If You love Green Day's "American Idiot" IMMERSE YOURSELF at ArtsWest Immediately

Justin Huertas, Fredrick Hagreen, Michael Coale Grey in American Idiot (Michael Brunk)

Green Day’s American Idiot

ArtsWest

Through October 11, 2015

Have you wondered what it would be like to be on stage? Participate in a play? But you felt intimidated by rehearsing and memorizing lines? Now you can! No rehearsing! No memorization!

Does that sound like an infomercial? ArtsWest is giving you a unique opportunity to get a feeling of participation by attending their ardent, emotional, in-your-face production of Green Day’s American Idiot as an “immersive experience!”

From the standpoint of someone who is probably a bit too old to really care much about the slackers in the story and their angst and suffering, observing all the angst is just fine from a regular seat. The “observational” audience can see the “immersive” audience being told what to do and hurried from place to place, and sometimes that gets distracting even in a production with balls-to-the-walls sets of action.

Imagining the fun and the grit and the sense of immediacy someone of the generation of American Idiot would experience, now there’s a theatrical experience like no other! And for that idea, and ArtsWest’s execution, I give a standing ovation! I think it can really excite younger audiences, less prone to going to theater and feeling like it speaks to them.

Vital questions raised in Intiman’s new play

Charles Leggett and Adam Standley in John Baxter is a Switch Hitter (Chris Bennion)

John Baxter is a Switch Hitter

Intiman Theatre

Through September 27, 2015

Writing plays about “history” is a peculiar challenge: there is a true story people can read about; there is an aspect that a playwright thinks should be animated on stage. Such is the case with Intiman’s new play, John Baxter is a Switch Hitter, written by playwrights Ana Brown and Andrew Russell.

The play covers the 2008 Gay Softball World Series, held for the first time ever in Seattle. It was a big deal with teams coming from all over, along with supporters and family members. A team from San Francisco, the D2s, was doing better than they ever had, and during the championship game with the Los Angeles Vipers, a challenge was issued against the D2s: they had too many heterosexual players on their team!

Hurry to the old INS building to see Paper Angels!

Kathy Hsieh (front) in Paper Angels (Celeste Mari Williams)

Paper Angels

SiS Productions

(at INScape)

Through August 31

Hurry over to the old INS building to the performance space “INScape” to see a beautifully written play revealing another example of American injustice toward immigrants! Paper Angels, by poet and playwright Genny Lim, focuses on the immigration center on Angel Island, a large island in the middle of San Francisco Bay that processed a million Asians through its doors. However, there were extra-special rules for Chinese.

Have you ever heard of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882? It’s not likely taught in very many American History classes in high school, but it reflected attitudes of resentment against Chinese workers – a ubiquitous ethnic exclusion that was focused only on Chinese while unfettered immigration of any other backgrounds was unchecked.

September Theater: Ready, Set, OPEN!

Hannah Mootz and Tiffany Yvonne Cox star in Intiman Theatre's production of The Children's Hour
(Photo by Hayley Young)

The theater community often goes a bit crazy in September, with a “new season” mentality, but this year it’s almost too much to bear! In fact, after a lazy Labor Day weekend, 13 (13?) productions open the next weekend!! The biggest companies and small ones and everything in between. Also, there may never have been as many world premieres in one month as September 2015. It’s a bounty of riches, folks!

The Children's Hour, Intiman (at Cornish), 9/9-27/15

This production, helmed by Sheila Daniels, will relocate this classic script about the ruination of gossip and crowd-fearmongering from the 1930s to the 1980s. This is the second production in Seattle this year. If you saw the other, this spring, it might be doubly interesting to compare.

www.intiman.org

Is it "Matilda" or is it the Sound Qualities at the 5th Avenue?

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?

The Great American Trailer Park Musical is one fun ride!

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.”