Ryan Dunn News

The Horse in Motion announces their upcoming production, an immersive multi-room staging of Hamlet in the historic Stimson-Green Mansion.

Washington Ensemble Theatre has announced full casting for the Seattle premiere of The Nether, Jennifer Haley's award-winning play that asks: What responsibility do humans have for one another as we dive deeper and deeper into a technology-centered world? Featuring a stellar cast, including Pilar O'Connell as Morris and James Weidman as Sims/Papa, The Nether is part crime drama, part haunting sci-fi thriller about a futuristic and disturbing virtual wonderland that provides sensory immersion devoid of consequence for its users. WET's lead producer and casting director Bobbin Ramsey directs this thoughtful and unsettling tale that amplifies the ways anonymity allows a human being to be someone (or something) else behind a literal and metaphorical pane of glass.

The Horse in Motion announces their upcoming production, an immersive multi-room staging of Hamlet in the historic Stimson-Green Mansion.

Dear Readers, it's been quite a year and, hopefully, we've come through it unscathed. God knows we've needed some shows to help us escape and others to make us think. But through it all we've had several shows that have proven to shine as some of the best of the year. Out of all the shows I was fortunate enough to see this year, I've selected a few that stood out. Here are those stand outs, a few honorable mentions and a few special mentions about which I just couldn't help myself but to mention in their own special way.

Washington Ensemble Theatre has announced full casting for the Seattle premiere of Straight White Men, the critically acclaimed family drama by Young Jean Lee that explores and critiques white privilege.

After 27 years in the wilderness, Frank Galati's award-winning stage adaptation of Steinbeck's GRAPES OF WRATH finally arrives - powerfully - in Charlotte

Snowflake Avalanche and 18th & Union will present the world premiere of Y York's new play, SYCORAX, starring legendary Seattle actress Demene E. Hall.

Snowflake Avalanche and 18th & Union will present the world premiere of Y York's new play, SYCORAX, starring legendary Seattle actress Demene E. Hall.

This fall Washington Ensemble Theatre will stage Teh Internet Is Serious Business, the first of three plays in the company's 2017/18 season that will put toxic masculinity under a microscope. Teh Internet Is Serious Business is a captivating and irreverent tale about the hacktivist group Lulzsec, a byproduct of Anonymous, and its rise to global online power. Written by Welsh playwright Tim Price and directed by celebrated Seattle director Wayne Rawley (writer and director of the critically acclaimed Live! From the Last Night of My Life), performances begin on September 15 and run through October 2, 2017 at 12th Avenue Arts (1620 12th Avenue). Tickets range from $15 - $25 and are on sale now at www.washingtonensemble.org.

ArtsWest will open the 2017-18 Season with THE WHO & THE WHAT, Ayad Akhtar's witty and whip-smart play about a young Muslim woman confronting her family and her faith, at the ArtsWest Playhouse and Gallery on September 7. Performances will run Thursday through Sunday until October 1.  

Washington Ensemble Theatre has announced a striking three-play lineup for its 2017/18 season, which includes an irreverent tale about the hacktivist group Anonymous, a rolicking family drama about the demographic you love to hate, and a dark and stormy examination of the science fiction future of intimacy. The season, which marks The Ensemble's 14th year as a producing theatre company in Seattle, is themed 'No Surprise' and will look at toxic masculinity under a microscope.

This Spring Washington Ensemble Theatre (WET) will give Henrik Ibsen's beloved play A Doll's House a fresh new makeover in Cherdonna's Doll's House, a wild and dynamic collaboration with and featuring Cherdonna Shinatra (aka Jody Kuehner), the 2015 Stranger Genius Award winner for Performance. Playing April 28 - May 15, 2017 in the Studio Theater at 12th Avenue Arts, Cherdonna's Doll's House follows the story of Nora, a married woman and mother who struggles to discover her true self or lack thereof. Cherdonna, who is part bio-drag queen, part contemporary dancer, and part performance artist, will celebrate, dissect, and illuminate this text through her own unique feminist lens, scouring Ibsen, Nora, Torvald, and the whole gang for contemporary meaning. Ali Mohamed el-Gasseir, former Co-Artistic Director of WET and co-adapter of the play with Kuehner, directs.

ArtsWest is pleased to announce FROZEN, the Tony Award-nominated play about a serial killer and two women who track him down, opening at the ArtWest Playhouse and Gallery on April 20. Performances will run Thursday through Sunday until May 14.

Starting the year off rockin' and rollin', Flat Rock Playhouse presents a brand new Music on the Rock paying tribute to those Mop Tops from across the pond: Paul, John, George and Ringo, or otherwise known as, The Beatles.  With hits that will remind audiences thatstrawberry fields are truly forever, The Music of the Beatles will run from February 16th through the 26that The Flat Rock Playhouse Downtown on Main Street in Hendersonville.

Spanning 28 theater companies and 59 productions, from the largest and most prominent to small, humble and innovative, the Gypsy Rose Lee Awards honor as much professional theater as we reviewers can cram into our year.

The 'large theater' productions of ACT Theatre's The Royale and The 5th Avenue Theatre's How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying take top honors and the 'small theater' productions of ArtsWest's Death of a Salesman and Washington Ensemble Theatre's The Things Are Against Us take top honors - for most category wins!?

I was fortunate enough to see Tyne Daly in Terrence McNally's "Mothers and Sons" when it was on Broadway. So when I heard that ArtsWest was putting up a production of the show from one of my favorite playwrights, starring Suzy Hunt and Evan Whitfield, already some of my favorite actors in town, and Jason Sanford, who's quickly becoming another one of my favorites, and directed by Makaela Pollock, who's quickly becoming one of my favorite directors in town, I was hopeful to say the least. But even with all that promise in one show it can all still go horribly wrong especially after you've seen it done by an icon. Well, fortunately for me, and for you Dear Readers who need to get out to see this one, every single ounce of hopeful promise and potential I had in my heart before seeing this production was lived up to and then some in a show that succeeds on so many levels brilliantly.

Unit J will host its first annual 'Brooklyn Freedom Concert' in Bushwick (www.unitjbushwick.com) this Today, January 19 at 7 p.m.

ArtsWest is pleased to announce MOTHERS AND SONS, the Tony Award-nominated play about a mother's reckoning with the life and legacy of her late son, opening at the ArtWest Playhouse and Gallery on January 19. Performances will runToday through Sunday until February 11.

Spanning 28 theater companies and 59 productions, from the largest and most prominent to small, humble and innovative, the Gypsy Rose Lee Awards honor as much professional theater as we reviewers can cram into our year.