The 2016 Gypsy Rose Lee Award Nominees Are!

The Royale (Dawn Schaefer)

Seattle Theater Writers, Seattle’s only critics circle, announces the Sixth Annual Nominations of the 2016 Gypsy Rose Lee Awards!

Spanning 28 theater companies and 59 productions, from the largest and most prominent to small, humble and innovative, the Gypsy Rose Lee Awards honor as much professional theater as we reviewers can cram into our year. 

Well known large companies such as Seattle Repertory Theatre with 6 nominations and ACT Theatre with 15 nominations and Seattle Shakespeare Company with 8 nominations contrast favorably with small companies such as Sound Theatre Company with 14 nominations, ArtsWest with 14 nominations and Theatre22 with 13 nominations. Musical theater companies The 5th Avenue Theatre and Village Theatre inevitably share 15 and 12 nominations apiece as the top musical providers in our area. 

The curious play at Ghost Light Theatricals

Beth Pollack and Kevin Lin (Joe Iano)

The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence

Ghost Light Theatricals

Through February 4, 2017

To a large extent, Madeleine George’s Pulitzer finalist play, The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence, seems to suggest that artificial intelligence could be somewhat seductive as a partner, but it’s not as fulfilling as messy real life. To get around to that conclusion, you might have to mull it over for a few days after you see the production at Ghost Light Theatricals.

Let’s start by saying that Ghost Light’s production is nicely directed by Steven Sterne, who brings out sensitive portrayals by the two playing sensitive characters, Beth Pollack and Kevin Lin, and an appropriately off-putting one by Brent Griffith. This is a well-balanced trio of actors.

January 2017 Theater Openings - an eclectic month

By Heart (coming to On the Boards) (Magda Bizarro)

January 2017 promises something for everyone as this very eclectic month in theater maybe hints at a very unusual year to come. Check it out and plan your month!

The Trojan Women, Civic Rep, 1/6-29/17 (at Slate Theater)  

British playwright and poet Caroline Bird's radical retelling of Euripides' The Trojan Women. Bird transports this famous anti-war tragedy to the modern setting of a prison hospital. Beyond the prison walls, Troy and its people burn. Inside the prison, the city’s captive women await their fate. Their grief at what has been before will soon be drowned out by the horror of what is to come.

www.civicrep.org

Woody Sez: The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie, Seattle Repertory Theatre, 1/6-29/17

The legendary Woody Guthrie defined an American era of social consciousness and political expression with songs such as "This Land is Your Land" and "The Ballad of Tom Joad." This musical portrait, featuring Woody's stirring ballads and joyous anthems, celebrates the colorful life and rich musical legacy of America's great folk troubadour.

www.seattlerep.org

Best Theater of 2016!

The Royale (Dawn Shaefer)

It’s time for Crazy 2016 to be over…. That means it’s time for the annual attempt to bring to mind the best experiences of the year. As usual, there are so many aspects of good work to cover!

Local Writing:

First up, I want to acknowledge the incredible amount of Local Writing that exploded onto our stages this year! Seriously great work from talented writers! Two favorites of 2016 were Do It For Umma by Seayoung Yim, mounted at Annex and Theatre Off Jackson, and A Hand of Talons by Maggie Lee, mounted by Pork Filled Productions. A favorite adaptation was Laura Ferri’s A Tale for the Time Being at Book-It Repertory Theatre.

Exciting writing also included: Can’t Talk Right Now by Scotto Moore, Chorestia by Beth Raas-Bergquist, Puny Humans by Bret Fetzer and Keiko Green, Bernie’s Apt. by Rose Cano, Terra Incognita by Benjamin Benne, Trump the King by Nick Edwards, The Lost Girls by Courtney Meaker, From Kings to Controllers by Stacy Flood, Nick Stokes’ Duels, and Roz and Ray by Karen Hartman. Sara Porkalob created two new iterations of her solo piece about her amazing grandmother and will bring another one to Café Nordo in January (Madame Dragon’s 60^th Birthday Bash).

Two Companies’ Outstanding Work:

I also want to acknowledge two companies who have done some of the best work of their history in 2016: ArtsWest and Ghost Light Theatricals.

“Vietgone” Should Not Be Forgotten – Try to see it!

Amy Kim Waschke and Jeena Yi in Vietgone (Navid Baraty)

Vietgone

Seattle Repertory Theatre

Through January 1, 2017

“Write what you know.” That’s a lot of what people are told when they embark on writing anything and aren’t sure where to start. Playwright Qui Nguyen, in Vietgone, has done that in this trenchant, funny, hip-hop spouting, immigrant-experience-explaining road trip through the fall of Saigon and the evacuating of some thousands of South Vietnamese in helicopter rides to battleships.

“Vietnam was a huge mistake.” That is what most of us know, if we know anything about that war besides how badly the vets coming back were treated. From a U.S. point of view – and don’t we always take the truth from a U.S. point of view? – U.S. participation in and escalation of the war in Vietnam is looked at as a huge disaster. Partly because the reason for our participation, aka The Domino Effect, was only a theory and because so many of our young men died or were maimed for life. Money spent was thought to be wasted and we reached beyond our shores for bad reasons.

Also, we lost. We pulled out of South Vietnam in 1975 and they fell and it all became one communist country anyway. But there are other points of view.

Help save Christmas from aliens - and eat reindeer!

Christmas is Burning (John Cornicello)

Christmas is Burning

Café Nordo

Through December 30, 2016

You too can be part of the Holiday Defense League “as they valiantly struggle to save the most wonderful day of the year.” How? By coming in from the cold to Café Nordo and being on the ship the HMS Whooville. Also by eating reindeer!

It’s nice to have crew there who will keep up your calories by feeding you well during the flight. You’ll need them to fight off the killer robots who are infiltrating from a warp in time.

This is like nothing else on this planet. Guaranteed. Of course, just about anything written by Scot Augustson is like nothing else on this planet. Which means you may or may not understand much of it besides the keen focus on jokes. This iteration of shadow puppetry and food pairs talented food creator Erin Brindley with the mental hijinks of Augustson’s fertile (and furtive?) mind.