We Recommend
Riot to Follow, a student group at The Evergreen State College, is offering a free production of the beloved Ashman/Menken musical Little Shop of Horrors. If you know the movie or the WPA production it adapted, then this incarnation will come as a surprise. At first you might even
Stage
"You take yourself far too seriously ..." "You seem to have a personal vendetta ..." "judgemental [sic] and unhappy ..." "usually negative in tone and often times [sic] downright mean ..." "cranky and nasty ..." "mean people suck ..." Gosh, what did Joann Varnell do to earn those character assassinations? Did
We Recommend
It took Susan Sontag over six thousand words to describe "camp," so I probably shouldn't even try. She viewed it as a "disengaged, depoliticized" aesthetic "sensibility" skewed toward "artifice and exaggeration," with a "spirit of extravagance" and "glorification of [exaggerated] ‘character.'" Even in 1964, she recognized that homosexuals "constitute
Stage
It took Susan Sontag over six thousand words to describe "camp," so I probably shouldn't even try. She viewed it as a "disengaged, depoliticized" aesthetic "sensibility" skewed toward "artifice and exaggeration," with a "spirit of extravagance" and "glorification of [exaggerated] ‘character.'" Even in 1964, she recognized that homosexuals "constitute
Stage
I first saw Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest from the wings: I played Lane the butler 20 years ago in one of my first polished productions, so of course I had to smile as I watched director Mike Wilkinson's version at Paradise Theatre in Gig Harbor. The Paradise,
Stage
It's a tribute to the dedication of Shakespeare in the Parking Lot that it was able to compile eight adaptations of the Bard's history plays with the same troupe in only a few months, in and around Tacoma's Speakeasy Arts Cooperative. It's an even bigger compliment to the writing
We Recommend
I first saw Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest from the wings: I played Lane the butler 20 years ago in one of my first polished productions, so of course I had to smile as I watched director Mike Wilkinson's version at Paradise Theatre in Gig Harbor. The
We Recommend
OLT is on a three-play talent roll. The trained eye finds professional acumen in Murder on the Nile: Terence Artz did a fine job of blocking in a difficult space, and the show is entirely of a tone. Allison Gerst's costumes are as spot-on as any in the more
Stage
What is community theater, and exactly what is it supposed to accomplish? Can it offer professional quality, or should we resign ourselves to watching Joe the Pharmacist and Mary the Bank Teller stumble through A Streetcar Named Desire? In other words, should it be entry level for adorably inept actors
Stage
In 1893, when Rudyard Kipling wrote his first Mowgli the "man cub" story, his work was shaped by a dozen years on the Indian subcontinent, but also by a warm view of English imperialism. Sociopolitical relics aside, the two Jungle Book anthologies remain popular with schoolchildren; indeed, the Mowgli narrative
We Recommend
Much to my surprise, Rent won me over in a way even the 2005 movie version, which featured most of the original cast members, could not. It's not that director Stephen Nachamie's version is any better produced, frankly, though in general it holds up fine. Mike Spee is perfect as
Stage
Despite my oft-noted vocabulary, I can't think of a word for ... What do you call a feeling of nostalgia for something you hated when it actually happened? The first time I saw Rent was in Los Angeles. Neil Patrick Harris played Mark the documentarian; Wilson Cruz played Angel the lovable
We Recommend
In his notes for Harlequin's production of Rabbit Hole, director Brian Tyrrell mentions his fondness for "well written plays." His phrasing leaped out at me - not just because playwright David Lindsay-Abaire is good at his job, which he clearly is, but because it echoes a phrase from my
Stage
In his notes for Harlequin's production of Rabbit Hole, director Brian Tyrrell mentions his fondness for "well written plays." His phrasing leaped out at me - not just because playwright David Lindsay-Abaire is good at his job, which he clearly is, but because it echoes a phrase from my theater
Stage
Much of New Jersey playwright's Christopher Durang's work can be described as "the comedy of disorientation." Much like the comedy of social awkwardness popularized in the U.S. by the British version of The Office, Durang's writing requires exquisite precision in tone and pacing or it falls apart completely. The audience
We Recommend
Film critics are, most importantly, consumer advocates: You only have so much entertainment cash, so spend it on this movie, not on that one. Theatre critics attempt to fill the same role, but we know it's only useful to a point. That's because theatre is gloriously inconsistent. What flopped opening
Stage
Film critics are, most importantly, consumer advocates: You only have so much entertainment cash, so spend it on this movie, not on that one. Theatre critics attempt to fill the same role, but we know it's only useful to a point. That's because theatre is gloriously inconsistent. What flopped opening
Stage
What a welcome difference a decade can make. When Stop Kiss debuted at New York's Joseph Papp Public Theater in 1998, CurtainUp praised it as "thoroughly modern." Only half a generation later, it strikes me as almost thoroughly dated, a grim reminder of a more homophobic time. Stage artists
Stage
Like the cat in Schrödinger's famous thought experiment, burlesque exists in a dual state of dialectical uncertainty. It both is and is not theatre. It is and is not performance art. It is and is not subject to criticism. Modern burlesque is both defiantly feminist and old-school objectification, simultaneously reflecting
We Recommend
Having recently authored a novel about the Apocalypse as predicted in the last few pages of the Good Book, I can tell you quite a bit about what people in this area think about the End of the World: almost nothing. Even most churchgoing Christians view the Rapture as a
