Amelia Reynolds - Page 2

BenDeLaCreme is a drag queen with a knack for the holidays--she leads the fantastic annual Homo for the Holidays (coming this Christmas!) and memorably played a craggy old lady with a disembodied head for a daughter on some TV show with RuPaul (per the Playbill). This season, in collaboration with ACTLab, DeLa wrote and directed an orange-and-black variety show that errs on the treat side of the bargain. While not always spooky, Beware the Terror of Gaylord Manor is a Frankenstein's monster of camp, striptease, burlesque, comedy, multiple personalities, and other monsters.

The intensely immersive experience of dining at ONERUS is perfect for fans who love and respect well-written sci-fi. Directed by Opal Peachey, this thoughtful, thought-provoking cautionary tale is science fiction at its finest (and the food ain't half bad either).

It starts ambiguously; two actors stare lovingly into each other's eyes, knelt on the ground as a third person sound-checks their ukulele. The two lovebirds Jessiee (Kiki Abba) and Kahekili (Lance Valdez), do not look like your typical, starry-eyed couple. And that kind of becomes the joke in No More Sad Things . Now performing as part two of Forward Flux's double-feature, No More Sad Things examines an inappropriate relationship that satisfies two people on a cosmic level (and that's the only level that audience members will be comfortable with).

Forward Flux's hosts another double feature, currently performing at West of Lenin. Las Mariposas Y Los Muertos is one big middle finger to Pitchfork and Vampire Weekend. Rolled into a story of three jaded musicians striving for more authenticity in the cultural milieu, here lies a call to arms concerning cultural appropriate and stereotyping in modern music. One band's dance with stardom forces the three to negotiate racial tension, sibling rivalries, and sacrificing authenticity for fame. Directed by Pilar O'Connell, this is a play that manages to have it both ways: critiquing and understanding millennial bands' concerns.

This rendition of Julius Caesar by the Seattle Shakespeare Company will offer a few surprises. It is a streamlined production with a race and gender-diverse cast. With no clear-cut villains and heroes, this epic tale of political savagery has an engaging narrative. But when said savagery feels tepid, hiccups are more conspicuous, leaving audience members recalling the bad, rather than the good. Now performing at the Cornish Playhouse, Julius Caesar gets the job done, but it's problematic.

Everyone has memories that feel rife with significance, but said significance does not necessarily make sense to others. And if the best depiction of said memory is beyond traditional language, then playwrights like Claire Chafee use poetic language to communicate said significance. In Chafee's Why We Have a Body , four women tell their stories in a series of vignettes and monologues using poetic language, and yet any significance Chafee is trying to communicate gets lost in translation.

Stop reading and find time in your schedule for this ridiculously good play at www.williamsproject.org. This show has a short run, and it's pay what you can, so there's no reason why one should not see this play.

Rogers & Hammerstein's 'The Sound of Music' has been a musical staple for generations. Currently showing at the Paramount, this touring production has all of the snow-capped mountains, starched habits, and vocal prowess one could want. The young and eager cast makes this classic feel fresh.

'Goblin Market' is a macabre fairytale about two women struggling to fight against temptation. Based on the narrative poem by Christina Rossetti, this one-act musical is a world-premiere written by Polly Pen and Peggy Harmon. As a musical production, 'Goblin Market' tells the bulk of the narrative through song, living in this space between being a musical and an opera that makes for an elegant and evocative body of work.

Pony World's world premiere 'American Archipelago' is a collaborative examination of American culture and values. Written by Holly Arsenault, Kelleen C. Blanchard, Tre Calhoun, Vincent Delaney, Brendan Healy, Maggie Lee, Sara Porkalob, and Seayoung Yim, 'American Archipelago' feels more like an incubator than a melting pot. Eight folks from different communities live side-by-side in a semi-symbolic neighborhood called 'The United States of America.' While this campy fever-dream succeeds as a black comedy, what's missing from this conceptual piece is a fresh concept.

Sound Theatre Company's 'Hoodoo Love' is an important piece that's neither romantic nor for the faint of heart. In collaboration with The Hansberry Project, the fabric of Katori Hall's depression-era tragedy is original blues music, folk magic, and the dismal realities of being a black woman in 1930's Tennessee.

Keeping it brief, since the show only runs through this Saturday, LGBTQ theater group Fantastic.Z has a series of short plays currently performing at The Eclectic Theater called 'Family'. The six-play series has a family motif, each story showcasing modern examples of what it means to be a unit in the modern era. In a more deductive sense, this new works micro-festival highlights specifically pain within the family unit. Half of the shows work through that pain less successfully with staged therapy (moping, finger-pointing, and yelling), and the other half of the show work through that pain more successfully with comedy.

It's the Tony Awards of Washington state high school musical theater: the 5th Avenue Awards. On Monday, June 12, nearly 2,500 high school students filled Benaroya Hall up to the balcony as they watched their peers do their school proud on stage. 16 different high schools were nominated for awards, some of which extend beyond the typical category. 21 categories: some expected (outstanding choreography, outstanding performance by an actress), some unusual (outstanding lobby display), and between each award were live musical samplings, if you will, by fully costumed nominees a la the Tonys.ward were live musical samplings, if you will, by fully costumed nominees a la the Tonys.

A well-intentioned show is sometimes just that, and unfortunately, Parlay company's first full-length production 'Maiden Voyage' falls under that category. This modern adaptation of Homer's 'The Odyssey' (Or is it a reworking? Or is it a hypothesized retelling of 'herstory'?) has two primary differences from the original: Penelope does not wait 19 years for Odysseus' return faithfully, and Penelope writes 'The Odyssey' instead of Homer. But when an idea does not get fully flushed out, what results is a convoluted plot line that ultimately does not say anything coherent or new.

Elyot (Kit Lascher) and Sybil (Alysha Curry) are on honeymoon in the French Riviera. It's 1930. They're sipping cocktails, calling each other 'dahling' in that quintessential, leftover-from-Britain way of speaking. Sybil has already mentioned Elyot's ex wife, Amanda, but Elyot reassures Sybil that she has nothing to worry about.

Something as stylized as 'Twin Peaks' is really difficult to emulate, even in the form of homage. Cafe Nordo's 'Lost Falls' certainly looks the part: a rustic, log hotel from yesteryear populated by a sultry, young femme fatale, a woman with an imaginary friend, an unwaveringly optimistic detective with an affinity for the simpler things. The play looks the part, but the commitment to incorporating so many iconic nuances created a jam-packed tribute with little cohesiveness. Audience members need not feel required to have seen 'Twin Peaks' to enjoy the show, but it helps make sense of the surreal parody, because, unfortunately, the plot does not stand on its own.

If you have to preface your show with the acknowledgement of misogyny, is showcasing the choreography and vocal talent worth putting on that show?

What an inside joke this one was! 'The Fog Machine Play' is a very smart toast to Seattle fringe theatre written and produced by a Seattle fringe theatre company, Copious Love Productions.

"Yankee Pickney" is a dynamic relic, a precious time capsule of diaries, photographs, poems, and stories about Jehan Òsanyin's complicated relationship with her identity, primarily her racial and ethnic identity. She talks about how her relationship to her race and ethnicity fluctuated depending on where she lived, whether it be in Hershey, Pennsylvania, the Virgin Islands, or on her Semester at Sea trip to Africa. The title of the production itself references her complex identity, as the term comes from the nickname Òsanyin's grandparent would call her, meaning Americanized child. Òsanyin mourns the death of her best friend, and discusses how systematic racism has impacted her personally.

The most common subject in comedy is sex. But Woody Shticks (brainchild of Noah Duffy and star of 18th and Union's 'Shlong Song') is not just a comedian, he's a dynamic storyteller. It's a man talking about his sexual journey. At times, it's heartbreaking. At other times, it's fantastic. Either way, you'll laugh along with him.