New “Shrew” Lacks Love

Shrew - Jocelyn Maher and Rachel Guyer-Mafune (photo Giao Nguyen)

Shrew
Union Arts Center
Through 11/2/25
 
The blurb for this production, Shrew, said, “Girl meets boy. Girl hates boy. Girl agrees to marry boy against her will so her sister can get married too. Got it? Shrew uses the classic Shakespearian (Taming of the Shew) text — but inverted, upended, and overturned — to offer a modern-day perspective on how far we’ve come when it comes to love — and how far we still have to go.”
 
It is a new adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. But the promise was perhaps oversold on the “modern-day perspective.” Many playwrights have been updating Shakespeare’s plays these days because we all know the 1500s were not shining examples of egalitarian attitudes towards women. Sometimes, people will argue that Shakespeare himself took great pains in some of his plays to empower his women characters, so there’s that.
 
The Taming focuses on Kate, an independent-minded woman who doesn’t suffer fools lightly, and as Shakespeare’s language portrays her, is rude and indifferent. She’s “untamable.” Because of her dowery – and maybe because she’s pretty, Petruchio decides to marry her and sets out to prove that he can tame her. Essentially, he starves her, isolates her, and demands that she learn to accept his word as the law.
 
And it’s a comedy. All this does not mean I dislike the play. It really does need to be contextualized for its time. And this is one of his more egalitarian storylines, in spite of the barbaric plot line.

October Theater Offers Mystery, Monsters, and World Premieres

Outside Mullingar (courtesy As If Theatre)

October looks like fun on our stages with quite a number of world premieres and a few shows with murder and mystery. Get out yer calendars!

The Coast Starlight (Michael Brunk)

The Coast Starlight
Now open through 10/19/25 (at Kennedy Catholic High School, 140 S. 140th St., Burien)
Burien Actors Theatre, https://battheatre.org/the-coast-starlight-2025
A young man with a life-changing secret boards a long-distance train, the Coast Starlight. With the help of his fellow travelers, who are reckoning with their own choices, he has roughly a thousand miles to find a way forward. This story of “what ifs” looks at what happens when we step beyond being strangers to connect, and how our interactions can change ourselves and others. A story about our capacity for invention and re-invention when life goes off the rails.
 
Outside Mullingar
10/2-10/25
As If Theatre, www.asiftheatre.com
Anthony and Rosemary are two introverted misfits who live on adjoining farms in the Irish countryside. Neighbors for generations, things come to a head when Tony Reilly, Anthony’s father, reveals his plan to disinherit him and sell the farm to another relative. As a feud simmers between the two families, old secrets, surprising truths, and long-hidden feelings threaten to emerge. In this quintessentially Irish story, the heartbreaking and the hilarious are woven together to create a deeply moving story of yearning, loss, family, romance, and the vulnerability of taking a chance on love.

Ms. Frankenstein's Monster (courtesy The Phoenix Theatre)

Ms. Frankenstein’s Monster
10/2-29/25
The Phoenix Theatre, https://www.tptedmonds.org/season18shows.html
You've never seen Frankenstein like this! Baron Frankenstein is down on his luck. The sparsity of viewers staying up to see his old monster on late, late TV shows depresses his ego and his credit at the bank. Can he renew his fame and fortune as a monster maker? Yes! He’ll create a football superstar cheered by millions. But his sister, Baroness Frankenstein, has her own ideas. She furtively creates a female monster attractive enough to become a Hollywood star. The town’s husbands are on one side, and their wives are on the other. The Baron commands his monster to destroy his sister’s. The reaction of the monsters at their first meeting is a tour de force of comic action.
 
Stage of Fools (world premiere)
10/3/25-11/2/25
Seattle Public Theater, www.seattlepublictheater.org
A scrappy feminist theater company is about to go under when it receives an offer it can't refuse: has-been ’80s action movie star Jake Stone will give it more money than ever dreamed of, if it will produce King Lear, with him in the titular role. Never mind that he's an entitled, egotistical blowhard. These women can survive anything for the sake of the theater they love...right? A world premiere written by local playwright Joy McCullough.

September Theater Openings – Off to the races!

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle from Book-It (Michelle Bates)

We have a Keiko Green mini-festival with two of her newest plays (Hells Canyon, Exotic Deadly) opening at once! A few events are one-day or one-weekend short, so attention is needed. World premieres and wildly different subject matter give us so much to see and do this month. Book-It pops in again! (Check out the new formatting... do you like it?)
 
The Laramie Project

9/4-28/25 (at ReAct Studios, 562 1st Ave S - 4th Floor)

ReAct Theatre www.reacttheatre.org

The critically acclaimed documentary-style play explores the aftermath of the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, a young gay man in a non-accepting community. Based on real interviews with residents of Laramie, news reports, and journal entries, it captures the community’s reactions to the hate crime and its impact.

Hells Canyon
9/5-21/26 (at 12th Avenue Arts)
Washington Ensemble Theatre, www.washingtonensemble.org
Seven-months pregnant Ariel arrives at a remote cabin with some old friends. Resentments surface and buried histories claw their way into the light when the group hears something outside, trying to get in… or out? In this horror-thriller, there are some decisions you cannot outrun.
 
For Colored Boyz (on the verge of a nervous breakdown / when freedom ain’t enuff)
9/5-21/25 (at Base Camp Studios, 2407 1^st Ave)
The Underground Theater, www.underground.theater
Written by Bryan-Keyth Wilson, this choreopoem brings to life the voices of queer Black and brown men through poetry, movement, and music. Raw, vulnerable, and transformative, it is a call to reflect, to listen, and to see one another more fully.
 
Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play
9/6–20/25 (at Theatre Off Jackson)
Porkfilled Productions and SiS Productions, www.porkfilled.com
Ami, an awkward Japanese American high school girl in 1999, wants to be invisible. But her world comes crashing down with a terrible discovery: her family is responsible for manufacturing MSG, the poison spice getting all the kids hooked. A mysterious new girl arrives from Japan, named Exotic Deadly. and she’s not playing by the rules. This whimsical, time-traveling adventure is a riotous romp through teenage crushes, family secrets, and female power.
 
Yaga
9/11-27/25 (at 12th Avenue Arts)
Dacha Theatre, www.dachatheatre.com
A genre-bending, darkly comedic fairy tale meets thrilling whodunit, giving voice to an antihero of epic proportions whose story has historically been told by men. An in-over-his-head detective finds himself in an isolated college town asking what the disappearance of a young heir to a yogurt empire has to do with a random folktale about an old witch. Involving an apprehensive local sheriff, a university professor with a taste for younger men, and a whole cast of curious characters, the Slavic myth of Baba Yaga twists into a new labyrinth of secret lives, ancient magic, and multiple suspects.

“After Midnight” – Cool, Hot Revue at the 5th

 

Cast of After Midnight (Michael B. Maine)

After Midnight
5^th Avenue Theatre
Through August 24, 2025
 
It don’t mean a thing if you don’t get yourself to this show…
 
After Midnight at the 5^th is everything you want in a revue of jazz standards of the Harlem Renaissance. The entire construction of the production is flawless – from the ten onstage members of the swinging band (Conductor William Knowles, Rebecca Smith, Chris Patin, Lamar Lofton, Brian Burmudez, Jovon Miller, Alex Dugdale, Owour Arunga, Nathan Breedlove, Reserat Tafesse) to the ten swinger/dancers (Iris Beaumier, Nicholas Japaul, Bernard, Brian Davis, Nalica Hennings, Jason Holley, Nehemiah Hooks, Trina Mills, Yuseg Seevers, Porscha Shaw, Madison Willis) to the gorgeous set (Carey Wong), costumes (Ricky German) and lighting (Xavier Pierce), it’s all beautifully pulled together by director Jay Santos.

August has some Hot, Cool Theater

Jettison to Europa at Annex Theatre (courtesy Annex Theatre)

Hey, folks! August has some great theater for you. And a couple of July productions have been so successful that they extended! Including Taproot's Murder on the Links which extended to August 30! Get out your calendars!

Shadows Under the Market, Seattle Public Theater, 8/1-9/25 (world premiere)

Written by five local playwrights, Kelleen Conway Blanchard, Maggie Lee, Darian Lindle, Matt Smith and M. Yichao, local teens perform a teen horror comedy!
www.seattlepublictheater.org
 
After Midnight, 5^th Avenue Theatre, 8/5-24/25
An all-star cast of local talents lead you to the sultry, swingin’ Jazz Age of the Harlem Renaissance, where the Cotton Club is the place to be! Infused with the iconic tunes of Duke Ellington, Dorothy Fields, Harold Arlen, and more, After Midnight weaves ground-breaking jazz standards with rapturous dance and the rhythmic poetry of Langston Hughes in a jubilant production fit to blow the roof off the theater. Timeless songs like “Stormy Weather,” “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing” will have you singing along to join the fun.
www.5thavenue.org
 
Jettison to Europa, Annex Theatre, 8/7-30/25
Astronaut Carey pioneers the inaugural expedition to Europa, one of Jupiter’s many moons. Confined to her shuttle’s cockpit during this years-long mission, she is drawn in by the small satellite’s allure as it pulls her away from home. The journey puts both Carey and her relationships back on Earth on an arduous trajectory. Will Carey’s obsession with reaching Europa cost her everything?
www.annextheatre.org

Review: The Color Purple at Village Theatre – Magnificent Cast

 

Mariah Lyttle (Celie) and Claudine Mboligikpelani Nako (Shug Avery) (photo Auston James)

The Color Purple – The Musical
Village Theatre
Through July 27, 2025 (in Everett)
 
A beautifully cast and directed and designed production of A Color Purple has another two weekends of performances in Everett. If you have any interest in the story, from the book or the movie, you are well advised to get tickets and see this show!