The 5th Avenue has the most peculiar sound issues. It's a huge house making bunches of money with the most subscribers in the ENTIRE AREA and yet touring shows come in there, like the newest, Matilda, and Oh God There's That Sound Problem Again.
It seems like the local sound folks have figured out - for the most part and Not Always - how to get around the bouncy, dispersing sound waves inside that building, because sometimes shows there are actually ones you can HEAR.
But it's not clear what has to happen to fix it all. What is clear is: It Needs Fixing. Please? 5th Avenue Folk? Please? Won't you please get some good sound engineers in there to examine the issue and help you all fix it so that the sound bounce doesn't keep impacting your shows? Especially the tours?
Friday, August 21, 2015
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
The Great American Trailer Park Musical is one fun ride!
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| The trailer park trio in The Great American Trailer Park Musical (Dan Davidson) |
The Great American
Trailer Park Musical
STAGEright
(at Richard Hugo House)
Through August 29, 2015
STAGEright started out, when they began producing, including
musicals every once in a while. Their recent successes with musicals seem to
have buoyed them to feel like they can really do this thing, and they’re doing them more and more. Given the
feeling of fun and the level of talent in The
Great American Trailer Park Musical, now play through August 29, they’re
correct to do so!
Written by David Nehls and Betsy Kelso, iIt explores the
relationships between the tenants at the Armadillo Acres Trailer Park in
Florida, particularly between Pippi, "the stripper on the run," agoraphobic
Jeannie, and Jeannie's tollbooth-collector husband Norbert. It was performed in
the first annual New York Music Theater Festival in 2004 and Off-Broadway in
2005. It’s apparently a kind of “cult musical.”
New to Seattle Tom Stoppard play - worth your time!
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Betty Campbell and Scott Ward Abernethy in Indian Ink (Ken Holmes) |
Indian Ink
Sound Theatre Company
and Pratidhwani
(at Armory Theatre)
Through August 30, 2015
The great British playwright, Tom Stoppard, can be both exhilarating
and inscrutable, in turns. So, if you don’t know one of his plays, yet, you
might not be quite sure what you’re getting. Sound Theatre Company and
Pratidhwani are presenting Indian Ink
in a Seattle area premiere. This is a lovely, accessible piece!
This is mostly a story about an unconventional woman in the
1920s and her relationship with painters. Flora Crewe (Caitlin Frances) is a poet and free spirit, though when we meet
her, she is quite ill. She travels to India for her health, though it is not
the best fit for health reasons.
She meets Nirad Das (Dhiraj
Khanna), a painter, and becomes his model, and maybe something more, as she
flouts conventions of the time. She lives only a short time longer, but long enough
to provoke academics to become hooked on her writing.
A biographer, Eldon Pike (Scott Ward Abernethy), visits her now-elderly sister, Eleanor (Betty Campbell) to try to gain insight
and find treasure. So, does Das’ son, Anish (Monish Gangwani). Das ends up gaining more insight than Pike, since
Eleanor feels like Das is more “family.”
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Dog Days of August still have plenty of theatrical openings
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The Passion As Told by Antigona Perez, (photo by Marquicia Domingue) |
Here's a list of theater productions opening in August.
RASHOMON: Reloaded,
Recession Era Broke-Ass Theatre (REBATE)nsemble Theatre Group, 8/1-9/2015
(at 3320 Fuhrman Ave E, 98102, on the south side of University
Bridge off Eastlake)
An original theater adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's legendary
film, Rashomon. Re-imagined in Kabuki style, set in present day, the show is
site specific in South Passage Point Park.
Love Song, Porcupine and Poet Productions, 8/1-8/2015
(at Stone Soup)
Oddball Beane gets burgled and his well-meaning sister, Joan,
is baffled to find her brother blissfully happy. John Kolvenbach's offbeat
comedy is a rhapsody to the power of love in all its forms. (Adult content)
Zig Zag Festival, Annex Theatre, 8/4-19/15
(Tuesday/Wednesday nights)
6 female playwrights write a play, direct a play and advise
a play. Shorts in a range of topics.
Paper Angels, SiS Productions, 8/20-31/15 (at INScape)
In 1915, eager and hopeful Chinese immigrants await
permission to enter the United States at the West Coast immigration center
located at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Brilliant “Dance Like a Man” gives us a real taste of India
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| Dance Like a Man (Agastya Kohli) |
Dance Like a Man
Pratidhwani
(at ACT Theatre)
Through August 9, 2015
Pratidhwani is giving us a unique opportunity to experience
an Indian play by an Indian playwright, Mahesh Dattani, based in India. And it’s
a brilliant one, exceptionally well produced and directed by Agastya Kohli. Dance Like a Man, presented at ACT Theatre in their ACTLab
partnership, is a family comedy-drama set in one room, a rather conventional
set-up for an unfolding theme of much larger scope.
The play appears to be a familiar older generation versus
younger generation piece about traditions and the always-changing pressures of
modernity. But it’s not two generations, it’s three. We meet a young woman,
Lata (Tanvee Kale) who brings home
her intended Viswas (Jay Athalye) to
meet her parents (Abhijeet Rane and Meenakshi Rishi).
Monday, July 20, 2015
Poetry saves and sinks "...And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi" but production might be worth the visit
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| ...And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi (Ken Holmes) |
…And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi
Sound Theatre Company/Brownbox Theatre
(at the Armory)
Through August 2, 2015
Thick Louisiana poetry covers the course of the Civil War
with a story of one family and its slaves. Marcus Gardley’s play …And Jesus
Moonwalks the Mississippi, performed by a terrific cast in a co-production of
Sound Theatre Company and Brownbox Theatre, takes a long way ‘round to tell a
simple tale.
This 2 3/4 hour piece has a lot of beautiful imagery and
words. Some of the multiple ensemble characters speak in verse, as well. The
production is well-presented with gorgeous settings by Burton Yuen, costumes of
patchwork by Candace Frank, mood lighting by Richard Schaefer, and haunting
sounds by Dana Amromin. Original music and well-known spirituals are included
by composer/music director Jesse Smith.
With hints of Greek mythology, a character, Demeter
(Santiago) comes looking for her lost daughter, Po-em. Po-em was the slave of
Cadence and Jean Verse (Danielle Daggerty and Nick Rempel), but she’s now
missing. When Demeter comes to their house, she meets two children, a white child, Blanche
Verse (Sunam Ellis) and a black child who powders her face white, Free (Lindsay
Zae Summers). They think they are twins.
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