Category Archives: Performing Arts

BASH Theater & Radial Theater Project’s Beating Up Bachman by Wayne Rawley

Beating Up Bachman is playwright Wayne Rawley’s latest offering, which is another of his characteristic explorations of small town life in the Pacific Northwest which is at turns exceedingly humorous, well observed, touching and more than a little dark at its core. José Amador has the scoop.

The Seattle Festival of Improv Theater Hits Town

A dry-humored preview of the 11th Seattle Festival of Improv Theater.

She She Pop’s Testament at On the Boards

Having already sung the praises of the nature of the programming at On the Boards (an endeavor I am likely to pick up again in the future), let us turn our attention to the organization’s latest offering, She She Pop’s Testament.

The Seagull Project: A Method to the Madness

The production is three-quarters pure genius and one-quarter excellence. One can hardly complain about that mixture. The whole production gives me an optimism about the stage that maybe other companies will finally try to make a break from the petrifying effects of “seasons” and “shows” and rediscover what the San Francisco Actors Workshop under Herbert Blau and Jules Irving knew back in the 1950s: the play is the thing, and it is ready when it is ready.

Crave More and the In-Between

Whim W’him’s Crave More is a program of four dances with quite different thematic approaches. Overall the program is strong, but I have some reservations.

The 2012 Gypsy Awards Announce Their Winning Contestants

Another day, another award ceremony. The Seattle Theater Writers Critics’ Circle reveal their winners’ slate for the second annual Gypsy Rose Lee Awards.

Ubiquitous They’s Half Time at the Seattle Creative Arts Center

Our own Kelly Dermody lasted a whole three weeks before breaking her New Year’s resolution…

The Rest is Dullness: Hamlet at Ghost Light Theatricals

Audiences are entitled to play that has been interpreted. Having gone just so far with her “big choice,” Ms. Raas-Berquist fails to go any farther. But a choice is not an interpretation. An interpretation requires that an idea be pursued. Gender-swapping Hamlet is not an idea; it is merely a conceit.

Catherine Cabeen Fires Away

Fire! is a beautiful piece that is complete within its limitation, but I am not sure the limitation is final. I am not sure Ms. Cabeen is done with Niki de Saint Phalle–or perhaps that Niki de Saint Phalle is not done with Ms. Cabeen.

The Finest Work Songs: Jürg Koch and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring

In the middle of an intense and challenging tech week, Koch was kind enough to provide some insights on collaboration in dance, choreography, and his version of Rite of Spring, which promises to be exciting on a number of levels.