THEATER REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS The Tempest — third and final of this area’s outdoor-summer-Shakespeare plays — opened Thursday, August 15 at the viewing tower at Olympia’s Port Plaza. It opened with the crash of thunder and lightning in a chaotic scene of a storm at sea performed in front of the …
by Ned Hayes Olympia has professional theater, amateur theater, family theater and community theater. Yet we are often bereft of truly experimental genre-busting theatrical adventures. In late July, on one night only, writer/performer/puppeteer and underground wandering clown-minstrel Donna Oblongata will grace Olympia with her presence and fill your need for an experimental journey to the …
By CHRISTIAN CARVAJAL Fun Home, a musical based on the 2006 graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel, is coming to South Puget Sound Community Theater (SPSCC). The musical tells the story of Bechdel’s tumultuous relationship with her parents and her process of coming out, to herself and others, in college. It opened off-Broadway in 2013, then …
Tacoma Little Theatre’s production of The Pillowman took top honors at the American Association of Community Theatre Region IX competition in Spokane this year and is going to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for the national finals in June.
THEATER REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS What really happened to make Ebenezer Scrooge change his mind about Christmas, or did he really change his mind at all? Maybe he decided it had all been a dream after all. What else could explain why many years later he could be so stingy as to …
THEATER REVIEW by Christian Carvajal for OLY ARTS What an inspiring, majestic mountain director Lauren Love scaled with her production of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America at South Puget Sound Community College. This monumental script is over a quarter-century old now, and there’s still nothing like it in theater history. Even expansive productions like Peter …
by Tom Simpson On August 16, Harlequin Productions opens the musical Ruthless! – The Stage Mother of all Musicals. Ruthless! is a unique all female musical. The story spoofs the genre of classic Broadway musicals that feature an ambitious young female lead, embodied by well-known shows like Annie, Gypsy and Mame, as well as movies that embody this genre, like All About …
By Melissa Avril Harris Olympia’s oldest live theater continues its tradition of offering diverse, theatrical experiences that appeal to both actors and patrons. Its 79th season offers what artistic director Kendra Malm describes as a “balance between drama and comedy, new and classic, and conventional and off-beat.” Play suggestions are submitted by a group of …
By MOLLY GILMORE Creative Theatre Experience is a summer program for young people, yet its season offers a chance to see mature work by local, theatrical powerhouses. This summer, the program presents Footloose, based on the Kevin Bacon film about a teen who moves to a town where dancing is forbidden; Crush, an alien-invasion rom-com …
by JONAH BARRETT All the park’s a stage, but remember to bring bug spray. Animal Fire Theatre returns for its eighth summer production, The Winter’s Tale. Hipster thespians know it as one of the bard’s more obscure plays, memorable mostly for the greatest stage direction there ever was: “Exit, pursued by a bear.” Detailing a …