A “Bright” New Musical For Summer

Brenna Wagner in Bright Star (Erik Stuhaug)

Bright Star

Taproot Theatre

Through August 17, 2019

Steve Martin (yes, that one, the “wild and crazy guy”) and Edie Brickell wrote a feel-good musical that debuted on Broadway at the same time as that juggernaut Hamilton… So, Bright Star got zero attention and closed soon after.

But we, here in Seattle, get to enjoy the fruits of their labor as Taproot brings us their summer musical! The bluegrass music is insanely good and plays a lot throughout. It provides a lot of the great energy of the story of two young people growing up in a small town with some typical barriers to their love. Set in 1923-24 and then jumping forward to 1945-46, these North Carolina young folk have a lot of adults looking at and tut-tutting at their behavior.

Huertas Wins with “Octopus Wrestling Champion”

The cast of The Last World Octopus Wrestling Champion (John McLellan)

The Last World Octopus Wrestling Champion

Artswest

Through July 28, 2019

For a few years now, I’ve been attending readings and productions of new musicals around town. I’ve been fortunate to attend Village Theatre’s Festival of New Musicals for many summers, now, where at least five new musicals try to capture momentum, and attended most of their new Beta Series readings of fully produced but still in-development new works.

Free parks shows start in July! See what else is opening!

Sarah Harlett and Conner Neddersen in The Events at Intiman (Joe Moore)

July is, of course, the month when FREE OUTDOOR THEATER begins all over the area (donations always accepted). The official launch is at Volunteer Park for the whole weekend of July 13 and 14, all day long (see below for the link to the schedule). This month, there are a couple of world premieres and a revamped Gilbert & Sullivan operetta along with other varieties of shows.

Bon Appétit! The Julia Child Operetta, 7/1-29/19 (at the Rendevous)

Spend a Monday evening with memories of Julia Child while Anne Allgood bakes chocolate cake on stage and sings opera and host Julia Child Prud’homme dishes up remembrances of her great aunt. Anne and Julia will be joined by Mark Anders, musical accompanist, who -- like a fine wine -- provides the perfect musical pairing for a decadent evening of savory delights. Following the performance, you’ll be invited to share a slice of chocolate cake lovingly created from Julia’s original recipe!

https://therendezvous.boldtypetickets.com/events/95590153/bon-app-tit-the-julia-child-operetta

PRIDE Profile: Film-maker Wendy Jo Carlton

Wendy Jo Carlton (in hoody) directing Good Kisser (Rafael Rodriguez Ochoa III)

Film maker Wendy Jo Carlton is a self-effacing and privacy-seeking artist. She’d rather talk about her films than her personal history. She says, “I feel like it’s not about ‘me,’ it’s about my art.” Still, SGN wanted to do a profile for Pride and that meant talking about how she got to this place of success and significance through the lens of where she’s come from.

Wendy Jo Carlton directed her first feature, Hannah Free, starring Emmy-winner Sharon Gless, in 2009. Carlton wrote and directed her second feature, Jamie and Jessie are Not Together, (said to be the first lesbian romance musical). Her LGBTQ digital series, Easy Abby, received 50 million views for its 13-episode Season One, and Seasons 1 and 2 are now distributed by Revry.tv.

“The Drag” is a great tribute to Pride!

Visage “Legs” LaRue as Hell's Kitchen Kate in The Drag (Shay Sooter)

The Drag – A Homosexual Comedy in Three Acts

Play Your Part

(At Gay City)

Through June 29, 2019

Michael Raimondi came to town a couple of years ago and actualized a dream to start a new theater company. Play Your Part produced some evenings of short pieces and then he began looking for a full length piece to present around Pride Month.

Michael says, “I was looking for (previously) censored LGBT plays that haven’t been commonly done and a board member had heard about Mae West’s play, The Drag, from college. I was a huge fan of Mae West as a boy and knew exactly who she was and how her style of acting was done in the ‘30s. We found the play and decided do it.”

Actually, The Drag – A Homosexual Comedy in Three Acts is part of a Mae West trilogy in a book called Three Plays by Mae West. Michael and company’s research cannot find any other full production ever done of The Drag besides the ten days (only!) it was performed in New Jersey in 1927! It was raided by police and shut down for “indecency”!

Searing “Pass Over” Can’t Be Just “Described”

Preston Butler III, Treavor Lovell, and Avery Clark in Pass Over (Chris Bennion)

Pass Over

ACT Theatre

Through June 23, 2019

Moses (Treavor Lovelle) and Kitch (Preston Butler III) are stuck on this one block. It’s not clear if they are homeless with nowhere else to go or stuck because violence ranges all around them and they’re afraid to leave or stuck because they’ve been told they must stay on this block (the audience hears commands to stay put). Perhaps it’s all of the above.

In playwright Antoinette Nwandu’s intense 80-minute play at ACT Theatre, Pass Over, these two are not waiting, like Didi and Gogo, for Godot to show up, they’re aching to leave. In frustrated, angry, hopeful, anticipatory, poetic, ‘n’-word-filled friendship-language, they’re waiting to leave.

Nwandu seems to be writing in a way that needs to penetrate White America. It’s not very subtle, for the most part. The entire piece is metaphor-heavy, trapping the two black men into scarcity and despair (there’s nothing to eat, see, read, do but make up games to pass the time), and sending in a tut-tutting Colonial-style (read “colonizing”) white man who unbends himself to graciously feed them and a white police officer to harass them for even thinking about leaving (both roles played by Avery Clark).