Stage
Irish slang has this wonderful word: craic, pronounced "crack." Its several meanings include "gossipy banter" and "fun," which tells you all you need to know about what constitutes fun for the Irish. A weir, on the other hand, is a dam in a river or stream. It's a place where a
Stage
As I write this, there have already been 18 school shootings in America this year, with 17 deaths and 22 injuries. That's not counting Dec. 14, 2012 in Newtown, Conn., where Adam Lanza killed 27 people plus himself. His victims were shot between 3 and 11 times. Most were first-graders.
Stage
We theater practitioners are often mystified by our audience members. Why are they so reluctant to witness on stage what they're fans of at home? As Homeland and Masters of Sex demonstrate, cable TV can be sexy, even graphic, without feeling gratuitous. Until recently, candid carnality was out of bounds
Stage
The Northwest Playwrights Alliance has once again teamed with Prodigal Sun Productions to present short new plays in the Midnight Sun, An Improbable Peck of Plays II. I'm a fan of zero-budgeted evenings like this. They're easy to produce and digest, plus a much-needed venue for writers both fledgling and
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Technically, Oct. 5 was Star Wars Reads Day, a celebration of youth lit highlighting the "Expanded Universe" of books and comics set in that galaxy far, far away. The Puyallup Public Library may be a tad late to the game, but they're chiming in hardcore with
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Harlequin's production revives the set and concept of a '98 run, for which director Scot Whitney pared Shakespeare's cast down to six men and two women. The actors play actors, who spill out of a roadside pageant wagon. (Like Henry himself, the pageant wagon approach was centuries
Stage
To acknowledge my bias up front, I could rant on for thousands of words about the reasons I hate C.S. Lewis. I find his Christian apologias patronizing if not simpleminded. His children's books, about an allegorical wonderland called Narnia, are as inconsistent and illogical as the stories on which they're
Stage
The first thing that has to be said about Henry V is it wasn't the first thing that had to be said. That's because it isn't a sequel, it's a fourquel, expanding on characters who first appear in Shakespeare's Richard II and Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2. Luckily, as
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Also on the 28th, as on the second and fourth Saturday of every month, the Blue Mouse Theatre presents a late-night screening of 1975's The Rocky Horror Picture Show complete with audience cosplay and commentary. If you're a Rocky Horror virgin, you owe it to yourself to raid your
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I last saw Arsenic and Old Lace back in 1992, when I stage-managed a college production. It had a reputation for being over-performed at the time. Now, thanks to director Dale Westgaard's finely calibrated revival at Lakewood Playhouse, it's a pleasure to welcome it back. We were
Stage
I last saw Arsenic and Old Lace back in 1992, when I stage-managed a college production. It had a reputation for being over-performed at the time. Now, thanks to director Dale Westgaard's finely calibrated revival at Lakewood Playhouse, it's a pleasure to welcome it back. We were ushered in with jubilant
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Neil Simon got his start in TV, where he wrote alongside Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. His material has the familiar exposition, setup, punch line construction of TV comedy. As I watched Olympia Little Theatre's presentation of Simon's Last of the Red Hot Lovers, I was reminded
Reviews
Someone mentioned Trapper's Sushi at a recent Volcano staff meeting, whereupon Rev. Adam McKinney opined that its sports-bar elements make it seem like the kind of place he'd be more apt to like when inebriated. We resolved to test this theory by sampling it in two states of consciousness: I'd
Arts
With no further ado, let's divulge Olympia's promising menu. First, some sad news: as you may have heard, Capital Playhouse cancelled its mainstage offerings for the year. Between unmanageable debts and a trio of scandals, it tempted fate for CP to schedule anything called The Last 5 Years. The company hopes
Arts
This is an exciting month for theater folk, meaning practitioners and patrons. As one troupe after another announces its upcoming schedule, we look forward to the return of talented veterans and the rise of hot, new blood. From beloved old "war horses" to the cutting edge of 21st-century playwriting, it
Arts
As I look out my office window, I'm charmed by the rustling trajectories of fallen leaves, cooled by scudding gusts of wind that promise autumn rain - oh, wait! No, I'm not! It's 80 degrees outside! We start writing the Fall Arts Guide in August! Such is the life of
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If you're a dedicated Volcano reader or fan of local literature, you've devoured the Southern-fried fiction of our own Mr. Alec Clayton. His fall 2012 release Return to Freedom, a sequel to 2010's The Backside of Nowhere, finds its Mississippian characters reeling from the aftermath of a deadly hurricane. Also,
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Continuing this weekend, it's The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), back by popular demand at Tacoma Little Theatre. Fellow Volcano theater critic Joann Varnell and I were taken with the original run; this time around, Blake York grabs one of three collections of challenging and thoroughly
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The year was 1938-1939. The minimum wage was first established. Hitler marched into Austria after signing a sketchbook for Indiana Jones. Elliot Gould was born, as were Frank Langella, Tommy Chong ... and the Lakewood Playhouse. Visiting Lakewood Playhouse's current digs, one imagines how lucky the troupe was to find
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I've often heard it said, "I'd run only if something were chasing me," most often while listening to myself at the gym. I submit that a killer app for the Kinect would be a game in which if a player doesn't run in place fast enough, he
