Author: John E. Allis
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Kittens in a Cage at Annex Theatre
We’ll get to the vagina jokes, the lesbian obsessions, the greaser language, and the revealing costumes. These elements of Kelleen Conway Blanchard’s Kittens in a Cage, while varyingly successful in flagging attention, are not the soul of the play.
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Macha Monkey’s Sweet Nothing, a (grim) fairytale at Annex Theatre
John Allis returns with an in-depth look at Macha Monkey’s latest production.
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boom! theater’s New Works Festival: Over: Exposed & boatcanoetubfloaty
The boom! theater company is one of Seattle’s more adventuresome young theater companies who recently concluded a six month New Works Festival, selections of which the company will take on tour later in the year. John Allis discusses two of the pieces: Gesamtkunstwerk!’s Over: Exposed…
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Book-It Rep’s The Art of Racing in the Rain
One of Seattle’s bigger theater production companies stages a play centered around a talking dog. No, the Rep hasn’t brought back Sylvia; instead Book-It Repertory has mounted The Art of Racing In The Rain, based on the novel by Northwest author, Garth Stein. John Allis…
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boom! theater company, New Works Festival, Phase II
The offerings of the New Works Festival, varying drastically in tone and form, are matched in a number of combinations throughout it, making for continuously-changing playbills. So that while Mountain of Dreams, for example, goes up one evening alongside Vitruvius and Fight, it’ll share a…
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Seattle Public Theater’s Back Back Back
In order to review Back Back Back, a play about three baseball players who struggle with the decision to use steroids, we appropriately sent a baseball fan with some knowledge of the issues at hand. That baseball fan also happened to be Star theater critic,…
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Death, Sex: Election Season
In an espoused effort to direct attention to the talents of playwrights, the nine ten-minute plays that comprise Balagan Theatre’s shorts festival, Death, Sex: Election Season, draw from one pool of eleven actors, each of whom portrays several roles in the evening. Similarly, in further…
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Taproot’s Freud’s Last Session: Philosophical Jousting In A Fictionalized Setting
The West Coast Premiere of Freud’s Last Session, Taproot Theatre’s latest production, theorizes the conversation held between C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud; John Allis found much to ponder in the performance.
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Stuck: the Right to Atrophy
Is the pursuit of the right to atrophy a dramatically compelling one? This is the question that continues to occur to me as I reflect on playwright Jessica Hatlo’s Stuck, up now at Washington Ensemble Theatre.
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Lark Eden at Theater Schmeater: Earnest, Simple, and Touching Drama
John Allis talks about Lark Eden, a simple, straightforward tale told through the letters of three southern women which is being produced now at Theater Schmeater.
