One of the businesses damaged by fire is Taproot Theater, one of my favorite theaters ever since every time I go to one of their productions it seems like it is even better than the last one…and they started off for me at “excellent”. Taproot planned to present a world premier production of John Longenbaugh’s Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol this fall, but the fire changed all that. Unable to find an appropriate venue to host the play, they’re delaying it until 2010, but you don’t have to wait until then to get a taste of the show – Taproot will be presenting two staged readings of the play in December at SPU’s McKinley Hall.

On Friday, December 4, and Saturday, December 5, cast members will perform a staged reading of the play which gives a Dickensian twist to the 1894 holiday season for master sleuth Sherlock Holmes. Tickets are available at the door on a pay-what-you-can basis–and please do pay as much as you can because proceeds go to the Greenwood Fire Relief Fund, helping out all the Greenwood neighbors affected by the fires.

Sine the full production of Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol won’t be on stage until next year, Taproot’s managed to find a worthy replacement in a live radio play presentation of modern Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life starting November 27 at North Seattle Community College’s Stage One Theater. As an added attraction to what’s certain to be a fun show, Taproot’s offering two special “dinner and theater” events on December 2 and December 9. Patrons get a delicious meal catered by Upper Crust Catering at the college, served to the accompaniment of the Dickens Carolers. For tickets or more information, check out Taproot’s site.

(Photo credit: Eric Stuhaug)

Eric Ankrim as Peter Pan and David Pichette as Captain Hook in SCT's upcoming musical production of "Peter Pan." Photo by Chris Bennion

Seattle Children’s Theatre is keeping their impressive momentum going this year with tonight’s opening of Peter Pan, the third production of the 2009-10 mainstage season.  This musical adaptation of James M Barrie’s original play will run through January 10th of next year, and is directed by SCT Artistic Director Linda Hartzell.  I should probably also mention that they’ve got a badass crocodile costume for your enjoyment as well.  And while “badass” may not be in the standard descriptive vernacular for children’s plays, I can’t help but stress how appropriate it is all the same.

Oh, and just in case you’ve suffered total cultural amnesia or have been trapped on a deserted island since you were 3, here’s a synopsis of the production (spoiler alert!):

One of the greatest American musicals for any age—join Peter, Wendy and all the characters we know and love as we fly away to where dreams are born. Peter Pan flies in the Darling’s nursery window and tells the children that if they just believe and think lovely thoughts, they can fly to Neverland with him. There, they join Peter’s Lost Boys for fun and grand adventures. When Wendy and Princess Tiger Lily are captured by a menacing band of pirates, however, it takes Peter’s wily wit and Tink’s resolve to free them. Finally, with the help of one tick-tocking crocodile, Peter manages to turn the pirates against their Captain. When Wendy, John and Michael return to London, Peter Pan continues to visit Wendy once a year, until one day he finds that she has grown up and had a child of her own. Now it is little Jane’s turn to journey to the place where dreams are born with the wonderful Peter Pan.

Further details, including showtimes and ticketing information, can be found on the SCT website.

A short time later, he gets all the distance he needs as he first becomes a missing person and later a corpse. His disappearance and death give Violet a chance to broaden her scope of attack as these events bring all three of her daughters and their familes (a husband and a daughter for one, a fiance for another), as well as Violet’s sister, brother-in-law and nephew, to the house to first wait for news of Beverly and then to deal with the news once they get it.

What is it that makes Violet so black-hearted? One of the strengths of August: Osage County, now playing at the Paramount Theater through November 1, is that there’s really no reason for her venom, that’s just the way she is. Oh, sure, there’s a bit in the second act where she talks about the hardness of her childhood, but her sister Mattie Fae had just as bad and she’s not nearly as mean as Violet. (Then again, it might be easier for Mattie Fae to be more pleasant to more people since she saves all her ire for just one.) Violet’s simply just not a nice person. Throughout the play it is suggested that Beverly killed himself to get away from Violet and the only thing shocking about the idea is that he waited until becoming elderly to do it.

It would be easy for an actor to make Violet a charicature, but Estelle Parsons does a tremendous job of keeping her at a human level. She stumbles on the stairs, she stumbles over own tongue, but still she persists; always nasty but sometimes very funny and insightful, too. Violet may be emotionally stunted and frequently hazy (she’s taking enough drugs to stock her own pharmacy) but she’s nobody’s fool, except maybe her own. Although Tracy Letts’s script smartly avoids turning her into the secret softie who deep down really and truly loves those she wounds, Parsons’ strong performance keeps her from becoming a one note gorgon; you’ll never really like her, but you’ll never really disengage, either.

Her loss is the audience’s gain, however, as her slings and arrows are clever, witty and well-spoken, full of sardonic humor. All of the characters in August speak well–this is a play where the talking is always the main focus, the primary action–but Violet stands heads and shoulders above them all. Miss Parsons gives us a complex woman who is sometimes mystifying, often infuriating, and always, always interesting to watch.

With such a strong character as its focus, it stands to reason that the supporting characters won’t be quite as developed and here is August’s first weakness. Since all roads lead to Violet, nearly all of the characters are presented just as they relate to her, but in its effort to give all of the supporting characters equal weight, August shortchanges all of them equally. Eldest daughter Barbara is the most developed of them all but that’s mostly because she’s the most like her mother. The rest are standard recognizable types – the self-sacrificing middle daughter who sticks around for her mother’s abuse because someone has to, the youngest daughter so desperately needy for emotional affirmation from a man that she willingly pretends not to notice how skeevy he is, the rebellious teenaged daughter who feigns a sophistication that she doesn’t really feel, the middle aged man who has left his wife for a younger woman but doesn’t understand why this angers his wife so, the Noble Other…and their secret truths are neither all that secret or all that shocking as they’re all stock soap opera subplots as well – the skeevy fiance is inappropriate with the not-as-grown-up-as-she-pretends teenager, the happily married couple aren’t actually happily married, the mother and father who’ve spent a lifetime treating their children badly didn’t really like them all that much – wait, that’s a secret? Perhaps the most frustrating of the multiple sub-plots that serve to spur the play forward is a secret love affair doomed to failure for one of the most cliched “twists” in all of literature. That the other characters seem genuinely surprised when Violet reveals that she knows all of this already is a credit to the skill of the actors portraying them because anyone else could see them coming a mile away.

It is the cast that really makes August: Osage County; most of the characters might be somewhat less than fully three dimensional but their lines are filled with depth and delivery is very, very important. While Estelle Parsons is definitely the star of the show, the whole cast deserves recognition for doing the best they can with what’s handed to them, particularly Shannon Cochran as eldest daughter Barbara.

August: Osage County continues through November 1 at the Paramount.

And then I got a notice from the theater that they’re looking for an alternate venue to stage these shows. A fire struck Greenwood early this morning and due to related damaged, they can’t use their own stage this weekend. Local theaters and troupes: contact the theater if you have a venue available for their use.

**Edit: The Seattle Children’s Theater has generously offered to host the final performances of Enchanted April. Tonight’s show has been cancelled, but Saturday’s shows will take place at SCT at 2 and 4 pm. Taproot will be calling patrons to let them know about the change, so if you’ve already got tickets, no worries – they’ll work things out with you. There will be a limited number of new seats available at the box office, cash or check only, and I highly recommend heading down to the Center and checking it out if you can. Enchanted April has been yet another of Taproot’s successes in transporting audiences out of their own worlds and into another; it’s well acted, well staged and thoroughly enjoyable.

Per the reports at KING 5 and Phinneywood (the local blog that does an excellent job of covering Phinney Ridge and Greenwood), one hundred Seattle firefighters were sent out to battle the massive blaze which began early this morning at 208 N. 85th St, at either Pho Tic Tac or the Green Bean Coffeehouse. Both businesses were destroyed, as were Szechuan Bistro and C.C. Teriyaki.

A dozen apartments were evacuated and firefighters managed to rescue the cats in the PAWS Cat City Adoption Center.

Cause of the fire is as yet unknown.

For continuing coverage, head over to Phinneywood.

Condolences to everyone affected by the fire.

Currently she’s engaged in a new project with the help of ACT Theater. Daily through December (except Monday) from 5 to 6 pm on weekdays and 1 to 2 pm on weekends, Mimi sits in a window at ACT and views the world as if it really were the stage and all of its people performers. After an hour of watching, Mimi will review the “show” she’s just seen and post it in the window so that people walking by the next day can read her review from yesterday.

Anyone who is interested is encouraged to come down and join the act: dance, pantomime, act out a scene, sing, shout (she can’t hear you in either case), or do whatever feels right to you. Your performance will be incorporated in the show as a whole.

The four women set out on a vacation that’s meant to be a break from their ordinary lives but once they arrive they find themselves on a journey that will transform them.

Enchanted April opens September 25 at Taproot Theater and runs through October 24, playing Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30, Fridays at 8:00 and Saturdays at 2:00 and 8:00.

On Thursday morning, Seattle University president Stephen Sundborg, SJ, announced the close of SU’s six-year long capital campaign. Over 21,000 donors exceeded the original goal of $150 million, giving the 110 year old academic institution the necessary funds to offer new scholarships to students, academic programs and professorships, a fitness complex, an arts center and more, including the $56 million Lemieux Library and McGoldrick Learning Commons which are scheduled for completion next fall.

The successful campaign was focused on four main areas: scholarships, academic enhancements, facilities, and initiatives centered on the Jesuit university’s Catholic identity. More than 7,500 students are enrolled in Seattle’s largest private university which has eight schools offering graduate and undergraduate programs and was ranked as one of the top ten universities in the West by US News and World Report. (They also have some excellent sports teams.) Of the funds raised, $43 million are allocated to student scholarships and $44 million for academic programs and initiatives.

Since I’m a neighbor of SU, I can always take a short walk down the street to check out the progress on campus, but anyone curious to see how construction is going can check out their Library building webcam, which includes a link to construction bulletins for all the projects on campus. If you’ve never actually visited the university, however, I highly recommend it. It’s a beautiful campus with a lot of interesting architecture and landscape design, and the university hosts many events open to the public from sports to shows like Bloody Henry, a puppet show celebrating the 500th anniversary of “mass-murdering monarch” Henry VIII of England that plays weekends from September 25 through October 24.

Really, you should.

Tonight you can head up Capitol Hill for Blitz, an artwalk encompassing art of all types in galleries, coffee shops, private studios, street corners, and retail shops. There’s a ton of work to be seen, but you might especially want to keep your eye out for “Glitterporn” at Grey Gallery, a “tongue-in-cheek exploration of censorship, sex, and pornography” and “Whimsy Home Decor”, a mixed media work combining multi-level paintings and three-dimensional murals.

Friday night there’s the Art Up Greenwood Phinney Art Walk which features photography, painting, drawing, sculpture, books, spoken word, performance art, theater and food and drink specials from neighborhood merchants, not to mention the always-charming “living art” of the cats and kittens available for adoption at PAWS Cat City. While you’re there, you should definitely stop in to Taproot Theatre to view Sam Vance’s water lily series, studying the effects of light upon water. As a bonus for stopping in during the art walk, you’ll also get to observe Vance as he sketches a portrait of fellow artist Nikki Visel, a sketch which will then be used on-stage during Taproot’s upcoming presentation of Enchanted April.

Wicked tells the story of what happened in Oz from the time a strangely green-skinned girl is born, the friendship she forms with a beautiful and ambitious young woman she meets and school and the separate paths that lead them to their ultimate destinies. It begins a month long run at the The Paramount on Wednesday, September 2.

Tickets have been on sale for a while but there are still seats to be found – The Paramount is offering a nightly lottery for $25 orchestra seats. Present yourself at the box office two and a half hours prior to show time to have your name placed in lottery drum; a half hour later names will be drawn for the opportunity to buy up to two orchestra seats for $25 each, cash only.

I recently spoke with Donna Vivino, starring in the role of Elphaba, the character who becomes by story’s end the famous Wicked Witch of the West about the show. Vivino, who has been a working stage actor since she was just eight years old, says she wanted to play the role of Elphaba as soon as she saw the show for the first time herself, back when it first opened on Broadway and she found herself taken with the role. This November will mark her second anniversary of playing Elphaba so it’s obvious that she’s been enjoying it.

One of the reasons she enjoys working on Wicked so much is that it has a devoted and enthusiastic fan following–”People love the show; it’s got a great following,” she says–but you needn’t already be a fan of the show to enjoy it and you definitely don’t need to have read the novel. Vivino hadn’t read the novel herself the first time she saw Wicked on stage and thinks that it might even be advantageous to see it without already knowing the story so you can go in with fresh expectations. “A lot of people don’t know anything about the show” when they go see it, she says, and still leave happy.