SEATTLE THEATER REVIEWS

Ladies and Gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts, put your tray tables and seat backs in the upright position and hang on as Cafe Nordo presents an evening of fun and food with their 60's spy send up, "To Savor Tomorrow". And as usual with the Cafe Nordo shows, if the laughs weren't enough for yo...

Romantic comedies for the straight community abound. But as they say in the current production from Gay City Arts and The Bitter Single Guy Productions, "The Hat", gay stories aren't told much unless they involve AIDS or civil rights. This is what makes "The Hat" so refreshing. It's a simple, cut...

I'll admit to only a passing familiarity with Janis Joplin before I saw the current show at the 5th Avenue Theatre, “A Night with Janis Joplin”, in that I knew who she was but was hard pressed to come up with any of her songs. Of course, after seeing the show I found I knew more of her stuff th...

It's all well and good to want to shine a spotlight on urban violence and inner city gangs through entertainment (theater, film, TV, etc.). It gets the issues out there in the hopes that something might get changed. But as it's been done time and time before, if you're going tell another one of th...

Dealing with a potentially unreliable narrator can be an emotionally frustrating experience. I feel betrayed by a production where I feel like I cannot believe what the storyteller is conveying to me, because, truly, what was the point of entrusting a deceptive narrator with your time? But in 'The ...

RED Stage's premiere production 'Worse Than Tigers' is more than an emotional roller coaster-- it is a full emotional carnival. Directed by Emily Penick, this jostling, absurdist comedy misleadingly kicks off with understated, easily digestible absurdity, including odd, disjointed language exchanged...

As you may know by now, Dear Readers, one of my pet peeves in any performance is the lack of levels. If you don't vary your emotion, intent and delivery for a character then that character might as well just be reading lines from a book. And while there were a few stand outs in the current product...

MAP Theatre may not be one of the most prolific companies out in Seattle. In fact they tend to do only one or two shows a year. But what we have come to expect from them is certainly more quality than quantity as they invest tremendous amounts of thought and talent into those few shows. Their lat...

When people think of George Bernard Shaw plays they inevitably go to "Pygmalion" or "Arms and the Man" or something like that. But there's one of his out there that does not see enough of the light of day, "Mrs. Warren's Profession". Maybe it's due to the subject matter or maybe not enough people ...

Working through the grief of the loss of a loved one is never easy. Luckily Eleanor Mae (Kevin Kent) is on hand to help us through the grief. To help us cry, to help us process and yes, to help us laugh in the fantastic new show "Eulogy" at West of Lenin. But this is not your ordinary riff on los...

One of my favorite events each year is the Village Originals Festival of New Musicals. Each year there's at least one new show that you long to get a full staging. Back in 2014 that show was "My Heart is the Drum" with it's touching story and engaging music. It showed so much potential and I was ...

In any given show you usually have the good guys and the bad guys. The people you identify with as being in the right and those in the wrong. But even when some people are clearly wrong it's possible to see why they react the way they do if the performances are strong enough. Such is the case wit...

There's no doubt that Jeanine Tesori's music in the musical "Violet", currently playing at ArtsWest, is stirring and powerful but it's the lyrics and book by Brian Crawley that truly pack the punch in the show. But of course they would as the show is rife with hot button topics of that era as well ...

Only the incredible Stephen Sondheim could make a musical about Presidential assassins and make it work. It's a dark subject that you think wouldn't be sung about. But Sondheim shows off his storytelling prowess by creating a sort of club or group therapy aspect to the group of killers as they att...

Rebecca Gilman's play "Luna Gale" currently performing at the Seattle Rep has no good guys in it. But then it also has no bad guys in it. Instead of preaching morality or her own agenda what she's done is to present a raw and honest look at people. You may not agree with them, but are they wrong?...

OK I'm back and let's just dive right in for the rest of the amazing shows I saw in New York....

Dear Readers, I'm back from the Mothership (New York of course) to let you all in on some of the wonderful and not so wonderful things I saw with a few brief notes on each. And yes that includes my catching the juggernaut of all shows on Broadway right now, 'Hamilton'. Now there are some shows tha...

Okay, readers. I will be doing my best attempt to review The Paramount's production of 'Jersey Boys' objectively, considering that I am not a fan of Frankie Valli or The Four Seasons. Based on conversations I had with the people in the audience-and conversations I overheard-I seemed to be the only o...

ATTENTION SEATTLE TECHIES: there is a sketch performance for you! ATTENTION NON-TECHIES AND THE TECH BEWILDERED: there is a sketch performance for you too! Come together all who have startup experience and all who believe the tech industry is (as director and writer Bridget Quigg puts it) a bubble w...

A play where only half the cast knows the story and a trio of snarky seagulls who are rife with tragedy. These are just a few of the offerings from the 2016 Seattle Fringe Festival performing all over town this weekend and next. Now I wasn't able to catch everything this weekend and next week I'll...

I'll be honest, there were several elements that gave me trepidation before seeing Seattle Immersive Theatre's current production of “Romeo + Juliet” the other night. The immersive nature of it (seems to be the resurging trend and not always done well), the idea of tromping around an abandoned ...

There are certain theatrical experiences out there that are your "vegetables". The shows that make you think about your life, choices, and the world around you. And then there are shows like "9 to 5: The Musical" which are basically dessert. Those fun bits of fluff that aren't going to change you...

Take two episodes of The Twilight Zone, add psychedelic aesthetics and a musical score and BOOM, you have STAGEright's 'Weird Romance.' Directed by Brendan Mack, this 'two one-act musicals of speculative fiction' somehow made a glam-rock Rod Serling fever dream accessible and intimate....

It's one thing when a play is meaningful and important, something most plays strive for. It's another thing when a play tries to be meaningful and important. And it's yet another thing when a play insists that it's meaningful and important. Unfortunately Tracey Scott Wilson's play 'Buzzer', curre...

Dear Reader (It only seems appropriate to start this review off with that), sometimes a show comes along that feels like a no brainer. A show that's fairly bulletproof and if a theater does it well enough with enough pieces in place then it'll be a crowd pleaser. 'How to Succeed in Business Withou...