Olympia Family Theater

by Christian Carvajal for OLY ARTS Olympia Family Theater (OFT) is dedicated to bringing quality theater experiences to its audiences. OFT produces a five-show family friendly main-stage season, plus numerous morning and traveling productions for children of all ages. By the end of its 2015-16 season, OFT had produced over 45 main-stage shows, including three world premiere …

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Creative Theatre Experience (CTE)

Creative Theatre Experience (CTE) has offered unique opportunities to students in first grade through 12th grade since 1981. Now planning its 37th year, CTE is the longest-running youth summer theater program in the Olympia area. Programs and performances are held each summer at Olympia High School. Artistic director Kathy Dorgan is joined every year by …

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Christopher Rocco, Mark Alford and Alayna Chamberland in The Credeaux Canvas at TAO

Theater Artists Olympia

Theater Artists Olympia (TAO, pronounced “dao”) has been committed to making accessible, underrepresented, and “untamed” theater for the Olympia and greater Thurston County community since 2003. TAO is operated and maintained solely by a volunteer Board of Directors and staff dedicated to the company’s mission and vision to produce great theater. TAO’s avant-garde productions include …

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Pacific Northwest Theater

Pacific Northwest Theater (PNT), headed by managing artistic director Steven Wells, offers four-week summer camps in which children build confidence, make friends and develop real skills to use on stage and in other aspects of life. Its experienced staff members are trained in a wealth of theatrical knowledge, and they love providing kids with a …

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Peter Beard and Jay Minton in Macbeth from Animal Fire Theatre Group

Animal Fire Theatre Group

Animal Fire Theatre Group was started by a group of theater students fresh out of the University of Idaho’s theater program. Inspired by what they had learned, they set about producing their favorite Shakespeare plays in whatever space they could find, with whatever budget they could pull together. Animal Fire produces one Shakespeare play each year (excepting a hiatus in 2016). Animal Fire’s company name refers to the “animals exercise” that inspired its founders at U of I and the fires of passion and inspiration.

In 2013, after the departure of Animal Fire’s founders for opportunities in other states, leadership of the company was assumed by Brian Hatcher, Scott Douglas and Kate Arvin. This new ensemble’s goal was to produce vibrant, relevant, high-quality productions of classical texts in rough, raw, modern ways, bringing out the true heart of each story. As artists, they endeavor to explore the breadth of human instinct, impulses, self and character. They still use the animals exercise, and other non-traditional rehearsal methods, to heighten physical and emotional awareness within the safety of a supportive arts collective. Its productions are free and staged in open-air locations all over Olympia.

The company has announced Much Ado About Nothing as its featured show in Summer 2017.

WHAT
The Winter’s Tale

WHERE
Priest Point Park,
2600 East Bay Dr. NE, Olympia

WHEN
7 p.m. Friday – Sunday, July 13 – Aug. 5

HOW MUCH
Free

LEARN MORE
animalfiretheatre.com

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Guide to Olympia Theaters

Scot Whitney and Israel Horovitz

Harlequin’s Love Affair With Israel Horovitz

by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Local theater company Harlequin Productions has a love affair going with playwright Israel Horovitz. It began with a surprise email the playwright sent to Harlequin co-founder Scot Whitney early in 2009. For Whitney it goes back much further than that, to sometime in the late 1980s. Whitney and his …

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