SEATTLE THEATER REVIEWS

Take a silly yet beloved movie that breeds nostalgia in all who love it and turn it into a musical. It's the way of the world of musical theater anymore. Sure, we still get some original pieces but the safe money for producers is on the recognizable name. Sometimes it works and sometimes it crash...

Are you adverse to fun or having a good time? If so, then just stop reading now and move on. If not, keep reading and then get yourself down to ACT to catch "The Legend of Georgia McBride" for some fabulous numbers, fake boobs and hell on heels all wrapped up in a fun and engaging story....

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 t...

The 1998 Sam Mendes staging of Kander and Ebb's classic "Cabaret" has come through the Paramount several times. And why not? It's a great show and a big crowd pleaser. But it requires a cast that gets the show and the tone to be done right. Fortunately for us the current tour at the Paramount is...

Give me a good old fashioned play with a good old fashioned structure; a beginning, a middle and an end. Or if not, if you insist on a slice of life play, at least have something interesting to say about said life. Instead, what Will Eno's play, "The Realistic Jones", the current offering from New...

In our current society where the issues of race and education are everywhere it's refreshing when a story comes along that still brings up those issues and provokes the conversation but without lecturing. T. Geronimo Johnson's book "Welcome to Braggsville" is such a story with its gripping story an...

The Sondheim classic "Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" is one of those shows that everyone wants to put their own stamp on. It's an incredibly rich show and quite difficult to perform requiring a killer cast (pun intended). There have been concerts, productions where the actors play...

It's going to be very tough, Dear Readers, to tell you about the latest offering from Intiman Theatre, 'Barbecue', as I don't want to give anything away. The show is packed full of twists, turns and misdirections that for me to tell you much would be tantamount to writing up a review of certain mov...

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 differe...

It's always the quiet ones you have to look out for. That sentiment works well for people but in this case also for a certain theater, Seattle Public Theater. They don't put on the biggest, most well-known shows and they're not always in the foreground of people's thoughts for "must go" theater bu...

Attention all you Broadway producers out there … or even you wanna-be producers … or just people who love to laugh, you'll want to head on down to the Jewelbox Theater at the Rendezvous to catch two comedy savants educate us with some historical fiction with "Gutenberg! The Musical!" But maybe ...

Back in the day when I was a mere fledgling musical theater geek I was introduced to the show 'Dreamgirls'. You might say this was my gateway cast album that put me on the path toward the musical addict I am today as I practically wore out the CD. So you'll understand if I'm a little picky about t...

'An American in Paris' is one of those films that, when you mention it, people who have seen it give a contented little sigh. And those people, and many more, can add the stage version to give them that warm fuzzy feeling as the tour, currently playing at the Paramount, brings in much of the same m...

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 s...

I've never been a fan of transplanting classic works such as Shakespeare to "new and exciting" locales and time periods but I have seen it work as long as the adaptation enhances the existing story somehow or at the very least makes sense with the story. Unfortunately, Seattle Shakespeare Company's...

Last night musical theatre nerds around the Seattle area may have felt a disturbance in the force as if there was a diva among us. Well, if you did you can take solace in that you were right however unless you were there you certainly missed out as Broadway's Kelli O'Hara killed it during her perfo...

If you're going to riff on a classic, then have something to add to the conversation. Sometimes it works beautifully such as the amazing 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead' or the current critically acclaimed Broadway hit 'A Doll's House, Part 2'. But without something new to add any kind of p...

You may remember, Dear Readers, my lack of affinity for performance art. I usually just find it confusing and lacking much meaning, which ultimately makes me feel like I'm just not smart enough to get what they're trying to convey. So with that in mind you'll understand how well crafted Nike Imoru...

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 ...

First off, Dear Readers, let me explain that you will see no singing Ice Princesses or wacky snowmen in this show. This particular play called "Frozen", currently playing at ArtsWest, is about as far away from the Disney movie as it could be considering it deals with serial killers. And while the ...

Way back in 1991 a young fledgling theater geek saw a performance from the new musical "The Secret Garden" by Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon on the Tony awards and he became obsessed with it. He listened to the cast album over and over and fell completely in love with it when he saw the first nationa...

A few years back on one of my trips to New York, pretty much anyone I talked to about what shows I was seeing was aghast that I wasn't seeing 'Here Lies Love' Off-Broadway. And to each of them I'd say, 'a musical about Imelda Marcos written by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim? No thanks, not my thing.'...

In Keiko Green's 'Nadeshiko', currently getting its world premiere from Sound Theatre Company, there are two stories happening on the stage. Only one of the stories is very well fleshed out and only one is very interesting and unfortunately they're not the same story. With stiff and stilted dialog...

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....