June Theater: Shorts Galore and Soon Free Park Shows!

Tracy Michelle Hughes, Reginald André Jackson, Deja Culver, Jacob Alcazar, Joe Moore in Clyde's at ArtsWest

June is packed with shorts festivals and the start of theater (and dance) in the parks! Get out yer calendars!
 
Clyde's, ArtsWest and The Hansberry Project, 6/6-30/24
Lynn Nottage’s latest Broadway triumph introduces the formerly incarcerated kitchen staff of Clyde’s, a truck stop cafe. Even as the shop’s mischievous owner tries to keep them under her thumb, the staffers are given purpose and permission to dream.
www.artswest.org
 
Distillery New Works Festival, Seattle Public Theater, already happened
Each play in the festival receives a live reading with a cast of professional actors and a director. The readings conclude with a moderated discussion of the play with the playwright. Funnie by Jessica Moss, Impossible Theories Of Us by John Mabey, Li by Wei He, The Park by Lisa Every and Jenn Ruzumna, Possessed by Gloria Majule, Safe Hands by Alara Magritte and Daniel Rosen, Skin by Anamaria Guerzon.
www.seattlepublictheater.org
 
Spring Awakening, 5^th Avenue Theatre, 6/7-30/24
Spring Awakening is an electrifying journey through the trials and challenges of adolescence, with music by Duncan Sheik. The story explores the mystery of attraction, desire, sex, insecurity, and the highs and lows of navigating the pressures of young adult life. With a score of contemporary rock music that transformed the way Broadway thinks about musicals, Spring Awakening is a poignant and thrilling ride that stings with resonance for today’s youth.
www.5thavenue.org

Fierce Farceurs of Fun at Taproot

Nathan Brockett and Sophia Franzella (photo by Robert Wade)

Sherlock Holmes and the Precarious Position
Taproot Theatre
Through June 22, 2024 (happily extended)
 
Taproot Theatre has a clear preference for plays by Margaret Raether. They’ve done many of her Jeeves plays in recent years which are quite fun escapes from the doldrums of life, provide a laugh and a bit of mystery to solve. Raether has also written a “Sherlock Holmes” play, but rather than base it on a real Conan Doyle story, she’s crafted her own mystery and a version of Holmes that is far less serious than what you might be used to.
 
Here, her Holmes (played by Calder Jameson Shilling) is more gleeful than glum and more of a trickster than terse. She makes Dr. Watson the narrator (Nathaniel Tenenbaum), though some of the narration gets a bit muddy script-wise. Watson is also much less of a sober sidekick, with more emphasis on “kick” and less on “side.”
 
Shilling and Tenenbaum bring their usual finesse to these, as any, roles. But the real, dizzying work of the play is done by two well-known Seattle clowns, Nathan Brockett and Sophia Franzella. Brockett and Franzella play every other character in the script with costume changes (wonderfully designed by Pete Rush) that are so quick, sometimes, that they seem impossible.

“Unrivaled” Layer Upon Layer of Intrigue (With Fun!)

Alanah Pasqual, Pearl Lam, Adele Lim in "Unrivaled" at Seattle Public Theater 

Unrivaled
SiSProductions and Seattle Public Theater
Through June 2, 2024
 
The opening moments of Unrivaled, in a co-production between SiS Productions and Seattle Public Theater, immediately propel you into every aspect of Rosie Narasaki’s fascinating play about 1000-year-old Japanese writers Lady Murasaki and Lady Sei. Director Mimi Katano brilliantly sets the mood and the music.
 
Precise dance moves; specific use of fans; a gauzy, simple, effective set by Robin Macartney; and elliptical conversations that hint at layers beyond layers of meaning. These elements plus a trio of super actors create a 100-minute production that flies by.
 
Adele Lim starts to narrate the story as Empress Teishi with such cuteness it’s impossible not to laugh, but also demonstrates instantaneous ability to change her demeanor and after setting herself up as a ditz, also asks some of the very smartest questions in the script.
 
Teishi describes her court and the intrigue surrounding royal family secret and not so secret attempts at rising to the top. She shrugs her shoulders at the culture that marries off all the daughters to the rising sons as a way to keep power in the family. She details the most recent spate of deaths and successions. She also introduces how her court includes the smartest lady writers recruited to write and publish for an information-starved populace.

‘The Lehman Trilogy’ Tells A Lot, Shows Little

 

Robert Pescovitz, Bradford Farwell, Brandon J. Simmons
in The Lehman Trilogy (Rosemary Dai Ross)

The Lehman Trilogy
ACT Theatre 

Through May 19, 2024

Does the ACT Theatre production of The Lehman Trilogy stand up to the play? Or does the play stand up to ACT’s version?
 
Of the Broadway production in 2021, Charles Isherwood, critic at Broadway News, said, “But for all its surface stylishness, "The Lehman (Trilogy)" is a stolid and rather monolithic slab of a show: a three hour and twenty minute talking Wikipedia page, so dense with description and narration, and devoid of drama - or even dialogue - that watching it is like watching very expensive paint dry, or maybe, to use a more apt metaphor, listening to cotton growing.”
 
There are a lot of glowing reviews out there that beckon you to come see an amazing story. The story is, indeed, amazing, though 160 years in the making. However, the script by Ben Power (from the first iteration by Stephano Massini), is written in what Seattle might think of as “The Book-It Style” where people refer to themselves in third person (Henry says, “He looked hard at his brother.” While looking hard at his brother.).
 
Book-It Repertory Theatre used that style often to great effect while also working very hard to theatricalize the novel it was based upon. Here, though, it’s a history book. This history tries to conflate decades into three plus hours. Three actors portray three brothers and all the myriad other characters throughout their lives.

May Laughs Abound in Theater

Nathaniel Tanenbaum and Sophia Franzella in Sherlock Holmes and the Precarious Position at Taproot Theatre (Robert Wade)

May seems to have brought out the funny-bone in the Seattle area theater world. If you’re looking for something dark and moody, you probably have to wait a month! Here are world premieres and a bunch of laughs, so get out yer calendars and get some tickets!
 
The Lion Tells His Tale, Intiman Theatre, 5/1-5/24 (at Broadway Performance Hall) (world premiere)
Vida Oliphant Sneed introduces Delbert Richardson’s national award-winning museum, making it come to life on stage for a brand new theatrical experience. Audiences will be transported on a journey of awakening as the brilliance, resistance, and resilience of Black people from Africa to the Americas is brought to life. Music, dance, and spoken word carry our hero through time as we all gather to engage and learn. “Until the lion tells his tale, the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” - African proverb
www.intiman.org
 
The Savannah Sipping Society, Edmonds Driftwood Players, 5/3-19/24
Four unique Southern women, all needing to escape the sameness of their day-to-day routines, are drawn together by Fate—and an impromptu happy hour—and decide it’s high time to reclaim the enthusiasm for life they’ve lost through the years. Together, they discover lasting friendships and a renewed determination to live in the moment.
www.edmondsdriftwoodplayers.org
 
Bee Present, SecondStory Repertory, 5/4-19/24 (world premiere)
A new children’s musical with Book & Lyrics by Kate Swenson and Music by John Allman. Birdie the Bee is so busy micromanaging the hive that she forgot the queen's birthday. Now she's on an impossible quest to find a gift the queen has never received before. And if she fails to surprise and delight her monarch---Birdie is out of the hive forever. With the help of a distractible hummingbird, a merry meadow, some crafty crows, and the infamous Sloth Thought Collective, this overly busy bee might find more than the perfect gift, she just might learn to stop stressing and Bee Present. (Ages 4+, 55 minutes no intermission)
www.secondstoryrep.org
 
Broadway Spectacular, Seattle Women’s Chorus, 5/4/24 (1:00PM and 5:00PM at Cornish Playhouse)
Billie Wildrick guest stars with the Seattle Women’s Chorus as it celebrates all things Broadway! Billie is is one of Seattle’s best-known musical theater performers with a belt that can’t be beat.  This is a concert that will keep your toes tapping and hands clapping.
www.seattlechoruses.org

Hear “English” in a New Way at ArtsWest

 

Almost full cast of English at Artswest (John McLellan)

English
ArtsWest and Seda Iranian Theatre Ensemble
Through April 28, 2024
 
In a classroom in Karaj, Iran, in the year 2008, four students are learning English in hopes of passing the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language), a test that might open the door to them for many opportunities, including visas to the United States. This quickly moving, non-stop play, directed by Naghmeh Samini, unfolds their stories and their challenges and even their emotional responses to learning the language itself.
 
Omid (Emon Elboudwarej) turns out to already have an American visa, and partly grew up in the U.S. speaking Americanized English. He is close to being able to gain a green card. When the classmates find out, they are both jealous and outraged, feeling like he shouldn’t even be in class with them if he can speak so well. But he has his reasons.
 
Goli (Newsha Farahani) loves learning languages. At 18, she’s not sure how she’ll put English to use, but is sure it will come in handy. Roya (Janet Hayatshahi) has a born-in-America granddaughter and her son is pushing her to speak only English to his child. She feels like she has no choice, but wishes she could let her granddaughter hear the poetry and history of her son’s native tongue.