Sound Theatre Joins Theatre Puget Sound's Space4Arts Resident Theatre Cohort

After producing sixteen itinerant seasons, Sound Theatre has a more permanent space to call home. Theatre Puget Sound has named Sound Theatre Company among its multi-year cohort of resident companies to share one roof at Seattle Center Armory. 

Through an initiative called Space4Arts, Sound Theatre will join other Theatre Puget Sound (TPS) theatres-in-residence: Seattle Shakespeare Company, and incoming residents The 14/48 Projects, Latitude Theatre, and Parley Productions. 

“As a TPS Resident Company, Sound Theatre officially joins the legacy of theatre companies that have taken root in the Center Theatre and shaped Seattle theatre by being a voice for the outsiders, including The Group Theatre, Alice B. Toklas, and others that have been dedicated to sharing the untold stories of our time,” said Sound Theatre Co-Artistic Directors Teresa Thuman and Shermona Mitchell in a joint statement.

Last November, Sound Theatre submitted an application for the residency in an extensive process that examines applicants' missions, financial and governance documents, and track records of DEIA and anti-racist programming. 

This June, Sound Theatre will launch a soon-to-be announced 2024 season at the Center Theatre, while maintaining a long-term office space at Jack Straw Cultural Arts Center. Formal theatre-in-residence contracts are dependent upon mutual approval by Sound Theatre, Seattle Center, City of Seattle, and the Resident Company Operating Board.

Heading into the 2024 season, the TPS Space4Arts residency offers organizational stability after weathering many years of pandemic and budgetary headwinds. In Sound Theatre's first season in 2006, actors got their feet wet, literally, in a site-specific production of TEMPEST staged in the water and on the shoreline of a local lake. Since 2007, our company has rented traditional and site-specific venues around Seattle for mainstage plays, musicals, staged readings, and community engaged programming. 

That includes a long history of programming at the thrust-style 195-seat Center Theatre, with over 20 productions including musicals, classics, contemporary plays, and new works. It was where Sound Theatre staged THE WILD PARTY (2013), winning three Gregory Awards and the first of four Theatre of the Year awards (‘14, ‘16, ‘17, ‘19). Other groundbreaking works presented at the Center Theatre include Sound Theatre's 2015 Seattle premiere of …AND JESUS MOONWALKS THE MISSISSIPPI by Marcus Gardley (who went on to write the screenplay THE COLOR PURPLE, THE CHI, and FOUNDATION), the 2017 world premiere of Keiko Green's NADESHIKO, as well as the four-time Gregory Award-winning LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT (2016). 

Sound Theatre's most recent work at Center Theatre was the 2019 season's CITIZEN: AN AMERICAN LYRIC and the U.S. premiere of PEELING. 

Space4Arts 

In what TPS dubs a “Creative Solidarity Economy,” its resident theatre companies can access affordable rental and performance spaces, marketing partnerships, and shared resources. The Space4Arts Program provides 25,000 square feet of affordable rental spaces at Seattle Center for artists and art organizations including ten studios and 3 performance venues: Center Theatre, the Blackbox, and Theatre4. 

The Space4Arts Resident Theatre program assesses companies (and benefits) at annual budget tiers ranging from under half a million to those surpassing $1 million. Having recently passed the half-million annual budget mark, Sound Theatre will operate as a Level A-AA company.

“This collective of Resident Companies will bring more artists, performance groups, and audience members together under one roof,” cites the Space4Arts program description. “This framework replaces siloship for community collaboration, cross-pollination, mutual support, and aggregate audience development.” 

The residency offers our company greater predictability for programming, rental budgeting, and new accessibility infrastructure - where our mission has taken on greater focus, in a city where many older buildings still require access retrofits. 

As such, in recent years we have programmed primarily out of the wheelchair-accessible 12th Avenue Arts: “Until we can build a truly accessible space from the ground up – one that supports disabled artists and audiences– we are proud to partner with Theatre Puget Sound to continue access enhancements in the Space4Arts venues, including captioning projection systems and Audio Description” said Thuman.  

ABOUT THEATRE PUGET SOUND

Theatre Puget Sound (TPS) is a leadership and service membership organization founded in 1997. A 501(c)3 nonprofit, TPS works to foster and advocate for a robust and equitable theatre community. TPS is one of the Northwest's leading arts advocacy and leadership organizations. In addition to SPACE4ARTS, TPS hosts the region's Unified General Auditions which since 1999 has been Seattle's most important audition of the year; runs The Gregory Awards, the region's annual honors for local performing arts and artists; promotes events which strengthen and celebrate our local community; provides the region's most comprehensive listings of jobs and auditions; and serves as an industry community hub. 

ABOUT SOUND THEATRE COMPANY

Founded in 2006, Sound Theatre's mission is to empower artists to amplify the dignity and diversity of the human experience — moving audiences toward a more just and compassionate world. Our company has a shared leadership model and has built a community of 400+ artists and engage 4,000 audiences annually. A four-time Theatre Puget Sound Gregory Award winner for Outstanding Theater of the Year (‘14,'16,'17, ‘19), our legacy includes dozens of awards and nominations for excellence in acting, directing, playwriting, design, choreography, musical theatre production, and filmmaking (including wins for the Latino & Native American Film Festival, Superfest international Disability Film Festival, and Seattle Deaf Film Festival). In 2020, Sound Theatre was nominated for the City of Seattle Mayor's Arts Award.

Test and expand your Broadway knowledge with our new game - The Broadway Match-Up! How well do you know your Broadway casting trivia?	Play the Daily Game, explore current shows, and delve into past decades like the 2000s, 80s, and the Golden Age. Challenge your friends and see where you rank!
How well do you know your Tony Awards history? Take our never-ending quiz of nominations and winner history and challenge your friends.	Can you beat your friends? Play today’s daily Broadway word game, featuring a new theatrically inspired word or phrase every day!