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| Statements After An Arrest Under the Immorality Act (Dave Hastings) |
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Persuasion (Erik Stuhaug) |
It’s July, so that means the Seattle Outdoor Theater Festival, at Volunteer Park, July 15th and 16th. It’s an opportunity to try to see all the “park shows” in one weekend, if you’d like. 16 performances by nine local theater companies on three stages over two days. Participating companies are GreenStage (Richard II and The Comedy of Errors), Seattle Shakespeare Company's Wooden O (Pericles and Much Ado About Nothing), Last Leaf Productions (The Comedy of Errors), Theater Schmeater (The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe), The 14/48 Projects (Coyote Tails), Freehold Theatre (Hamlet –Engaged), Jet City Improv (The Lost Folio), Young Shakespeare Workshop (Hamlet), and Shakespeare Northwest (Once Upon a Shakespearean Time). The full schedule for the festival is online. http://greenstage.org/sotf/ Of course, all these shows will be at other parks throughout July and into August.
There is also a lot of other really exciting theater to see
this month, so take a look at this list and plan to catch some amazing
entertainment.
Greensward, MAP Theatre, 7/7-29/17 (at 12th Avenue Arts)
World premiere
Greensward is a new
play by R. Hamilton Wright set in a world almost exactly like ours, but not
quite. Scientist Tim Hei has created PT-109, a perfect yard turf that never
needs mowing, watering or fertilizing, and is greener than regular grass by a
factor of 5. What drove him to create it is as compelling as the corporate
forces that will go to dangerous lengths to keep it suppressed. A little bit
sci-fi, a little bit madcap thriller, and a little bit sociopolitical
commentary.
Fun Home, The 5th Avenue Theatre, 7/11-30/17
(opens 7/13) (tour)
Based on Alison Bechdel’s best-selling graphic memoir, Fun Home introduces us to Alison at
three different ages as she explores and unravels the many mysteries of her
childhood that connect with her in surprising new ways. A finalist for the
Pulitzer Prize, Fun Home is a
refreshingly honest, wholly original musical about seeing your parents through
grown-up eyes.
Persuasion (the
musical), Taproot Theatre,
7/12/17-8/19/17 World premiere
Written/composed by Harold Taw (book) and Chris Jeffries
(music and lyrics), Jane Austen’s final novel soars to life in this new musical
about love, longing and second chances. Years ago, Anne Elliott was persuaded
to abandon true love but now her past mistakes and long-lost hopes have
returned. Can she summon the courage to follow her heart?
Hoodoo Love, Sound Theatre Company/Hansberry Project,
7/13-30/17 (at Seattle Center’s Armory)
Young Toulou has run away from the cotton fields of
Mississippi to big city Memphis to make it as a blues singer. When she falls in
love with a rambling bluesman, Ace of Spades, she gives into the suggestions of
the local madam, Candylady, and conjures up a hoodoo trick to make him fall in
love with her. When her brother Jib, a born-again Christian missionary, arrives
in town, Toulou is forced to confront all that she was running away from, and a
chain of events with devastating consequences is set in motion. The Seattle
premiere of playwright Katori Hall's (The
Mountaintop) first play about blues music and black life in her native
Memphis Tennessee during the 1930s.
Mud (Barro), ese Teatro, 7/13-30/17 (at the Slate
Theater)
(In Spanish: 7/15-16, 7/22-23, 7/29)
Informed by the current crisis on homelessness in Seattle,
this production of Maria Irene Fornes’ play highlights the precarious situation
of three individuals who form a family out of sheer necessity, living on the
thin edge of survival and the margins of society. May (Maya) works in manual
labor and is learning to read. Lloyd (Eloy) is sick and can’t afford medicine.
Henry (Henri) moves in and shows May the possibility of using her intellect.
More than a love triangle, Mud is a
survival triangle with no safety net to catch Henry when he falls. It will be
presented in English and Spanish (separate performances).
Alex & Aris, ACT Theatre, 7/14/17-8/6/17 (open 7/20)
World premiere
Moby Pomerance writes the story of Aristotle and his young
pupil, Alexander, who will become known to the world as Alexander the Great. A
mystery that explores how the Macedonians went from a small kingdom to leading
all the Greek states, and how Aristotle painstakingly set the moral compass of
Alexander, the man who would conquer the known world.
For Better, Phoenix Theatre, 7/20-30/17
Eric Coble’s (The Dead Guy) play about a plugged in world of email, texts and camera
phones. Maybe a bride and groom don’t even need to be in the same country to go
on a honeymoon! A modern play that pokes fun at our over-dependence on gadgets.
Resistance Is Fertile,
UMO Ensemble, 7/21-23/17 (at ACT
Theatre)
UMO Resistance Cabaret asks the questions of “What does
resistance look like? How do we resist? What is irresistible?” UMO and an
amazing group of guest artists – featuring new buffoons, ladies in white,
aerialists, musicians, singers, dancers, burlesque artists and more – will
explore and explode these questions, with the vital help of the audience.
Presidential addresses, suffrage speeches, found text and comic improvisation
meld together in a show unlike anything else.
Sundown at the Devil's
House, Cafe Nordo, 7/20/17-8/12/17
It's the Devil's last night on Earth, and she and her
cohorts will titillate, beguile, and entertain the audience with stories of the
Devil's greatest triumphs and darkest secrets. A capricious and fantastical
piece of anarchic theatre, and live music that interlaces into a story about
the Devil's love for music and mankind.
Statements After An
Arrest Under the Immorality Act, Theater
Schmeater, 7/21/17-8/12/17
Athol Fugard writes about Errol Philander, a
"colored" African and local principal, who sneaks into the library at
night for secret assignations with a white librarian, Frieda Joubert. Their
love is illegal under apartheid and they are arrested. Written in 1972, Fugard
based the play on pictures he saw in the newspaper of an interracial couple
being arrested for “immorality.” This play shows us how destructive hatred and
ignorance can go.
Nite Skool, Annex Theatre, 7/28/17-8/19/17
Created by The Libertinis with Max Kirchner and the ensemble,
it’s a genre-blending, boundary-crushing skool nite full of music, dance,
comedy, and so much more as we plumb the depths of our education system
(including, but not limited to: sex “education,” American imperialism, and
dreams drowned in a bucket of meatballs). This generative production will shake
theatre, neoburlesque, and clown into one deliciously weird cocktail.
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| Hoodoo Love (Luke S Walker) |
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