Stage
Olympia Family Theater has never done a bad play. Their performances are professionally produced with top-notch adult actors and crew, sometimes with child actors thrown into the mix, and they range in quality from good to very good to knock-your-socks-off excellence. That is to say, some of their shows are
Arts
In an artist's statement, painter Kate Hubner quotes a dictionary definition of the words in the title of her show at Feast Arts Center. "Codependent: a codependent person is one who has let another person's behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person's behavior. Menagerie:
Arts
It might be a stretch to say there is beautiful art in the exhibition "A History of Violence" at South Puget Sound Community College. But that depends on your idea of what constitutes beauty. The paintings in this show are rough. The colors are harsh; some might even be considered
Arts
Christopher Paul Jordan might well be Tacoma's most prolific artist, and his fame is quickly spreading to Seattle and elsewhere -- deservedly so for this recent Neddy Artist Awards winner, if his latest show at Kittredge Gallery is any indication. The show is called "Latent Home," and it features powerful work
Stage
A Christmas Carol as adapted by James Venturini for Lakewood Playhouse is probably as close to the way Charles Dickens himself would adapt it for the stage if he were alive today. In his day, Dickens toured the world telling stories and reading from his books, so it is appropriate that
Arts
Husband and wife Malayka and Tom Gormally are highly respected Seattle artists who bring a world of experience to artworks that reflect on current social and political issues in a show called "Present/Tense" at Spaceworks Gallery. Born to immigrant Jewish parents in the San Francisco Bay area, Malayka lived for a
Stage
American Idiot the musical was a sensation when it premiered in 2009 (and subsequently moved to Broadway in 2010). Based on the smash hit album by Green Day, the play featured all the music from the album plus Green Day songs from the album 21st Century Breakdown and "When It's Time,"
Arts
Two galleries in the Tacoma Art Museum are filled with 60 paintings from 200 years of American still life painting from the Frank and Michelle Hevrdejs Collection. Included are works by such masters as James Peale, Georgia O'Keeffe, Andrew Wyeth and Wayne Thiebaud, plus many lesser-known artists. The paintings are
Stage
Never does a Christmas season come and go without some local theater doing a version of A Christmas Carol. Doing the honors this year is Lakewood Playhouse with an adaptation written by Playhouse stalwart James Venturini. Popular local actors to inhabit the Dickensian world this holiday season include Joseph Grant
Arts
Seattle artist Katlyn Hubner is well known in the Emerald City and, if she is not equally well known in Tacoma, she should be, and hopefully will be soon after the opening of her show "Codependent Menagerie" at Feast Arts Center. A menagerie is usually thought of in reference to
Arts
This past year, The Evergreen State College in Olympia hosted a gathering of indigenous artists from the continental U.S., Hawaii, Alaska, Samoa and New Zealand. In New Zealand and Hawaii, such gatherings of artists are called a hui. It took place at the Longhouse. Artists who took part in the
Arts
"Liberal and Phenomenal" is not my assessment of the two current shows at Kittredge Gallery, University of Puget Sound. It is the name of the combined shows, each with works by five painters. "Liberal" in the main gallery features paintings by painting professors Michael Knutson (Reed College), Richard Martinez (Whitman),
Arts
Susan Christian's paintings at Stable Studios are the real deal. They are painting as painting is meant to be: simple, straight-forward, unpretentious and with no trickery whatsoever. Some might see the cut-off figures, oddly elongated formats and mysterious scenes as gimmickry, but they're not; they are simply Christian being Christian
Stage
All the King's Women at Olympia Little Theatre is a cute, lighthearted play. The concept is inventive, and the structure is unique -- more an evening of storytelling and skits than a play. It is a series of eight short stories about the women in Elvis Presley's life, not his
Arts
Marilyn Frasca is a marvel. If there was ever such a thing as a must-see show, it is Frasca's show of some 56 drawings at Childhood's End Gallery in Olympia. This exhibition is the result of a lifetime, so far, of making art, studying art and teaching art. Her drawing
Arts
Juried art exhibitions inevitably include a few clunkers, a few so-so works, and -- if we're lucky -- some excellent art. Sometimes the inconsistency in quality is because there were not enough good entries to choose from, and sometimes it is because the juror feels compelled to include a variety
Stage
The Cat in the Hat at Olympia Family Theater is a fun, little play that breezes through non-stop and almost constant motion for under 40 minutes with no intermission. As everyone who remembers the book by Dr. Seuss knows - and who doesn't remember the book? - there are not a
Arts
When walking into the art gallery at South Puget Sound Community College, the first thing to greet the eye is a curtain of hanging white porcelain shapes suspended by clear monofilament line. It is like a bead curtain, but it is not beads. It is a representation of genome sequencing.
Stage
I enjoyed opening night of Footloose at Tacoma Musical Playhouse. It's a rocking good, high-energy show with great music and dancing. The music is mostly up-tempos rock and roll blended with a touch of gospel and show tunes, and an occasional sweet love song such as the beautiful "Almost Paradise,"
Arts
When artworks first began showing up in the windows of the old Woolworth building on 11th St. between Broadway and Commerce, there was little sense of installing work that was site specific. The walls were treated as gallery walls upon which paintings were hung, not as the three-dimensional space it
