"Stick Fly" a good way for Intiman to start off summer of African-American playwrights

Tyler Trerise and Chantal DeGroat in Stick Fly (Inye Wokoma)

Stick Fly

Intiman Theatre

(at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute)

Through June 19, 2016

Intiman’s season, this summer, is a celebration of African-American women playwrights. That is a great plan! A chunk of time in the summer will be used for readings from several playwrights, and you should check the website: www.intiman.org for times and dates and writers. They are mounting two full productions; the first is open and staging at Langston Hughes Performance Arts Institute.

Stick Fly is by Lydia R. Diamond. It notably avoids the stereotype of the poor black family, setting this family drama in a Cape Cod cottage during a family get-together. But issues of class, historic racism in the community, and absentee fathers play heavily in the script.

“Caught” at Seattle Public Asks What Is True

Lin Bo (Kevin Lin) in Caught (John Ulman)

Caught

Seattle Public Theater

Through June 12, 2016

We hang a lot on “truth” and believing in something real. We like to feel anchored and then free to explore. How many like to go somewhere new and then put your clothing and possessions into hotel drawers so you feel “at home” before you wander off explore the new environment?

Caught, by Christopher Chen, is a play at Seattle Public Theater. But it’s more an experience in disorientation than any kind of story. It asks what truth is. It challenges us to look at what we believe or understand and then shakes us up to ask that again and again and again.

"Billy Elliot" – A Joyous Event at Village

Billy Elliot older and younger duet (Mark Kitaoka)

Billy Elliot the Musical

Village Theatre

Issaquah: through July 3, 2016

Everett: July 8-31, 2016

Village Theatre has undertaken an enormously difficult challenge with the mounting of the musical Billy Elliot, by Elton John and Lee Hall. I think they’ve pulled it off, by golly!

It’s based on the movie about a young British boy who finds a love of ballet, during the 1983 mining troubles there. The gritty miners, including Billy’s own family, have great difficulty moving past their prejudices about ballet, but finally find their way to supporting Billy in his quest to get to ballet school.

June Theater Openings Aren't Quite Busting, But Nice

Justin Gregory Lopez in Paint Your Wagon at the 5th Avenue Theatre (Mark Kitaoka)

June has a smaller group of theater openings than usual for this city. Maybe that means you can make it to each one of these before the month is out!

9 Circles, Strawberry Theatre Workshop, 6/2-25/16

9 Circles is based on the infamous case of former 101st Airborne Division Pfc Steven Dale Green, convicted in a federal court in 2009 of raping and killing an Iraqi fourteen-year-old girl and murdering her family. Green was discharged from the military in May 2006 after being found to have a personality disorder. He was sentenced to multiple life sentences in civilian court and hung himself in prison. 9 Circles won the 2011 Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award.

http://www.strawshop.org/9-circles.html

Paint Your Wagon, 5th Ave, 6/2-26/16

This may look like a classic musical, but it’s being billed as a “revisal” – a reworking of an old version. The music remains, with classics like They Call the Wind Maria, but the book (script) has been rewritten by Jon Marans. It’s the story of the rise and fall of a remote mining town during the height of the Gold Rush. Men and women from around the world take a leap of faith and journey to California to seize hold of the American dream, only to find themselves swept up in a clash of culture, passion, greed and romance. Filled with local veteran performers and a few imported powerhouses, this is an exciting opportunity.

https://www.5thavenue.org/show/paint-your-wagon

"Emily Linder" at Taproot Hits the Funny Bone as Well as the Heart

Charity Parenzini and Laura Kenny in The Realization of Emily Linder (John Ulman)

The Realization of Emily Linder

Taproot Theatre

Through June 11, 2016

Emily Linder has had a realization. She’s going to die in a couple of days. She tells her daughters, who have mixed feelings of belief, and demands that they plan her funeral. But she tells them exactly what she wants to have at the funeral, including helium balloons!

So begins the current play, The Realization of Emily Linder, at Taproot Theatre. Playwright Richard Strand includes a lot of contemporary stressors of families: elder care issues, managing illness, losses of spouses in later life, adult children coping with aging parents, sibling rivalry and more.

ArtsWest Presents Exquisite "Death of a Salesman"

Kyle Anton Johnson, David Pichette, Drew Highlands in Death of a Salesman (Michael Brunk)

Death of a Salesman

ArtsWest

Through May 29, 2016

I can’t say I wasn’t a bit skeptical when I heard that ArtsWest was planning to mount Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman in their season. It just didn’t seem like a play that fit all that well into their oeuvre, nor was I sure that it was a classic that stood the test of time all the way to now.

That was before I saw the production that slayed me with its precision and relevance! This is a stunning effort!

There are still two more weekends to see this play, and to see David Pichette play Willie Loman at the exact right moment in Pichette’s career. He is heartbreaking, alternately optimistic and caustic, and no holds barred either way.