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| Disenchanted (Erin Ewing) |
The weekend of July 14 and 15 is the annual Seattle Outdoor
Theater Festival! (http://greenstage.org/sotf/)
with free Shakespeare and kid plays for an entire weekend! It is the official
launch of the summer park plays all over the area. In addition, there are two
big musicals, Lauren Weedman coming back to town with a solo show, and a few
world premieres to check out. No one is sitting out this summer seaon doing
nothing – so get out yer calendars!
Family Matters, ReACT Theatre,
7/6-28/18 (at 12th Avenue Arts) (world premiere)
Local playwright
Rachel Atkins has crafted a new play, set in the backyard of the
Horowitz-Yamasaki-Bloom family home. This multi-generational
Jewish-American-transracial family gathers for their traditional Mother’s Day
celebration with bagels and lox and Korean potato salad. Everyone arrives with
secrets, and as the afternoon progresses, their revelations bring out their complicated
hidden truths, while examining the myriad expectations, responsibilities and
roles that women face in every modern family. An insightful, humorous and
affecting new look at the ties and traditions that bind.
The League of Youth,
Theatre9/12, 7/6-29/18
A Henrik Ibsen play, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher in 2017,
focuses on a young liberal, frustrated by the cronyism of politics. He creates
a “League of Youth” to lobby against the establishment. Ibsen’s only comedy
caused rioting in the streets: conservatives claimed it was an attack on their
party, and liberals claimed it was an attack on theirs!
Sweet Land. Taproot Theatre,
7/11/18-8/18/18 (opens 7/13)
Taproot’s summer musical! From the film by Ali Selim and the
short story “A Gravestone Made of Wheat” by Will Weaver, a young German woman
crosses the sea to marry a man she’s never met. What should be their happy
ending is met with suspicion and prejudice as friends and neighbors abandon
them. But when hardship befalls the community, Inge and Olaf sacrifice
everything to save their friends.
King Lear, Wooden O,
7/12/18-8/12/18 (various parks)
After ruling for many years, King Lear decides to divide his
lands and wealth between his daughters. Overestimating their love and
loyalty, Lear finds everything that defined him as a king ripped from his
hands. Only after wandering purposeless and tossed about in a storm of pain and
madness, the once mighty ruler begins to discover his own humanity.
The Merry Wives of Windsor,
Wooden O, 7/12/18-8/12/18 (various parks)
On the make in the sleepy suburb of Windsor, the fat knight
John Falstaff hopes to score a pretty penny by seducing two of the town’s
wealthy wives, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford. But it’s the women who know how
to play the game better. They soon orchestrate a scheme to scam the scammer.
A warm-hearted and antic romp with some of Shakespeare’s most clever and
comic characters.
Disenchanted, Mamches Presents,
7/13/18-8/18/18 (at 12AA) (open 7/19)
Poisoned apples. Glass slippers. Who needs ‘em?! Not Snow
White and her posse of disenchanted princesses in the hilarious hit musical
that’s anything but Grimm. Forget the princesses you think you know – the
original storybook heroines have come to life to set the record straight. These
royal renegades have tossed off their tiaras to bring their hilariously
subversive, not-for-the-kiddies musical to Seattle for the first time - and the
Emerald City will never be the same!
The Winter’s Tale,
Freehold Engaged Theatre Program,
7/18-24/18 (at Raisbeck Hall)
This is a cautionary tale of jealousy and its consequences. Leontes,
King of Sicilia, suspects that his pregnant wife has been having an affair and that
the child is not his. Throwing her in prison, he sends to the Oracle at Delphos
for confirmation of his suspicions. Even when the baby is presented to the
king, he orders the child to be abandoned in a desolate place. The Oracle
states categorically that she is innocent, and that Leontes will have no heir
until his lost daughter is found. It’s a complicated story that ends happily,
making it weirdly one of Shakespeare’s “comedies”.
Lauren Weedman Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,
ACT Theatre, 7/20/18-8/12/18 (opens 7/26)
Lauren Weedman returns to Seattle. Grappling with
heartbreak, betrayal, and preschool moms, Lauren turns to her fast-talking,
70's Variety Show host alter-ego, Tammy Lisa, to find some clarity. As the
world comes crashing down around her sky-high hairdo, Tammy Lisa fights back,
one rockin' song at a time. Weedman weaves the story as a “Jungian fever dream”
of a comedy with a small band to back her up. Weedman is no stranger to
difficult topics, yet always weaves her odd comic spin into her solo shows.
She Kills Monsters, Theater
Schmeater, 7/27/18-8/18/18
Average Agnes is leaving her childhood home following the
death of her totally weird sister, Tilly. When she stumbles upon Tilly’s Dungeons & Dragons notebook,
however, Agnes plays the action-packed adventure to discover more about her
sister than she previously cared to know. A high-octane comedy fraught with
hostile fairies, randy ogres, and ‘90s pop culture.
The Great Inconvenience, Annex
Theatre, 7/27/18-8/18/18 (world premiere)
Playwright Holly
Arsenault writes a true story you’ve never heard about the catastrophic
cruelty of deportation and the supernatural awesomeness of love. In 1755, a
pregnant young woman and her family evade deportation by hiding in the deep
woods of a remote island, where they survive for nine years. 250 years later, a
pair of lovers, separated by war, attempts to reunite against the backdrop of a
second deportation. Part historical drama, part futuristic dystopiana, and part
romantic comedy, The Great Inconvenience
is a mostly-imagined-but-partly-true love story about enemies and secrets and
power and faith and survival.
Rovers, Annex Theatre.
7/31/18-8/15/18 (Tue/Wed) (world premiere)
Natalie J. Copeland (with a musical assist by Aaron Joshua
Shay) welcomes you to Camp Dusty Tread, the friendliest place on Mars! You're a
Mars rover, and you've just landed on the red planet! You'll learn what it
takes to live and work on Mars from your head counselors, Spirit and
Opportunity. These interplanetary geologists will warm you with tall tales,
camp songs, and cautionary tips for the novice Mars explorer. Rovers and
landers of all ages and scientific payloads are welcome to this interactive
orientation!
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