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| Dedra Woods in a rehearsal of Wedding Band at Intiman Theatre (Alex Garland) |
It’s that time
of year again! Theater in Seattle explodes and there are too many wonderful
productions to see at once! Anyone up for a contest? Who will see the most
September performances? How many can you fit into a week? Some of the most
anticipated shows of the year are opening now….
The 39 Steps, Lamplight
Productions and KTO Productions, 9/1-11/16 (at Bathhouse Theatre)
Based on the
1935 Alfred Hitchcock spy/romance film, this hit play is sure to please anyone
who enjoys spies, hi-jinks, handcuffs, murder, missing fingers, kissing,
secrets, chase scenes, more kissing, trains, planes and yes, automobiles. A
cast of four actors tackle over 100 characters in what is guaranteed to be a
good time.
Scab, Many Hats Theatre,
9/2-10/16 (at Ballard Underground)
In this
unconventional comedic-drama, Anima's sphere of desperation and
self-destruction is invaded by the arrival of her perky new roommate, Christa. Prompted
by a malevolent talking statue of the Virgin Mary and a bloodthirsty houseplant
named Susan, Anima and Christa enter into a friendship that incurs traumatic
results.
Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story In Black
and White, Intiman, 9/6/16-10/2/16 (at Jones
Playhouse)
Alice Childress’
play, produced with community partner University of Washington is set in 1918. It’s the story of lovers (Julia, a black
seamstress, and Herman, a white baker) who want to marry in the Jim Crow South.
Can we be strong enough to tell the truth to each other and still love?
Bad Apples, ACT
Theatre Co-Pro with ArtsWest and Circle X Theatre, 9/6-25/16 (at ACT
Theatre)
Welcome to Club
Abu, the wildest night in Baghdad. A rock musical pulls back the curtain of one
of the greatest moral challenges we have faced as a nation and sets it to a
wicked irreverent back beat. Inspired by the
real-life prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, this musical
portrays the story of two soldiers who ended up pregnant by fellow soldier
Charles Graner. Both women wanted to marry him, competed with each other to win
his love, and enthusiastically tortured prisoners together, documenting most of
it in pictures that later leaked and shocked the world.
The Fever, theater
simple, 9/6/16 – various dates into November, various locations
theater simple is
interested in bringing audiences into the intimate, personal experience. A
woman with a fever rides a mental merry-go- round as she becomes more
deliriously ill. This blistering monologue occurs during a ‘small’ civil war
outside the narrator’s third-world hotel. As her fever rages, so does she,
veering wildly from middle class guilt to revolutionary fervor to cold
pragmatism.
The Winter’s Tale, Seattle
Shakepeare Company, 9/7/16-10/2/16 (at Seattle Repertory)
Obsessive King
Leontes accuses his queen, Hermione, of having an affair and sentences her to a
trial. Meanwhile their infant daughter gets spirited away to a distant shore.
Sixteen years later, through fate and love, the young woman discovers her true
heritage and reunites her family.
Rhinoceros, Strawberry
Theatre Workshop, 9/8/16-10/8/16
There is a
ferocious rhinoceros on the loose in a small village, and no one seems alarmed.
In fact, by the time Eugène Ionesco's cast of citizens can agree on what they
saw, it becomes possible for individuals to join the herd. Imagine a business
leader, a prominent family, and a politician stampeding as wild rhinoceroses,
while a town idly debates whether it is even possible… Casting a woman as
Bérenger (a role written for man) is part of Strawshop's effort to make the
character more modern and expand on Ionesco's argument about what society deems
natural and normal.
The Royale, ACT
Theatre, 9/9/16-10/9/16
Inspired by the
true story of the first African-American undisputed world heavyweight champion,
this play is told in six rounds and set in a boxing ring. Jack Johnson, at the
height of the Jim Crow era, became the most famous and the most notorious black
man on earth. Through a succinct script and the beauty of sound, this intimate
story of internal struggle proves that sometimes the most powerful fights are
the ones we battle in our own minds. The
Royale brings the crackling energy of the early 20th-century boxing circuit
to the stage.
Working (2012 version), Seattle
Musical Theatre, 9/9/16-10/2/16
Based on Studs
Terkel’s 1978 best-selling book of interviews with American workers and adapted
by Nina Faso and Stephen Schwartz, Working
paints a vivid portrait of the men and women the world so often takes for
granted; from iron workers to flight attendants to waitresses, and more. Updated
with songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda and others in 2012.
A Tale For the Time Being, Book-It
Repertory, 9/14/16-10/9/16
After the 2011
tsunami in Japan, a Japanese American novelist discovers a collection of
artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox. This beguiling story in
Canada connects 16-year-old Nao’s diary in Japan and Ruth who finds it.
Pump Boys and Dinettes, Village
Theatre, Issaquah: 9/15/16-10/23/16, Everett: 10/28/16-11/20/16
This high-octane
musical is a country western feast for the ears, celebrating life’s simple
pleasures. The “pump boys” of Highway 57 in Grand Ole Opry country, North
Carolina are a group of boys who love fishin’, beer, and a great slice of pie
from the local diner, run by the Cupp sisters. Armed with piano, guitar, bass,
and even kitchen utensils, they’re serving up a night of fun and good times in
this show that received rave reviews both on and off Broadway, along with a
Tony Nomination for Best Musical.
The Toxic Avenger, STAGEright,
9/16/16-10/01/16 (at Ballard Underground)
A winner of the
Outer Critics Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical, this musical is also a huge,
dangerous, hysterical, and charming love story. Book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro
, music and lyrics by David Bryan and based on Lloyd Kaufman's film The Toxic Avenger.
Alcestis, Irrational Robot
Bureau and KTO Productions, 9/16-24/16 (at Slate Theater)
An original
adaptation of classic Greek tragedian Euripides. With the aid of a powerful
god, King Admetus is granted the ability to circumvent Death’s designs on
him... but only if another will offer up his or her own mortal existence. When
no one else can be found, the Queen Alcestis steps forward, thereby igniting
the flames of a passionate struggle for identity, soul, ecstasy and agency.
(Miss) Fortune Has Green Eyes, Brown
Soul Productions, 9/16-25/16 (at Theatre 4, Armory)
Written by local
writer Alma M. Davenport, the first show of this multi-cultural company is
about a well respected deacon with a dark and troubled past. He wins the
lottery and his whole world quickly begins to unravel. He falls out with family
and the friends. As his world falls apart, his eldest daughter tries to put
hers together. Because domestic violence is an issue that appears in the play,
Brown Soul Productions is proud to partner with NW Family Life, an organization
that educates and assists people facing the pain of domestic violence. 18 and
up. (Strong adult language and content)
Trump the King or POTUS Drumph, Theater
Schmeater, 9/16/16-10/15/16
A new play tells
a raucous story of one man’s quest to reach the pinnacle of political power at
all costs. Loosely based on the subversive agitprop classic Ubu Roi, and on the
equally disturbing 2016 presidential campaign, this play offers up a parallel
reality perhaps closer to our own than comfort admits.
The Summer House, Forward
Flux Prods., 9/20/16-10/8/16 (at Gay City) (playing in repertory with The Wedding Gift) (world premiere)
Three teens are
haunted by the recent disappearance of a local girl as their summer of drugs
and partying comes to an end. Over their last day and night together, the three
friends forge alliances and fracture them, as each struggles with the truth
behind what happened to the missing girl. Sarah Bernstein’s new play takes a
darkly funny and chilling look at rape culture in America today.
The Wedding Gift, Forward
Flux Prods, 9/20/16-10/8/16 (at Gay City) (playing in repertory with The Summer House) (world premiere)
Set in a world
so far in the future it’s stupid, an ordinary dude named Doug suddenly finds
himself intergalactically sex-trafficked and gifted to the princess of a
strange world on her wedding day. Surrounded by people who speak a language
he’s never heard, Doug struggles to return home while developing a complicated
and fraught relationship with his captors. As the princess grows dangerously
fond of him, Doug’s chances of escape become ever more remote.
Joyful Noise, Taproot
Theatre, 9/21/16-10/22/16
George Fredrick
Handel is in crisis. His patron is dead, his operas are unpopular and he’s
suffered public humiliation of his own making. From this ruin a joyous
masterpiece is born. Witty, scandalous, this story is based on the true story
of the creation of Handel’s Messiah.
Ghosts, ArtsWest, 9/22/16-10/16/16
Illuminated with
fresh poetry and dark humor in a new adaptation from acclaimed British director
Richard Eyre (2014), Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts
was seen as a scandalous work when it was first performed in 1892. The story
follows the widow Helene Alving as she tries to start her life anew after the
death of her philandering husband. She is determined that her son Oswald will
not follow the same path through life as his father, but when Oswald returns
home from a trip to France, she discovers that she may already be too late.
Hotel Nordo, Café
Nordo, 9/22/16-11/20/16
Cafe Nordo will
release the dark history hidden in the walls of its Culinarium with their
chilling original theatrical dining experience. Each plate of surrealist
cuisine is paired with an episode of this Hotel’s history, beginning with a
1927 wedding that ended in tragedy. Tripping through the decades from the
twenties through the present day, Hotel Nordo tells four haunting tales of
memories, death, loss, and regret. Audiences are encouraged to don their
drop-waist dresses, spats, and boas and raise a toast at the ill-fated wedding
that whets the Hotel’s appetite for human suffering.
On Clover Road, Seattle
Public Theater, 9/22/16-10/16/16
In this smart,
harrowing, edge-of-your-seat thriller by sometimes local playwright Steven
Dietz, a desperate mother will do anything to get her daughter back. In an
abandoned motel on a desolate American road, she meets with a man whom she
believes is her only hope at reunion. But nothing is as it seems and what
happens instead will shock her to her core.
Revolt. She said. Revolt again., Washington
Ensemble Theatre, 9/23/16-10/10/16
Revolutionize.
Transform. Revolt. You are not to do as you are told. A wicked and frank
education in contemporary feminism, language, and gender politics, Alice
Birch's patriarchy-smashing absurdist play is anything but well behaved and
like nothing you've ever seen onstage. Intersecting and interconnected
vignettes turn the dominant male paradigm on its head.
Devil Boys From Beyond, Fantastic.Z
Productions, 9/29/16-10/15/16 (at Eclectic Theater)
A 1950's sci-fi
B-Movie spoof.... with gayliens. New
York Reporter Matilda Van Buren has come to the hick town of Lizard Lick
Florida to break the story that Aliens have invaded!
A Raisin in the Sun, Seattle
Repertory Theatre, 9/30/16-10/30/16
In Lorraine Hansberry's
classic, African American Lena Younger lives with her extended family in a
cramped apartment on Chicago's South Side. On their unknowing behalf, she
places a down payment on a home in Clybourne Park, an affordable white
neighborhood. Racial intolerance attempts to derail the family's dreams in this
1959 masterpiece and continues to resonate with generation after generation.
The Holler Sessions, Frank
Boyd and ACT Theatre, 9/29/16-10/9/16
ACTLab presents
Frank Boyd’s one-man show. The Holler Sessions centers around one man’s burning
obsession for American jazz through a live radio broadcast. From inside his
hole-in-the-wall studio, Ray barely eats, but he bathes himself in jazz. No
jazz knowledge needed ahead of time, you’ll know plenty when you leave.
Welcome To Wonderland, Teatro
Zinzanni, 9/29/16-2/26/17
Journey into
this tantalizing alternate reality filled with dueling queens, the maddest of
hatters, and a majestic butterfly, all while imbibing on the finest of
concoctions. This whimsical night is filled with so many acrobatic and aerial
acts it will make your head spin, so let your imagination run wild as you take
a tumble down the rabbit hole.
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