theater

Authors Among the Highlights of Washington Center Season

The Washington Center for the Performing Arts’ 2026-27 season, announced Tuesday, June 17, features the center’s traditional mix of Broadway shows, comedy, music, dance and family — plus two leading lights of literature.
“We’re very excited to have Amy Tan and Tim Egan coming in this season.” said Jill Barnes, the center’s executive director. Also among the season’s big names are satirical singing sensation Randy Rainbow (Oct. 15), comedy icon Tig Notaro (Nov. 13) and gospel giants The Blind Boys of Alabama (April 1).

She Loves Me

The original “it’s complicated.” Centerstage Presents  She Loves Me!   By JOE MASTEROFF, JERRY BOCK, AND SHELDON HARNICK Directed by Michelle Blackmon May 22 – June 14, 2026  Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30pm, and Sundays at 2:00pm FEDERAL WAY, WA—Anonymous letters and mistaken identities entwine with a gorgeous score and wonderful characters in this delightful, …

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Pipeline at Lakewood Playhouse

Pipeline — now playing through May 10 at Lakewood Playhouse — revolves around Omari, a high school student played by Isaiah Myers, who himself is a junior in high school. Omari shoved a teacher, which is his third offense, and is now in a situation where he can either run away or face the potential consequence of jail time. As a young actor playing his own age, wrestling with the fury and shame of his circumstances, Myers is a magnetic presence onstage. He’s able to play a character who is smarter than he’s willing to let on, but too stubborn to back down from an impossible position.

Love/Sick at OFT — Nine Quirky Vignettes

“In the play, Love/Sick by John Cariani, now playing at Olympia Little Theater, you’ll meet a bunch of what I call desperate optimists — people who believe in love but are terrified that it won’t last,” Cariani said in a 2013 interview with The Public Theatre of Lewiston, Maine, then producing the show. Love/Sick is a series of nine vignettes about love and relationships, adds fantastical details to relatable situations, said Kathryn Dorgan, who’s directing the OLT production which opened on April 24.

Rumors by Neil Simon

The Evergreen State College’s student-run theatre group presents: Rumors by Neil Simon May 14th-23rd Thursdays & Fridays: 7:00pm Saturdays: 2:00pm With the hosts of a tenth wedding anniversary dinner nowhere in sight, and guests continuing to arrive at the party, miscommunications and confusions occur as they all try to get the story straight. Neil Simon’s …

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CRAZY DINNER! by nightmayor

You may have seen the hugely popular Lord Franziannian’s annual Royal Olympian Spectacular Vaudeville Show, featuring offbeat artists from in and around the Olympia area — hosted by Lord Franziannian, a character developed by polymath writer, actor, and storyteller Elizabeth Lord. In true vaudeville style, Franziannian’s showcases various local creative and quirky oddball acts, no two are the same, and they’re none like anything you’ve seen before. It was from this pool of peculiar unconventionality that Lord (Elizabeth) discovered the band nightmayor (lowercase ‘n’ intentional). Wild Child performance space, May 21 – 31, and June 6, 7.

Four Shows for the Spring

Similar to a vibrant garden, our arts scene in Thurston County is filled with a variety of artistic companies and artists who are consistently adding color, beauty, joy, and their own lovely fragrance to our lives. Let Oly Arts be your “florist” this spring and give ideas of what you can add to the bouquet of your lives: TAO’s Anna Considers Mars — Harlequin’s Where the Summit Meets the Stars — OFT’s The Hobbit — and SPSCC’s Anastasia the Musical.

Double Shot Theater Festival in Tacoma

Double Shot Theater Festival in Tacoma is a kind of theatrical 100-meter dash. For roughly 20 years (festival creator Bryan Willis isn’t quite sure when it all got started), Double Shot has been assembling directors, actors, and playwrights to complete the Herculean task of writing, memorizing, rehearsing, lighting, costuming, and eventually performing 10-minute plays, all in about 24 hours. Saturday, April 18, and Sunday, April 19.

Oly Arts Spring 2026 Print Edition

The print edition of Oly Arts magazine is published! This is our 10th anniversary edition and it includes The Oly Arts Origin Story and much more! Find out where you can pick up a free copy and/or read and download the PDF version.

Preview: Anna Considers Mars, Theater Artists Olympia (TAO) Lands in a New Space

Theater Artists Olympia has a new home in downtown Olympia in what is now called The Jefferson Street Arts Center, at the former site of the Johansen Olympia Dance Center. In TAO’s first show there, Ruben Grijalva’s “Anna Considers Mars” (the very model of TAO’s trademarked “untamed theater” while speaking at the same time, to our fateful current condition) brings us to the not-so-distant future where the earth’s habitability is critically threatened by climate change, the human search for a new home is under serious consideration, and people are overwhelmed by having to live in a vividly augmented reality, in which they wear glasses that make them appear to others wearing the glasses to be better-looking than they really are.

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