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. 

For more articles and reviews, go to www.facebook.com/SeattleTheaterWriters. Subscribe to your inbox at https://MiryamsTheaterMusings.blogspot.com

 

 

February Theater in Seattle

Ada Twist, Scientist and Friends at SCT (Truman Buffett)

February stages in the Seattle area present quite a few world premieres, which is exciting! The Brown Derby is back again (ifkyk *cough* ReBar) with a brand-new take on Twilight. It's a full slate of entertainment. Get out yer calendars!

Ada Twist, Scientist and Friends
To 2/22/26
Seattle Children’s Theatre, www.sct.org
Ms. Greer’s classroom includes three inquisitive out-of-the-box thinkers. Rosie Revere has big dreams. Iggy Peck has a relentless passion for architecture. And Ada Twist’s curiosity can lead her to solve any problem. (Ages 5+)
 
Monty Python’s SPAMALOT (tour)
2/4-15/26
5^th Avenue Theatre, www.5thavenue.org
The musical comedy lovingly ripped off from the film classic, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, has everything that makes a great knight at the theatre, from flying cows to killer rabbits, British royalty to French taunters, dancing girls, rubbery shrubbery, and of course, the Lady of the Lake. SPAMALOT features well-known song titles such as “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” “The Song That Goes Like This,” “Find Your Grail” and more that have become beloved classics in the musical theater canon.
 
Twilight (movie adaptation/spoof)
2/4-7/26 (at Theatre Off Jackson)
Ian Bell’s Brown Derby, www.strangertickets.com
The Brown Derby Series has presented "Ridiculously Staged Readings of Your Favorite Screenplays" since 1999, becoming a Seattle comedy institution with a loyal following. Now TBD sinks its teeth into Twilight, the brooding world of sparkly vampires, angst-ridden teens, and one very intense biology class. When a shy newcomer arrives in the gloomy town of Forks, she falls for a mysterious classmate with an even more mysterious thirst for…well, you know.

Anticipate Great Theater in 2026 – Ready, Set, January!

Bohemia (courtesy Marxiano Prods.)

We’ve survived another year! January is certainly bringing world premieres and enticing shows our way. Also a couple of reprises you might want to check out having missed the last time. Get out yer calendars!
 
The Heart Sellers
1/2/26-2/1/26
Seattle Rep, www.seattlerep.org
Young immigrants Luna and Jane meet as strangers over the frozen turkeys at the grocery store on Thanksgiving in 1973, while their husbands work long hours. They decide to celebrate this unfamiliar holiday together. As they bond over their new lives in America and their longing for faraway family in Korea and the Philippines, they discover a kinship that overcomes any language barrier. (Recommended for ages 13+.)
 
Walking on a Paper Moon and Lear (alone)
1/10-19/26 (at ReACT Theatre, 562 1st Avenue South #400)
Baker Theatre Workshop, https://www.bakertheaterworkshop.com/
Walking on a Paper Moon is a one-act play about a father and his daughters coping with grief while watching the first moon landing. Lear (alone), an adaptation of the Shakespearean tragedy, focuses on the original play’s third act, with Lear alone in the wilderness and slowly descending into madness. (Free with reservation)
 
SHe Said, Stories & Songs by Jen Ayers
1/13/26-2/1/26 (at Erickson Theatre)
Intiman Theatre, www.intiman.org
When Jen’s partner of 25 years came out as transgender, their relationship entered uncharted territory, sparking a journey of self-discovery, growth, and fierce devotion—as partners, as individuals, and as parents of an 8-year-old. Jen then turned to her piano, creating what would become SHe Said—a deeply personal, genre-defying story about navigating transition together as a family.
 
Li (world premiere)
1/16/26-2/8/26
Seattle Public Theater with SiS Productions, www.seattlepublictheater.org and https://celebr8women.wordpress.com 

Li, a mid-career thief from Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, suddenly finds herself taking on too much responsibility. She breaks into an apartment and ends up emptying her pockets to feed its old, blind and starving resident. She gets a phone call from her estranged brother, a college professor in New York City, who tells her that he’s dying from cancer and now it’s her job to take care of their mother. With three mouths to feed, Li has to reconsider her career choice. Can her street smarts help her survive? A play with a radio, a hen, and a really good fart joke.

Chelsea LeValley in 'Penelope' - Can't Get Any Better

Chelsea LeValley as Penelope (John McLellan)

Penelope

Artswest

through December 21, 2025

Chelsea LeValley has been gallivanting around national theaters gaining credits (like touring with Come From Away) and valuable experience honing her craft. Thankfully, she's back in town for the run of this solo musical extraordinary effort, Penelope at Artswest. 

The promo blurb says, "Penelope has been waiting…and waiting…and waiting for her husband, Odysseus, to return from a decade-long war. Given the rest of the soldiers came home years ago—forgive her, but she’s going to need a drink while she tells you about it." A folk-inflected pop score, backed by a five-piece onstage band, this musical demands a compelling performer with vulnerability and a great belt.

Penelope was the wife of Odysseus - King of Ithaca - who left to battle in the Trojan Wars. True to the story in The Odyssey, she sings about the war being over in ten years, yet Odysseus does not return for ten more. That's a lot of waiting! 

Ha Ha Ha Ha-liday Shows (and a bunch of Scrooges)

Scott Shoemaker's War on Christmas (Bronwen Houck)

You know what’s in store on Seattle stages, this month! Go for the classics or go for the laughs. Plenty of shows to choose from! Get out yer calendars!

The Past, A Present Yet to Come (Michael Brunk)

The Past, a Present Yet to Come
Through 12/21/25 (at Kennedy Catholic High, 140 S. 140th St., Burien)
Burien Actors Theatre, www.battheatre.org
In this irreverent imagining of how Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol came to be written, a young entrepreneur in Victorian London sets out to produce a play that will soften his Uncle Ebenezer Scrooge’s hard heart. He turns to no-nonsense theatre producer J.B. Roth, who engages a broke, philandering Dickens. Are there ulterior motives for this unlikely mission to save Scrooge?
 
The Sound of Music
Through 12/21/25 (at 9315 State Ave, Suite J, Marysville)
Red Curtain Foundation for the Arts, www.redcurtainfoundation.org
Let the melodies of the Alps welcome you as we bring this beloved musical to life for the holiday season. Filled with iconic songs, heartfelt storytelling, and the inspiring story of the Von Trapp family, The Sound of Music continues to captivate audiences of all ages.
 
A Charlie Brown Christmas
12/4-27/25
Taproot Theatre, www.taproottheatre.org
Charlie Brown is depressed by the never-ending commercialism surrounding the holidays. Thankfully, Linus is there to help him find the true meaning of Christmas in this musical adaptation of the cartoon classic. 7^th year in a row, almost a holiday tradition! (40 minutes)

Fellow Passengers
12/4-22/25
Strawberry Theatre Workshop, www.strawshop.org

Greg Carter has adapted Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the actual narrative into a three-person presentation. The play engages found objects, clothes, and furniture to restore vitality to the most important story ever written. Imogen Love, Kiki Abba, and Heather Persinger share the role of literature's most famous haunted man and his joyful discovery that the people around him are "fellow passengers to the grave; not another race of creatures bound on other journeys." 

A Klingon Christmas Carol (courtesy Latitude Theatre)

A Klingon Christmas Carol
12/4-28/25 (at Seattle Center, Armory)
Latitude Theatre, www.latitudetheatre.org
With dialogue scripted completely in the Klingon language, and narrated in English by a Vulcan narrator (and translated with supertitles), Klingon themes of courage and honor propel Dickens’ traditional story of the cowardly SQuja’ (Scrooge) as he is challenged to revisit his choices and change his fate with the help of three Klingon warrior spirits.
 
The Dina Martina Christmas Show
12/5-24/25
Union Arts Center, www.unionartscenter.org
A beloved tradition for over 25 years, Dina’s cabaret performance offers a hilarious take on traditional and contemporary holiday tunes, accompanied by award-winning composer/musician/adult prodigy Chris Jeffries. Experience this hysterically funny and joyous production with your friends and family!

Seattle November Theater Provides a Warm Embrace

Acrobatic  Conundrum Threads (Josh Lieberman)

Lot of holiday oriented theatrical productions, of course, starting now. Some of our favorite laugh-factories are back for another go. There are world premieres and off-beat musicals and updates to classic musicals, too. Check it out and get out yer calendars, now!
 
Threads
Through 11/8/25
Acrobatic Conundrum, www.acrobaticconundrum.com
A tangled world, by turns emotive and exhilarating. Rope papers the walls, rope becomes an animate object in the hands of a clown, rope elevates dance-storytelling into the air. Acrobats revel in the messy knot of being connected to each other, pulling their weight, trusting, and putting their lives on the line for each other. Threads is a circus opus featuring seven performers and a musician, an exploration of connection, love, and endings — a story strung with grace and daring that will leave you inspired and curiously alive.
 
OMNIA Break Room (world premiere)
11/6-16/25 (at Meany Studio Theatre)
UW School of Drama, www.drama.uw.edu
In a world of streamlined efficiency, the employees of OMNIA (Latin for “everything”) convene in the breakroom during their shifts. Employees feel isolated and disconnected in an environment constantly extracting the most of people, until the inhumane system creates a schism, revealing a different life on the other side.
 
Anything Goes
11/7-22/25 (at Theatre Off Jackson)
Reboot Theatre Company, www.reboottheatre.org
When the S.S. Reboot heads out to sea, etiquette and convention head out the portholes as two unlikely pairs set off on the course to true love... proving that sometimes destiny needs a little help from a crew of singing sailors, a comical disguise, and some good old-fashioned blackmail.  Songs you may know, of pop and jazz standards, but might not know were from this musical, include "Anything Goes," "You're the Top," "All Through the Night," and "I Get a Kick Out of You."

New “Shrew” Lacks Love

Shrew - Jocelyn Maher and Rachel Guyer-Mafune (photo Giao Nguyen)

Shrew
Union Arts Center
Through 11/2/25
 
The blurb for this production, Shrew, said, “Girl meets boy. Girl hates boy. Girl agrees to marry boy against her will so her sister can get married too. Got it? Shrew uses the classic Shakespearian (Taming of the Shew) text — but inverted, upended, and overturned — to offer a modern-day perspective on how far we’ve come when it comes to love — and how far we still have to go.”
 
It is a new adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. But the promise was perhaps oversold on the “modern-day perspective.” Many playwrights have been updating Shakespeare’s plays these days because we all know the 1500s were not shining examples of egalitarian attitudes towards women. Sometimes, people will argue that Shakespeare himself took great pains in some of his plays to empower his women characters, so there’s that.
 
The Taming focuses on Kate, an independent-minded woman who doesn’t suffer fools lightly, and as Shakespeare’s language portrays her, is rude and indifferent. She’s “untamable.” Because of her dowery – and maybe because she’s pretty, Petruchio decides to marry her and sets out to prove that he can tame her. Essentially, he starves her, isolates her, and demands that she learn to accept his word as the law.
 
And it’s a comedy. All this does not mean I dislike the play. It really does need to be contextualized for its time. And this is one of his more egalitarian storylines, in spite of the barbaric plot line.

October Theater Offers Mystery, Monsters, and World Premieres

Outside Mullingar (courtesy As If Theatre)

October looks like fun on our stages with quite a number of world premieres and a few shows with murder and mystery. Get out yer calendars!

The Coast Starlight (Michael Brunk)

The Coast Starlight
Now open through 10/19/25 (at Kennedy Catholic High School, 140 S. 140th St., Burien)
Burien Actors Theatre, https://battheatre.org/the-coast-starlight-2025
A young man with a life-changing secret boards a long-distance train, the Coast Starlight. With the help of his fellow travelers, who are reckoning with their own choices, he has roughly a thousand miles to find a way forward. This story of “what ifs” looks at what happens when we step beyond being strangers to connect, and how our interactions can change ourselves and others. A story about our capacity for invention and re-invention when life goes off the rails.
 
Outside Mullingar
10/2-10/25
As If Theatre, www.asiftheatre.com
Anthony and Rosemary are two introverted misfits who live on adjoining farms in the Irish countryside. Neighbors for generations, things come to a head when Tony Reilly, Anthony’s father, reveals his plan to disinherit him and sell the farm to another relative. As a feud simmers between the two families, old secrets, surprising truths, and long-hidden feelings threaten to emerge. In this quintessentially Irish story, the heartbreaking and the hilarious are woven together to create a deeply moving story of yearning, loss, family, romance, and the vulnerability of taking a chance on love.

Ms. Frankenstein's Monster (courtesy The Phoenix Theatre)

Ms. Frankenstein’s Monster
10/2-29/25
The Phoenix Theatre, https://www.tptedmonds.org/season18shows.html
You've never seen Frankenstein like this! Baron Frankenstein is down on his luck. The sparsity of viewers staying up to see his old monster on late, late TV shows depresses his ego and his credit at the bank. Can he renew his fame and fortune as a monster maker? Yes! He’ll create a football superstar cheered by millions. But his sister, Baroness Frankenstein, has her own ideas. She furtively creates a female monster attractive enough to become a Hollywood star. The town’s husbands are on one side, and their wives are on the other. The Baron commands his monster to destroy his sister’s. The reaction of the monsters at their first meeting is a tour de force of comic action.
 
Stage of Fools (world premiere)
10/3/25-11/2/25
Seattle Public Theater, www.seattlepublictheater.org
A scrappy feminist theater company is about to go under when it receives an offer it can't refuse: has-been ’80s action movie star Jake Stone will give it more money than ever dreamed of, if it will produce King Lear, with him in the titular role. Never mind that he's an entitled, egotistical blowhard. These women can survive anything for the sake of the theater they love...right? A world premiere written by local playwright Joy McCullough.

September Theater Openings – Off to the races!

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle from Book-It (Michelle Bates)

We have a Keiko Green mini-festival with two of her newest plays (Hells Canyon, Exotic Deadly) opening at once! A few events are one-day or one-weekend short, so attention is needed. World premieres and wildly different subject matter give us so much to see and do this month. Book-It pops in again! (Check out the new formatting... do you like it?)
 
The Laramie Project

9/4-28/25 (at ReAct Studios, 562 1st Ave S - 4th Floor)

ReAct Theatre www.reacttheatre.org

The critically acclaimed documentary-style play explores the aftermath of the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, a young gay man in a non-accepting community. Based on real interviews with residents of Laramie, news reports, and journal entries, it captures the community’s reactions to the hate crime and its impact.

Hells Canyon
9/5-21/26 (at 12th Avenue Arts)
Washington Ensemble Theatre, www.washingtonensemble.org
Seven-months pregnant Ariel arrives at a remote cabin with some old friends. Resentments surface and buried histories claw their way into the light when the group hears something outside, trying to get in… or out? In this horror-thriller, there are some decisions you cannot outrun.
 
For Colored Boyz (on the verge of a nervous breakdown / when freedom ain’t enuff)
9/5-21/25 (at Base Camp Studios, 2407 1^st Ave)
The Underground Theater, www.underground.theater
Written by Bryan-Keyth Wilson, this choreopoem brings to life the voices of queer Black and brown men through poetry, movement, and music. Raw, vulnerable, and transformative, it is a call to reflect, to listen, and to see one another more fully.
 
Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play
9/6–20/25 (at Theatre Off Jackson)
Porkfilled Productions and SiS Productions, www.porkfilled.com
Ami, an awkward Japanese American high school girl in 1999, wants to be invisible. But her world comes crashing down with a terrible discovery: her family is responsible for manufacturing MSG, the poison spice getting all the kids hooked. A mysterious new girl arrives from Japan, named Exotic Deadly. and she’s not playing by the rules. This whimsical, time-traveling adventure is a riotous romp through teenage crushes, family secrets, and female power.
 
Yaga
9/11-27/25 (at 12th Avenue Arts)
Dacha Theatre, www.dachatheatre.com
A genre-bending, darkly comedic fairy tale meets thrilling whodunit, giving voice to an antihero of epic proportions whose story has historically been told by men. An in-over-his-head detective finds himself in an isolated college town asking what the disappearance of a young heir to a yogurt empire has to do with a random folktale about an old witch. Involving an apprehensive local sheriff, a university professor with a taste for younger men, and a whole cast of curious characters, the Slavic myth of Baba Yaga twists into a new labyrinth of secret lives, ancient magic, and multiple suspects.