Marianne Owen

At a time when all of us could use a little bit more open heartedness, Seattle Shakespeare Company has created a collection of Shakespeare's songs, scenes, and sonnets to celebrate love and Valentine's Day. To Woo – A Shakespeare Valentine is a free, 30-minute view on demand video to share with loved ones that will be available from February 12-14, 2021.

Seattle Theater Writers Seattle's theater reviewers circle announces the Winners of Excellence in Seattle theatrical productions. Spanning dozens of theater companies and productions, from large and prominent to small and humble, the Gypsy Rose Lee Awards honor the excellence found across the area.

Seattle's critics' circle announces nominees for the 2020 Gypsy Rose Lee awards celebrating excellence in Seattle theatrical productions.

JOHN at ArtsWest is an enigma wrapped in a conundrum, nestled in a puzzle. The show is peppered with interesting bits of information, side stories, tangents, and seemingly pertinent details. However most of these bits only serve to fully realize the characters rather than apply to the plot. You can easily find yourself chasing meanings in references that are never explained or even mentioned again. The amount of detail and richness of backstory is amazing. The amount of unanswered questions is frustrating. JOHN is a show rich with characters and short on plot.

In its Seattle premiere, Annie Baker's supernatural drama JOHN will play at ArtsWest starting March 14 and run Thursday through Sunday until April 7. Legendary performers Marianne Owen and Suzy Hunt will join ArtsWest newcombers Mi Kang and Sean Lally under the direction of Erin Murray.  

'The Gin Game' is a two-act, two person play about two septuagenarians playing cards together, bored in their retirement home. Neither Weller Martin nor Fonsia Dorsey have visitors on Visitor's Day, so they find themselves outside together, and kill time by playing gin rummy. They make polite conversation about their families both divorcees without family nearby and bond over mutual complaints about the retirement home's food. But round after round of gin, Fonsia, a gin rummy novice, beats Weller, and Weller gets increasingly frustrated with Fonsia's improbable winning streak. How could Fonsia keep beating him when he was the one who taught her how to play?

Snappy dialogue and quick wit crackle in this Pulitzer Prize-winning play that was called the closest thing the theatre offers to a duel at 10 paces by The New York Times. A collaboration between local Seattle theatre legends Jeff Steitzer (director), Kurt Beattie (Weller), andMarianne Owen (Fonsia), the story follows two strangers who enter into a seemingly harmless game of Gin Rummy. When one goes on an instant winning streak, tensions build within their friendship and the conversation starts to get personal.

Broadway and West End star Tam Mutu stars as Archibald Craven in The 5th Avenue Theatre's enchanting Broadway-bound revival of The Secret Garden. Mutu joins a phenomenal cast including Tony Award winner Daisy Eagan, Tony Award nominee Josh Young, Lizzie Klemperer, Charlie Franklin and Sean G. Griffin.

Check out all new footage from 5th Avenue Theatre's THE SECRET GARDEN! Broadway and West End star Tam Mutu stars as Archibald Craven in The 5th Avenue Theatre's enchanting Broadway-bound revival of The Secret Garden. Mutu joins a phenomenal cast including Tony Award winner Daisy Eagan, Tony Award nominee Josh Young, Lizzie Klemperer, Charlie Franklin and Sean G. Griffin.

Broadway and West End star Tam Mutu stars as Archibald Craven in The 5th Avenue Theatre's enchanting Broadway-bound revival of The Secret Garden. Mutu joins a phenomenal cast including Tony Award winner Daisy Eagan, Tony Award nominee Josh Young, Lizzie Klemperer, Charlie Franklin and Sean G. Griffin.

Broadway and West End star Tam Mutu stars as Archibald Craven in The 5th Avenue Theatre's enchanting Broadway-bound revival of The Secret Garden. Mutu joins a phenomenal cast including Tony Award winner Daisy Eagan, Tony Award nominee Josh Young, Lizzie Klemperer, Charlie Franklin and Sean G. Griffin.

Broadway and West End star Tam Mutu stars as Archibald Craven in The 5th Avenue Theatre's enchanting Broadway-bound revival of The Secret Garden. Mutu joins a phenomenal cast including Tony Award winner Daisy Eagan, Tony Award nominee Josh Young, Lizzie Klemperer, Charlie Franklin and Sean G. Griffin.

Broadway and West End star Tam Mutu will star as Archibald Craven in The 5th Avenue Theatre's enchanting Broadway-bound revival of The Secret Garden. Mutu joins a phenomenal cast including Tony Award winner Daisy Eagan, Tony Award nominee Josh Young, Lizzie Klemperer, Charlie Franklin and Sean G. Griffin.

Village Theatre is excited to announce its 2017-2018 Season with a diverse collection of shows that will combine to create an incredible year of theatre. The lineup includes: Into the Woods, a fairytale collision featuring the music of Sondheim; Disney's Newsies, a high-spirited explosion of song and dance; The Gin Game, a battle of quick wits and sharp tongues; String, a World Premiere musical fable about fate and the fragile fabric of the universe; and Hairpsray, the Tony Award-Winning smash hit.

Here in Seattle we are blessed to have an abundance of bad ass female theater professionals some you might even go so far as to call local theater royalty. Well now Seattle Shakespeare Company in collaboration with Upstart Crow Collective have taken those bad ass women and dropped them in a traditionally male dominated play, Shakespeare's Henry VI Trilogy which they have turned into a two parter and labeled "Bring Down the House".

Back in 2013 the Seattle Rep gave us a lovely Christmas Present with R. Hamilton Wright and David Pichette's wonderful adaptation of "The Hound of the Baskervilles". So when they announced that they would be ending this season with more Holmes from Wright with "Sherlock Holmes and the American Problem", naturally there was a lot of excitement and anticipation for more from this team. And while the team is still on point and while it's still more Sherlock goodness, this original Holmes mystery from Wright doesn't quite have the elegance and grace of a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle piece.

Dear Readers, I hope you've all fared well over the holidays and had a good time with your families. It's been a tumultuous year with lots of great theater for us to take in. And so I'm pleased to share with you some of the best things I saw this past year and the ones that I felt worthy of getting my Critic's Choice Awards for 2015. So settle in and allow me to expound on all the amazing I saw over the year. The envelope please.

In our jaded and cynical world sometimes our inner cup of hope and romance can get a little low and we can use something to refill it. Well never fear romance seekers as ACT's World Premiere production of Steven Dietz's "Bloomsday" is here. This sweet little charmer is bound to fill up the romance cup of even the most jaded among us, at least a little bit.

ACT - A Contemporary Theatre is proud to present the world premiere of Bloomsday by Steven Dietz. Set against the backdrop of James Joyce's masterwork, Ulysses, an American man searches for the Irish woman who first captured his heart 30 years earlier while leading a "Bloomsday" walking tour in Dublin. We meet the couple at different points of their lives, as their younger and present selves. Told with humor, wit and heartache, this buoyant and moving new play commissioned by ACT brings the power and importance of living in the present to the light.

The American musical sensation, Grease, will send audiences cruisin' through the days of pajama parties, sock hops, and drive-ins with an exuberant cast of Seattle's freshest faces and favorite performers at The 5th Avenue Theatre this summer.