MUSIC
…this Sunday’s Racer Sessions at Cafe Racer in the Ravenna neighborhood. The sessions’ general unpredictability is part of the charm which, along with the venue’s intimate vibe, is why we’re recommending the event. You’re bound to have a less harried time than at any of the options above, this much is true.
COMEDY
Also this Sunday, Pocket Theater — who are in residence at the Seattle Creative Arts Center in Ballard again — bring the self-lacerating stand up comedy of Keith Lowell Jensen and Johnny Taylor, in an evening they are calling Godless.
DANCE
Next, we head to the Belltown Collective for an evening of contemporary dance brought to you by Coriolis Dance, one of Seattle’s promising new companies. Unfixed Arias, the company’s first full-length production, intends to show the breadth of the troupe’s ambitions by providing an evening that encompasses the venue while “the vast nothingness of space and incomprehensibly dense compaction of matter at the center of the black hole at the center of the dying star.” Co-artistic Directors Natascha Greenwalt and Christin Call have been working on this project for a couple of years now, showing bits and pieces around Seattle during that time, and they are determined to impress.
THEATER
While there are various theatrical projects we’re excited about this week, we’re leading off with The Amish Project at Theater Off Jackson. A solo performance featuring the talented Terri Weagant — who is venturing into untested waters with a new story to tackle — Project tells the fictionalized story of a kidnapping in an Amish school that went awry and how that community sought to heal itself through forgiveness.
Next, we come to a presentation of Mallery Avidon’s queerSpawn at Eclectic Theater on Capitol Hill. Produced by Fantastic.Z, a new Seattle Fringe company that specializes in LGBT fare, queerSpawn centers around a small town high school boy who is the target of bullying for the usual small-town small-thinking (“his parents are lesbians, therefore he’s gay”), despite the fact that those charges are falsely applied. Avidon seeks to create a black comedy out of this circumstance, which leads to several flights of fancy that includes a “cameo” by a certain local sex advice columnist.
Meet the folks at Minion Productions, who exist to help Seattle artists navigate the numerous administrative and logistical hurdles inherent in becoming a successful traveling artist. Minion has teamed up with Pocket Theater in order to bring Travel Agency to life. The evening is a showcase/cabaret of shows created by artists aligned under their umbrella, scripts that are in various stages of development. It will feature everything from early readings to full preview performances of shows that are planning to go on the fringe circuit around North America; with local favorites Yana Kesala, Christine Longé, Kate Mura, Abi Grace and Tonya Jone Miller.
Clear across town, Seattle Musical Theater wants to tell you about a deaf dumb blind kid who sure plays a mean pinball. The Who’s Tommy is a pinball wizard, has a supple wrist, is visited by an acid queen and longs to be seen, felt, heard and touched. Obviously, this is a production of the hit musical based on the classic rock album, so if you’d like to hear those songs performed by some of Seattle’s better vocal talents, head over to Magnuson Park for this show.
OTHER
The name says it all: Accio Burlesque!, happening at Annex Theatre this weekend, means to winkingly pay homage to the characters from that youth literature series you may remember taking the world by storm. We can’t wait to see what they’ve done to young Ms. Lovegood. (The show is sold out, so get there early to try to get a stand by seat.)
Finally, you could celebrate Memorial Weekend and the impending summer with the Fertility Rite being performed at the Ballard Underground. The show begins at midnight on Saturday night/Sunday morning, and features local burlesque and cabaret artists honoring the coming season of bounty with “sensuality and artistic nudity,” which is fitting, the more one thinks about it.
NEXT WEEK
Arthur Miller’s The Price at ACT, Camper Van Beethoven comes to Chop Suey, plus UW Grad Students, Sound Theater and more…
