Molly Gilmore “Arts Aficionado” #9 — August 26, 2026
— Sleater-Kinney Rockin’ the Block
— Art on the Farm
— ‘Improbable Peck of Plays’ returns
— ‘Broadcast News’ on Big Screen
https://olyarts.org/arts-aficionado-week-of-august-26-2026/
You know how the race ended — but the story was just beginning. Lightwire Theater’s The Adventures of Tortoise and Hare: The Next Gen picks up a decade after the finish line, where Old Man Tortoise and Big Daddy Hare are now fathers navigating a world of smartphones and video games. When Tortoise Junior and …
Franklin Delano Roosevelt hosted a cocktail hour nearly every day at the White House, welcoming folks from different backgrounds to sip martinis, laugh, and connect. Inspired by FDR’s love of stirring up drinks and lively conversation to unwind in challenging times, this immersive new play mixes humor and history to build on this tradition for …
ISM Festival is a 3 day experimental music / visual / movement / film / performance-art event. It features 80+ performances in 7 venues across Downtown Olympia. ISM was created to catalyze the inventive, experimental performance art that Olympia has historically been known for (worldwide). Some venues are free. Tickets start at $15. All performances …
Back by popular demand! God is a Scottish Drag Queen: A Christmas Special returns this December! God, dressed in an all new holiday power suit, returns to set the record straight and expound on everything from the beginnings of Christmas with Yule, Saturnalia and Winter Solstice, to holiday foods, Christmas carols, Star Wars, the true story of …
The Washington Center holds four series, the Silent Film Series, Black Box Jazz, an Adventure series, and Comedy Underground. Stepping into the majority of silent film experiences, audiences can expect house organist Dennis James plays scores alongside a historical silent film. Black Box Jazz showcases jazz performers who compose their own music in a truly intimate setting. The Adventure Series offers an immersive, in-person experience “Whether deep-sea diving or trekking across the Grand Canyon, and the Comedy Underground is more of a club-like feel than attending a theatre. “You can sit with your friends and enjoy your drink while you laugh together.”
These two films depict the Pacific Northwest in two radically different times. In Robert Altman’s classic revisionist Western, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Warren Beatty moves into a mining town in 1900s Washington, trying his best to become a big shot in the middle of a boom period. Michael Sarnoski’s new classic, Pig, explores the fringes of modern-day Portland, with Nicolas Cage starring as a reclusive former chef whose truffle pig gets stolen. The films – showing at Capitol Theater November 15 & 16 – showcase the Pacific Northwest’s natural wonders as an overwhelming force that has to be bent to, not conquered; and both films have an elegiac atmosphere that hangs over them.
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.