Join us at this special Open House Event Sat Sep 20 at 6pm. We know our community has had questions about recent changes at OFT, and we want to open our doors for an evening of connection and open conversation. This is a chance for artists, administrators, and community members to come together, hear updates, …
Join us in commemorating the International Day to Abolish Nuclear Weapons with a film that tells the gripping true story of a man who single-handedly averted a full-scale nuclear world war. Discussion to follow screening. The Olympia Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons works in a variety of strategically useful ways in the Olympia area and as …
Cult classics. Cool vibes. Free popcorn. Join us this fall for a season of beloved cult films, offbeat adventures, and endlessly quotable moments. Whether you’re revisiting an old favorite or discovering a new obsession, first Thursday movie nights at the library are all about film, fun, and community. Come solo, bring …
Experience silent films the way they were meant to be seen and heard, accompanied by Dennis James on our 1924 Wurlitzer organ! The Gold Rush is one of Charlie Chaplin’s most celebrated films. In the film, a prospector goes to the Klondike during the 1890s gold rush in hopes of making his fortune and is …
Speaking of the Center Salon at The Washington Center, Jill Barnes, executive director of the center, said, “It’s really fun to see so many different genres of art in one night. It’s pretty special. The center hosts touring artists from all over the world, and this event showcases our homegrown talent. It complements the rest of our programming and who we are and what we do.” Co-curated by Olympia’s own, Bryan Willis, the Center Salon will fill the center’s black box on the evening of Saturday, March 22.
If you enjoy a good old-fashioned multi-disciplinary arts party, including more than a dozen zero-budget film productions by local artists, the Ground to Sound Arts Festival in Tacoma might be your lucky festival. Co-sponsored by Foster’s Creative and the City of Tacoma, the Ground to Sound Arts Festival began last year with local artists creating original short films highlighting the problem of untreated water and trash and its journey to the Sound in documentary form. This year there will be a Music Open Mic, film and art, a Literary Reading and Open Mic.
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.
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.
Olympia Armory Creative Campus’s eight anchor partners are already plotting how to make best use of their space. A common thread that ties them is an aim to cultivate a welcoming environment for visitors and to be of service to the community. There is a built-in connection to the local art scene which can potentially help the organizations to even better identify and meet public demand.
by Adam McKinney — Every time fall rolls around, cinephiles in the South Sound perk up their ears and await the arrival of the Tacoma Film Festival. This time around TFF has shortened things to just a four-day-weekend, running October 10-13; while there will be fewer movies than a week would provide, this shorter period of time will be absolutely crammed with entertainment, both at the Grand Cinema and at the Blue Mouse Theater.