedies. As director Rachel Permann, who plays the role of Maria, says in a program note, “We chose this play because it’s fun and totally implausible, and it’s the perfect antidote to the past two …

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  • Broadway Olympia Productions and Theater Artists Olympia Pair Up in The (One-Act) Play That Goes Wrong
    By Alec Clayton and Molly Gilmore Like a theater version of The Odd Couple, the dark and edgy Theater Artists Olympia and the song-and-dance-fueled Broadway Olympia Productions are sharing a home. The theater companies, both sidelined since the pandemic, will each produce work in Broadway Olympia’s black box theater in Capital Mall. The partnership — kicking off Aug. 12 with a TAO-led production of the comic The (One-Act) Play That Goes Wrong — doesn’t mean either company will change its artistic vision. Rather, the unlikely collaborators will coproduce shows, with Broadway Olympia contributing space and administrative support and TAO sharing …

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  • REVIEW: Life Is Complicated at Olympia Little Theatre
    By Alec Clayton Life Is Complicated at Olympia Little Theatre is a play of firsts: a first-time writer and a first-time actor, the best actor in the play in this reviewer’s opinion. Kendra Malm, OLT board president and artistic and production manager, wrote and directed Life Is Complicated. She had never attempted writing a play but, bound and determined, she got a book about playwriting and set to work. It took her six years to write the play, which was inspired by her own experiences coming out as a trans woman. Alex Taft was called upon to fill in for …

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  • Washington Center for the Performing Arts Announces 2022 – 2023 Season
    By Molly Gilmore The Washington Center for the Performing Arts’ 2022-2023 season marks both a return to pre-pandemic norms — it’s the first full season with subscription plans since theaters closed in March 2020 — and a fresh start. When the season launches Nov. 4 with “Stunt Dog Experience,” the center will have a new look for the first time in two decades, with new seats, new carpet, new colors and more. “I’m excited,” said Jill Barnes, the Center’s executive director. “We’re back, and we’re going to be back in a new venue. … My cup has just been so full …

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  • REVIEW: Hedwig and the Angry Inch at Harlequin Productions
    The rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, with text by John Cameron Mitchell and music and lyrics by Stephen Trask, started as a performance in drag clubs and became an international phenomenon. It’s now playing at the State Theater of Olympia’s Harlequin Productions, starring Adam Rennie as Hedwig and Mandy Rose Nichøls as Hedwig’s husband and assistant, Yitzhak.
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