As with all of UMO’s productions, one particularly needs to forget the brand of kitchen sink realism that is often presented on our stages. Instead, in order to begin appreciating it, what is required is an openness of the senses, an awareness of what’s transpiring onstage, and let meaning appear cumulatively after the fact.
Category Archives: Performing Arts
Seattle Sketchfest 2012: A Talk with Charles & The Entertainment Show
The Star’s Kelly Dermody sits down to talk with the members of local sketch groups Charles and The Entertainment Show.
Upstart Crow’s Titus Andronicus: In Which We Learn That Women Can Also Be Vicious
Of Titus Andronicus it is known that it was once one of Billy Shakes’ least produced plays, because it is one of his more visceral, brute-force works. Its metered language is geared toward the barbarity of its story, and contains little of lyrical beauty usually associated with the playwright–that is to say, it is lyrical, but vicious instead of beatific. It is the work of Shakespeare during his crowd pleasing days, its pulpy purpose is to rouse the rabble.
How Theatre Puget Sound’s Proposal Failed
The Theatre Puget Sound proposal to assume management of the recently-vacated Seattle Center Playhouse simply did not measure up to the Cornish proposal. A look at why it did not succeed might be helpful for anyone who poses a future such venture with another similar space in the future.
In Loving Memory of Heather Artena Hughes, RIP
Today we mourn the passing of Heather Hughes, a young and vibrant woman, whose life came to an end early Wednesday morning, due to late-stage lung cancer one day before she would have turned 45. She is survived by her son, her fiancee, and her family.
Bardolatry and Its Discontents
Shakespeare is treated with a true idolatry–Bardolatry. Producing groups do not help when they treat audience members like sheep and imply that they need not understand Shakespeare. Theaters are there to pass down the Law. They expect that the barbarians simply arrive at the Church of Theater, convert to the cause of Bardolatry and receive William’s Holy Word like a communion wafer. Whether or not the barbarians understand transubstantiation is immaterial to the purposes of the Church.
Wing-It Productions’ Election Show: The Show Where Everything’s Made Up and the Points Don’t Matter
As I sat in my seat and the tattered giant American flag went up as the backdrop on stage, President Obama left the stage. No, I was not amongst thousands of onlookers in Charlotte, NC, or sitting in front of my TV or computer screen. I was part of the voting public in the audience at an opening night in Seattle, WA.
Seattle’s Shame: More Canadians Have Seen Le Frenchword’s Fancy Mud Than Seattleites
It’s a matter of fact: More Canadians have seen Fancy Mud than Seattle citizens. What makes this even more damning is that the Seattle trio have performed their debut production exponentially more times, and in more venues around town during the last couple of years than during their month-long tour of the Canadian Fringe.
The Push Arts New Media Festival: A Recap
On the eve of August 24th, the Push Arts New Media Festival reigned over the South Lake Union neighborhood in a night filled with free art installations, free food and drink, panel discussions, music and live performances–and glow sticks.
The Paradise Theater School in Chimacum, WA: An Ideal and Idyllic Theater Company
Of all the places one would think one would encounter daring, rigorous and experimental theater, it is likely that Port Townsend, the charming Victorian harbor town on the Olympic Peninsula, would not be the first town to come to mind. It would be even more unlikely for anyone to think of Chimacum, WA, a tiny little burg ten miles South of Port Townsend, as anything other than an unassuming hamlet. Yet it is here that one could find The Paradise Theater School, an organization that is perhaps Washington theater’s best kept secret.
