April Theater! Pick a Daisy!

What to Expect (Bonnie Leung)

An International Festival, an all-femme-presenting Man of La Mancha, and new Chekhov shorts adaptations are just a few of the productions on tap for April. Get out yer calendars!

What to Expect

4/1-8/26
Pork Filled Productions and Seattle Public Theater and Dunya Productions, www.porkfilled.com and www.seattlepublictheater.org
In the year 2080, Candace is experimentally pregnant. As she waits for her husband Ahmed to adopt a child to round out their “homogeneous” Egyptian nuclear family, she starts getting pains that her doctor can’t explain, and she meets an intriguing new friend named JeeYoung. The clock ticks as The Big One approaches to wash away Candace's plans, but she is determined to fly away in time.

Bhama Roget (courtesy Intiman Theatre)

Mother Nature, The Farewell Tour
4/2-5/26 (at Erickson Theatre)
Intiman Cabaret, www.intiman.org
Bhama Roget as Mother Nature herself takes the stage with a guitar in her hands and a mic turned all the way up for one last tour. Backed by a live on-stage band, Roget channels a cosmic, sharp-tongued, heartbreakingly funny force of creation to explore beauty and power, grief and invention through the eyes of a mother who has watched many species come and go.

Warm and Loving "Mary Jane" at Seattle Rep

Shaunyce Omar and Brenda Joyner (Sayed Alamy)

Mary Jane
Seattle RepertoryTheatre
Through April 19, 2026
 
I think of playwright Amy Herzog as a naturalistic writer, a slice-of-life storyteller, and one who lets the audience get to know her characters as they interact with each other’s lives. Mary Jane, now playing at the Rep, is very much a character reveal. The five lovely actors, led by a luminous performance by Brenda Joyner in the title role, present a story any of us might identify with in some aspect.

March Shows Around Town

It might be a bit rainy outside, but inside Seattle area theaters there is plenty of variety to be had! Get out yer calendars!

"I will miss you when you're gone" - Shattered Glass Project (Kirk Hostetter)

I will miss you when you’re gone

3/5-21/26 (at Theatre Off Jackson)
Shattered Glass Project, https://www.shatteredglassproject.org
Celeste tries to contact her dead mother Theresa, but instead is haunted by Evelyn. Evelyn jumped off the top of her office building, run by Robin. Robin just wants to get these files in order, until the spirit of Theresa shows up. Is it an administrative filing error from the afterlife? Or can the living and the dead help each other find the connections they so desperately need? A comedy about sad things
 
I Love You, I Miss You. I’m Glad You’re Gone.
3/5-15/26
Key City Public Theatre, www.keycitypublictheatre.org
Join Filipina-American Master Magician Maritess Zurbano as she confronts her family's sudden abandonment after her Stage 3 breast cancer diagnosis. Blending humor, enchantment, and audience participation, Maritess finds hope and peace in the most unexpected places.
 
The Foreigner
3/6-29/26
Harlequin Productions, www.harlequinproductions.org
When a painfully shy Englishman lands at a rustic Georgia lodge, his fear of small talk inspires a harmless fib: he doesn’t speak English! But as locals pour out secrets, Charlie becomes the perfect confidant—and whispers of a secret society stir old resentments beneath the lodge’s pastoral calm. As laughter turns to high stakes, Charlie must summon unexpected courage—and maybe foil a sinister plot.
 

Bunny
3/12-21/26 (at Jones Playhouse)
UW School of Drama, www.drama.uw.edu
For most of Sorrel’s high school career, she was friendless and quietly weird. She didn’t even seem to fit in with the geeky kids. When she turned seventeen, and late puberty produced a supermodel physique, she became seen as a “hot dork”. Bunny spans twenty years of Sorrel’s life. Unencumbered by the burden of shame, she journeys through the complex social expectations surrounding female sexuality.

It's Not a Wedding -- Yes, It Is // Thalia's Umbrella isn't sure

Actors in A Mirror (Annabel Clark)

A Mirror

Thalia's Umbrella 

through March 14 at 12th Avenue Arts

www.thaliasumbrella.org 

 

 It's not easy to discuss a play full of lies when the reasons those lies are told should be secret. This play, presented by Thalia's Umbrella, is such a play. You're invited to a wedding, but the wedding is a lie. And you, the audience, become complicit in that lie just by attending. 

 

I think you'll think, as I did, that your participation is well worth attending. Author Sam Holcroft has devised a theatrical "event" that is quite different from a straightforward production. 

 

I can say that the reasons for the secrecy enfold current events obliquely but definitively. Much like any secret society meeting, the wedding might be a cover. Or maybe the meeting is a cover. 

 

There is, however, a real story to suss out. The strong cast includes Quinlan Corbett as Čelik, who might or might not be a high government official, Jon Lutyens as Bax, who may or may not be a real playwright, Adam Tapp as Adem, who could be the groom, or an aspiring playwright, and Emily Verla as Mei, the bride or a soldier turned office worker.

 

The playing time was about 2 3/4 hours, but it flew by. That's a great feeling to have when there is so much to pay attention to. Please do dress for a wedding and have fun. 

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