theater

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.

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.

House Fire at Dukesbay Theater

In House Fire at Dukesbay Theater in Tacoma through March 29, what we’re seeing isn’t technically the afterlife, but rather a kind of purgatorial weigh station where Laurie finds herself after dying at the too-young age of 29. When the titular house fire ends it all, she says she was this close to changing her life for the better. And so, in this purgatory, Laurie is assigned three deceased people to take care of her “orientation” before she can move on to whatever the afterlife has to offer.

The Normal Heart at Lakewood Playhouse

Lakewood Playhouse has, again, after their recent productions of The Laramie Project and For Colored Girls…, staged a show that remains infuriatingly relevant many decades after its debut. Whether you want to focus on the abandonment of vulnerable populations, or the labyrinthine madness of the health care system, or the distracting infighting amongst like-minded activists, or the callous politicians who value their image over their morals —The Normal Heart, through March 8, touches on problems that feel as modern as they are depressingly timeless.

SPSCC’s Single Black Female pokes fun at stereotypes

The South Puget Sound Community College Theatre Collective production of Single Black Female is not a stage version of the 2022 thriller about a woman trying to steal another’s life. Rather, this Female, a comedy by Lisa B. Thompson, centers on two close friends, both successful single Black women, dealing with society’s expectations — chiefly, that what each needs is a man.

“It’s funny,” said Raessa Patterson, the SPSCC alumna directing the show. “It’s bold. It gives us a chance to laugh at the stereotypes that surround us, but it also reminds us that those stereotypes don’t define us.”

Series at the Washington Center

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.”

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