SEATTLE THEATER REVIEWS

Well this is it, Dear Readers. The trip has come to an end (sigh) and even as I type this I am winging back to the Emerald City and leaving the Mothership behind. It's been an exciting trip with tons of thrilling theater. But before we wrap up, we still need to talk about one more show, "If/Then'...

It's day four Dear Readers, it's almost all over (sigh), and it's all slowing down. Only one show last night and only one more remaining. But let's not focus on the sadness of having to leave the Mothership soon, let's focus on killing the mean, popular kids....

Day three was yet another roller coaster of emotions as we went from the tragic yet beautiful to the hilarious. I guess I planned this schedule pretty well. Let's start with the beyond words amazing Audra and then we'll move on from there....

Day two, my three show day, is behind me Dear Readers and it was an absolutely exhilarating one filled with laughs, tears, and culminating in a stunner of a show. But we'll get to Neil in a minute....

Greetings Dear Readers. The lure of the Mothership was finally too great and I have returned to her to see what kind of wisdom she wants to impart. Yes, I have returned to New York to avail myself of the fabulous new shows the city has to offer....

OK let me start off by saying, Babs she ain't and thank God for that. OK, now before you all form the lynch mob, I love Babs. But if anyone is going to even attempt to put on "Funny Girl" the worst thing they could do it try to pass off an imitation of an icon. And Sarah Rose Davis in Village's c...

William Finn's shows are not easy to produce. Maybe that's why (with the exception of Spelling Bee) they're not done as often as they deserve. And his largely autobiographical "A New Brain" is no exception with its emotional storyline and rich score not to mention some odd staging elements it requ...

The main characters in the new musical version of "A Room with a View" spend their time trying to figure out who they want to become. Unfortunately the show itself also has an identity crisis, as it could never figure out what kind of show it wanted to be. And that, combined with songs that rarely...

A Shakespearean classic directed by Sheila Daniels. Sounds like a dead lock winner right? Unfortunately Seattle Shakespeare Company's current production of "King Lear", while having some moments of power, ultimately left me wanting. Wanting for what? That's tough to say. There were so many litt...

As Americans we tend to love to witness a good familial car wreck. That's why dysfunctional family dramas are so popular (not to mention the hoards of people behaving badly on reality TV). But long before the Weston's of Osage County hurled their first insult or popped their first pill, George and...

It's not based on a book or a movie or (God forbid) a TV show. It isn't the dusted off classics from some forgotten pop icon. What Balagan Theatre has brought us with the world premiere of "Ernest Shackleton Loves Me" is a quirky, fresh and completely original new musical and one of the most excit...

There's a plot device that has annoyed me since I was a kid. Sitcoms use it a lot. It's where the main character keeps lying and/or making obviously poor decisions which keeps digging them deeper and deeper into a hole until you just want to scream at them, "Just tell the truth and do the right th...

A world premiere play from one of Seattle's best, Stephanie Timm, directed by one of Seattle's best, Darragh Kennan and from one of Seattle's best theatre groups, New Century Theatre Company. Seems like a dead lock winner right? But while I still found "Tails of Wasps" currently playing at ACT tho...

Psst! Hey Buddy! Yeah you! You lookin' for a good time with some scantily clad performers who are ready and willing to do whatever you want while putting on a hell of a show? Well then you'd better hop in your time machine and head back the 1960's because Seattle doesn't do that anymore. But lu...

A musical about imprisonment, homosexuality, fascist regimes, revolutionaries, morphine addiction and a movie star; must be Kander and Ebb because only they could pull it off so beautifully. But their "Kiss of the Spider Woman" is not often produced possibly due to its harsh themes but also that it...

You're a cute little new musical that has workshopped itself at Village in their Village Originals program twice before. You have an interesting storyline and a fun little gimmick. You start off a little weak but there are sparks of potential. So why would you completely abandon that cute storyli...

I always question the wisdom of these smaller theaters working with almost no budgets putting up these big flashy Broadway shows. They're not going to have the funds for lavish sets and racks of fancy costumes. But even without all that Seattle Musical Theatre managed to take Mel Brooks' "Young Fr...

When Seattle Shakespeare Company hits one out of the park they do it with gusto. Such is the case with their current production of Oscar Wilde's battle of witty banter, "The Importance of Being Earnest". They've managed to take Wilde's delightful romp and made it even more delightful by executing ...

I'll admit to a certain amount of trepidation when going to see the world premiere of "Royal Blood" by Sonya Schneider at West of Lenin. I mean a world premiere play about a dysfunctional family with characters based on the author's relations. It sounds like one of my least favorite things in thea...

I truly appreciate when a show realizes it doesn't need all the flash, all the bells and whistles, in order to be great. Sometimes a show has such a simple and straightforward story to tell that it just needs to tell it. Such is the case with "The Suit" currently playing at the Seattle Rep. This h...

It's one of my all time favorite shows so naturally I'm a little picky about it. I mean, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken's "Little Shop of Horrors" is one of those near perfect musicals. Great story, great characters, super fun music, it's got it all. But just as the plant in the show feeds on bloo...

We all love to gawk at things different from what we call "normal". The internet is full of such things. Hell, one might even view our love of theater as such as it's a window into the lives of others. And that's the focus of Bernard Pomerance's stirring play, "The Elephant Man", as we view a fre...

Before you start the lynch mob against LungFish Productions for altering Jason Robert Brown's "The Last Five Years" let me assure you that not one word of the original has been changed. It's the intent of the piece as how it's told that director and conceiver Kyle James Traver has reimagined and wh...

Sure, it's a story about a monster, but a monster that is looking for love and acceptance and his creator who's looking for power and the redemption they both seek from their mistaken paths to find their goals. Mary Shelley's novel manages all that within a simple gothic romance and David Quicksall...

Dear Readers, I must warn you against seeing the latest show over at Teatro ZinZanni, "On The Air". After viewing it last night my smile muscles are only now beginning to recover from the perma-grin that this show and its incredible cast stuck on my face. I've been fortunate enough to see a few Zi...