“White Christmas” is Here to Smile Up Your Holidays

 

Cayman Ilika and Taryn Darr in White Christmas (Mark Kitaoka)

Irving Berlin’s White Christmas
5^th Avenue Theatre (for tickets)

Through December 24, 2023
 
Your Christmas delight on stage is at hand. The 5^th Avenue Theatre has decided to mount White Christmas again, having produced it in 2006 and 2009. The reason is very clear: it’s a chance to sit back, laugh, and relax while a bunch of singers and hoofers sing and dance their tushies off. This talented cast is here to do exactly that for you!
 
The script is aging, although romances never go out of style, but there are jokes a plenty – some good, some groan-worthy, and almost everyone in the cast gets a little cameo and a lot of applause. 
 
David Armstrong and James A. Rocco have co-directed this production all three times, so they know what they’re doing cold and recreate their vision pretty exactly. The sets and costumes are absolutely gorgeous (by Anna Louizos and Carrie Robbins), and the orchestra, led by Matt Perri, has the lush 1940s sound needed for all that Irving Berlin music.

"Beautiful" should Not Be Missed!

 

Jason Kappus and Sarah Rose Davis in Beautiful (Auston James)

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical
Village Theatre (www.villagetheatre.org)
Issaquah: Through December 23, 2023
Everett: January 6 to January 28, 2024
 
I will absolutely rave about the perfection of Sarah Rose Davis as Carole King and the rest of the cast, in a minute. I promise! But OMG the SET! The set and the lights and projections!!! I’m so in love with Grace Laubacher, set designer, Robert J. Aguilar, lighting designer, and Ahren Buhmann, projection designer, right now.
 
You see, I have a “thing” about sets and set changes – so often there’s too much set, sometimes for no reason, and usually set changes just take time and are noticeable, and often also changed for no reason. This set was a thing of beauty because it changes in a Split Second!
 
That’s important because there are So. Many. Set. Changes. And it’s beautiful or useful. Also, the lighting here comes from the back to light up parts of the set, and the projection changes locations and I don’t know how they do that thing where when the set is moving you can see behind it, but when it stops, it’s a new location that is not see-through! Magic!
 
While I’m talking tech, the costumes by Melanie Taylor Burgess were absolutely spot on and there were Tons of them! Very 1960s and you could see the years change by the costumes in the scenes. There isn’t a credit for wigs, but there were Tons of those, too, also absolutely telling the story through their wearings. I’ll presume that Melanie coordinated/made those, too, and they hit every note.
 
OK. So.
 
Beautiful tells the story of the very early years of Carole King’s life, starting when she is 16 and already devoted to getting into the song-writing business. Douglas McGrath’s book (words spoken not sung) is funny and encompasses all the changes in Carole’s life with swift scenes that move the story along in a very satisfying way. All of the songs that are sung in the musical are either by Carole and her husband Gerry Goffin, or their friends and competitors in song-writing, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. You are likely to know many of them, since they wrote so many classics.
 
The show opens with Carole, played by the sublime Sarah Rose Davis, at a pinnacle of her success when she plays a concert at Carnegie Hall. She has achieved a massive success with her now classic perfect album, Tapestry.

Thank Goodness It’s the Season on Seattle Stages

Rebecca Cort in Little Women (Seattle Rep) (photo by Sayed Alamy)

Sarah Rose Davis as Carole King in Beautiful (Village Theatre)

November stages have skipped Thanksgiving this year and gone straight to Christmas programming. There are quite a lot of choices for that, along with some interesting counter-programming. It’s a merry time to be back together in person and consider multiple family-friendly options! Get outcher calendars.
 
The Merry Wives of Windsor, Seattle Shakespeare Company, 11/1-19/23
Our old friend Falstaff has a ploy to make some easy money—woo Mistress Page and Mistress Ford and thus gain access to their husbands’ wealth. It shouldn’t be too challenging; he can be quite a charming and insightful man when it benefits him. He sends the mistresses notes with declarations of love, but in a small town like Windsor, everyone knows everyone else’s business and Mistresses Page and Ford soon realize their notes are exact copies. Rather than take that insult lying down, they make dates with Falstaff, scheming to be discovered in flagrante by their husbands and so to achieve their saucy revenge on the knight.
www.seattleshakespeare.org
 
Hotdish, Pony World Theatre, 11/3/23-12/2/23 (at 12^th Ave Arts) (world premiere)
Local playwright Brendan Healey presents his new play introducing Kayla and her older brother. Toby is unemployed and living with her in her cramped townhouse. But Toby believes he’s found the answer to all his troubles: winning his favorite reality TV cooking show, Champion Chef. As Toby falls deeper into this enticing fantasy, their mother, Evelyn, is hiding the truth about her own financial problems. Kayla is supposed to save them both, but she can barely keep her own life together. Guided by a magical being who just so happens to be the glamorous host of Champion Chef, the family will have to face what fractured their lives in the first place to find out if they can still love each other. Hotdish tells a story about family, food, and fixing the cracks in all our hearts.
www.ponyworld.org
 
Caligula, Theatre33, 11/4-18/23 (at 13243 20th Street NE, Bellevue, WA 98005)
(Presented in Russian with a summary in English) What do we know about Caesar, the Emperor of Rome? His name became commonly associated with ruthless tyrants. He was very young and ruled for only three and a half years prior to being killed by traitors. He squandered all the funds and was an unpredictable despot.  Historically, we know very little about him.  However, that is not the focus of Albert Camus’ play; rather, he explores the issues of power, integrity, freedom, corruption to address the existential questions.  What is the meaning of life? Does freedom exist? How to live knowing the inevitability of death?
https://www.theatre33wa.org/

October: Spooky, Funny, Renewed Production Companies, and Lots of New Plays!

 

Goodnight Moon at SCT

October has a fair number of spooks poking their noses onto our stages. Annex Theatre is resurrected. Zinzanni is back. There has to be at least ONE thing you’ll be dazzled by this month! Get outcher calenders!

 
Residency at Lotte Hotel, Teatro ZinZanni, 10/12/23-3/31/24
The legendary theatrical cirque experience, and Lotte Hotel Seattle, the premiere luxury hotel of downtown Seattle announce a new circus residency. This one-of-a-kind holiday run of performances promises an opulent, world-class extravaganza in the breathtaking setting of the hotel's largest venue, the Grand Ballroom in The Sanctuary. The Teatro ZinZanni dinner-and-show experience will bring the talents of Kevin Kent, Elena Gatilova and more to tease and tantalize. (Matinee 12PM, Evening 7PM)
www.zinzanni.com/seattle

 
Goodnight Moon, Seattle Children’s Theatre, 10/12/23-11/5/23
Goodnight Moon has been cherished by generations for over 40 years, and SCT’s lively musical production has been popular all over the country since the world premiere in 2007. Children and families can enjoy the surprise and delight of Bunny’s imaginative detours on the way to dreamland. In this intimate production, everyone will revel with Bunny in the fun of jumping cows, dancing bears, and a room that springs to life! (Ages 3+)
www.sct.org

 
Miss You Like Hell, Strawberry Theatre Workshop, 10/12/23-11/11/23 (at 12^th Ave Arts)
A teenager and her estranged mother—an undocumented Mexican on the verge of deportation—embark on a road trip across the United States to mend their frayed relationship. Combined with the musical talent of Erin McKeown, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes artfully crafts a story of the barriers and the bonds of family, while also addressing the complexities of immigration in today’s America.
www.strawshop.org

For the History Books – “Autocorrect Thinks I’m Dead”

 

Cast members of Autocorrect Thinks I'm Dead (Jason Tang)

Autocorrect Thinks I’m Dead
Sound Theatre Company
Through September 24, 2023
 
A long time ago, when I started reviewing theater, someone told me that reviewing was very important because a stage production is a living thing that only exists while the art-makers are making it. A review of it marks it in time as having existed. I, therefore, think it’s even more important when it’s a world premiere work where I am one of the few folks that was privileged to see it.
 
Sound Theatre Company mounted an intricate and somewhat complicated production of Autocorrect Thinks I’m Dead by Aimee Chou. Aimee is Deaf, but her work is not siloed into plays for Deaf folk. She’s writing for everybody. And it was a sold-out run! Except that the entire last sold-out weekend had to be cancelled because of illness.
 
This quirky, fun play is described by their blurb thusly: “Three Deaf roommates get more than they bargained for when mysterious messages from Alexander Graham Bell start appearing on a vintage teletypewriter phone (TTY). Told in American Sign Language (ASL), spoken English, and English captioning, (it’s a) twist on horror, a genre known for challenging culture and subverting expectations. It features a majority-Deaf and Hard of Hearing cast and creative team – with a set created by a Deaf scenic designer and lighting designer.”
 
Aimee Chou has also written Humanly Possible, Plumb Crazy Pipe Dream, and the shadow puppetry film Motherclucker! This is her first main stage production.

Huey Thrills (Again!) with Help of Fab Hometown Ensemble!

 

Cassi Q Kohl, Diana Huey, and Shaunyce Omar (Photo: Tracy Martin)

The Little Mermaid
The 5^th Avenue Theatre
Through October 8, 2023
 
As good as any Broadway NYC show, our area is blessed with a wealth of gorgeous performers who get to shine now in The Little Mermaid! We then are double-blessed to have Diana Huey return “home” to let us hear her crisp, clean, soaring voice – every bit as good as the first time she starred as Ariel on the 5^th Ave stage in 2016. Maybe even better!
 
Huey broke the mold in 2016 to star in a national tour as the first Asian American performer to star in the show. Rumors had it that there were some ugly adventures in some parts of the country where people somehow could not fathom how a mermaid could be Asian. It was also her biggest role, at that point, carrying a huge Broadway hit show on her shoulders. Now, seasoned by a move to NYC and dozens of performing opportunities, she is sure-finned and in perfect voice to do it again.