2:00 PM – Donald Margulies: Dinner with Friends
Elliott Bay Book Co.
The Tenth Annual Staged Play Reading Series presents– in conjunction with ReAct Theatre and sponsored by the Mayors Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs– the modern American Pulitzer Prize-winning dramedy, Dinner with Friends.
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Tuesday night at Northwest Film Forum join filmmaker Bill Brown and media artist Sabine Gruffat for an evening of video performances, spoken word, scratchy records, and 35 mm slides with their project Time Machine

Gruffat directs you through Real Time Rendering, Quartz and Max patches through digital and analog hyperspace. Brown gives you a guided tour of memory’s roadside attractions from both the past and the future.

The trip begins 8 pm Tuesday, August 18th.

Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming cast, photo by Erik Stuhaug

Taproot Theater, which recently put on a lively and entertaining version of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days goes back in time yet again this Friday, July 10, for the regional premiere of Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming.

In a musical conceived by Alan Bailey, written by Connie Ray, directed by Scott Notle and with musical arrangements by Mike Craver, it is 1945, just after the end of WWII, and the Sanders family are ready to welcome Dennis Sanders as the new pastor of Mount Pleasant Baptist with bluegrass, folk and gospel songs. The third and final of musical about the Sanders family, Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming. This final episode of a series that’s now into its second decade of popularity promises lots of fun, lots of laughs, and lots of great old-time toe-tapping and soul-stirring traditional American roots music.

The musical runs through August 8; if you’re chomping at the bit to see it, you can attend the preview performances on Wednesday, July 8 and Thursday, July 9. For tickets and details, see the Taproot Theater home page.
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In other Taproot news, the theater recently announced their winter holiday production: the world premiere of John Longenbaugh’s Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol, running from Thanksgiving through Christmas. Those of you who like to make your holiday plans well in advance (and I know you’re out there) will be able to buy tickets in October. Mark your calendars now.

The eighth longest-running show in Broadway history, Rent has had a devoted following ever since it was first workshopped in New York back in the mid-90s. The final show at the Nederlander Theater on September 7, 2008, was the 5,124th performance, not counting its 16 previews and all the tours across the country and around the world.

Some of those devoted fans were in attendance Tuesday night at the The Paramount for opening night of its six-day stop in Seattle as part of the Broadway Across American tour. An enthusiastic crowd greeted the return of Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp to the lead roles they originated on Broadway and cheered after every number. Much of the excitement focused on Lexi Lawson and Justin Johnston, who played Mimi Marquez and Angel Schunard, two vital characters in this complex musical drama about the interconnected lives of a group of artists, intellectuals, entertainers and entrepeneurs finding love and themselves while living “la vie Boheme” in a worn NYC neighborhood teetering on the edge of gentrification.

Rent continues at the Paramount through Sunday, June 21 with 7:30 pm performances Wednesday and Thursday, 8:00 pm on Friday, a 2:00 pm Saturday matinee, an 8:00 pm Saturday evening performance, and a Sunday matinee at 1:00 pm before the final show 6:30 pm Sunday. In keeping with a tradition that started when the musical first moved to Broadway, seats in the front two rows of the orchestra will be available for $20 for every show. These tickets go on sale at the box office on the day of performance only, two hours before the show, cash only. All other seats can be purchased through the usual outlets; all seats will go fast.

James Moore built the Moore Theater back in 1907, giving the building a simple exterior so he could lavish attention on the ornate interior. The Moore’s lobby was built with mosiac floors, an elaborate ceiling fresco and carved wood, stained glass, marble, onyx and metal. One of the key components of the decorating theme was the carved representation of the Muses designed by architect E.W. Houghton.

If you’ve been to the Moore, you’ve seen the Muses, but did you ever notice that one of them is missing? Greek mythology says their are nine but the Moore only has eight. Urania, the Muse of Astronomy, was omitted from the theater since her area of influence has nothing to do with theater. You’d think they’d have included her for the (admittedly weak) pun of having “stars” appear on stage, but no matter: at long last, the muse is back with her sisters, at least for one night.

Urania Returns is a performance piece by the Seattle School that reunites Urania with her sisters in the Moore lobby. She will work out “elaborate equations using stars, architecture, and portraiture of attending audience members to satisfy calculations that none of us will understand, but all of us will eventually live through.” Per Seattle School, Urania’s a tricky sort of muse so her eight sisters (the muse of comedy and idyllic poetry, the muse of tragedy, the muse of written history, the muse of lyric poetry, the muse of music and dancing, the muse of erotic poetry, the muse of epic poetry and rhetoric, and the muse of sacred hymns and harmony) have been enlisted to help keep her in line.

Urania Returns happens from 6pm to 10pm on Saturday, June 20, and is part of the Free Sheep Foundation and Seattle Theater Group celebration of the Moore, Moore Inside Out. More than thirty artists and groups will be presenting installations and performances throughout the theater to celebrate and reinterpret the theater’s long history.

The NW New Works Festival begins this Friday, June 5 and runs through all of this weekend and the next. Tne NW New Works Festival is an annual festival of world premiere works by Northwest-based artists and ensembles.

Performances vary so much that there’s some thing to appeal to just about any taste. Works this year include an operatic solo performance that relates the story of a restaurant delivery man stuck in an elevator, a dance performance in which the two dancers demonstrate the vulnerability of sharing a home, and a video and audio presentation explores the intersections of sexuality, conflict, and attraction.

As an added bonus, showcases are reasonably priced, offering you a better and better value the more of them you attend. It’s still worth it to attend only one, too. For details and tickets, visit the On the Boards website.

It’s 1872 and Phileas Fogg, a mysterious English gentleman who lives his life by such mechanical precision that he fires his servant for bringing him water for shaving a mere two degrees off his preference, is at the Reform Club while some other members are discussing a newspaper article that says with the completion of a new railway in India it is now possible to travel the world via steamer and rail in a mere 80 days. The others scoff at the idea, but Fogg is so convinced that he can do it that he not only bets £20,000 (a fortune in those days), but declares that he will leave right away, pausing only long enough to have his new servant pack a bag.

Taproot Theatre’s theatrical adaptation of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days is a fun, fast-paced adventure tale filled with suspense, excitement, and not a small amount of humor. The cast of five ably represent a broad selection of characters from around the world (only Ryan Childers, as Phileas Fogg, has the luxury of playing a single role; Alyson Scadron Branner, Nolan Palmer, and Bill Johns wear a number of hats and Andrew Litzy acts out an amazing 18 characters in the course of the play) with such enthusiasm and credibility that the simple stage setting instantly transforms into a variety of world settings, from London to Suez to Calcutta, Yokohama, New York and all points in between. Simple but effective sound and lighting effects enhance the telling of the tale–you know that the actors are really sitting on a stack of boxes but you’re so engaged that you’re perfectly able to see that elephant they’re riding.

As they race to keep on track of their schedule, Fogg and his servant Passepartout, encounter a number of obstacles and delays, including being chased by Detective Fitz from Scotland Yard who is convinced that Fogg is a bank robber wanted back home in London and the rescue of an Indian woman, Aouda, about to be burned to death on a funeral pyre. Fogg is sure he can overcome any obstacle but the more time he spends with the people who surround him, the more Fogg begins to realize that not all of life can be managed with mathematical precision. Just as things look most bleak for him, Fogg learns at last that success doesn’t just come from pocket watches and schedules, but also and most importantly from the imprecise human heart.

Around the World in 80 Days plays at Taproot Theatre through June 20 and is equally appealing for adults and children over 10.

If you’ve ever wondered why theaters are built the way they are–or if you’re just looking for an interesting way to pass some time on a Wednesday evening–head down to the The Moore today at 5:30 pm for a lecture presented by Seattle Architecture Foundation entitled “When Sound Takes the Stage”, a discussion of “the dynamics of acoustical design and its impact on theater design”.

Dan Bruck of BRC Acoustics & Technology Design and Michael Yantis of Sparling, two well-known sound engineers, and Gary Fuller, SAF tour guide, will speak on the acoustical design of performance theaters, specifically the Moore Theater, and then the Jazz Underground will follow with a performance to illustrate the lessons learned. Free, with a $10 suggested donation.

Wicked Witch fans take note: Wicked returns to Seattle in September, playing from Wednesday, September 2 through Sunday, October 4 at The Paramount. While that’s a long way off from now, it’s not too early to start thinking about tickets as the show was very popular the last time it came to town and seats will probably go fast.

To encourage you to get your tickets early the Paramount is holding a special sales event on Friday morning: from 7am to 9am tickets will be on sale exclusively at the theater during a party that includes games, prizes and refreshments. As an added bonus, the first 106 ticket buyers get a reusable Wicked “green bag” from party co-sponsor WARM 106.9. After 9am, tickets can be purchased in all the usual places – online at STG Presents, Broadway Across America or Tickemaster.

Last Friday Seattle Children’s Theatre (SCT) wrapped up its 2008-09 mainstage season with their 101st world premiere, I Was a Rat!, based on the popular re-worked fairy tale and children’s book by Golden Compass author Philip Pullman.

The story opens with a young pageboy taken in by a childless couple, the aging cobbler Bob and his wife Joan. They give him the name of Roger, as the pageboy says he was formerly a rat and without a name, a tale quirky enough to attract the attention of the Daily Scourge newspaper, a sideshow owner named Professor Tapscrew, and a young ruffian named Billy. The search for Roger’s true home is also accompanied by the story of the newly-married Princess Aurelia, whom Roger claims to have a past with.

My family came along to see the show, with my two children especially excited to watch their first play ever.  Besides, I knew that as much as I hoped to offer people an objective opinion of the performances, what is ultimately important to the success of I Was a Rat! is a show that would be both entertaining and engaging for the little ones.  Although making it a good time for the parents certainly doesn’t hurt their chances either.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to let my children, Evan (6) and Kenzie (5) take the forefront of this review.  Their overall impression of the play was quite obvious as we left the theatre; smiles played across their faces, both extremely happy to have met the cast and get some autographs, especially those of Roger and Aurelia.  I did manage, however, to wrap up the evening by asking them a few pointed questions on the way home. (more…)