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"Who's to say that love needs to be soft and gentle?" That's a line from Secretary, a movie written by Erin Cressida Wilson. It could also be a fitting tag line for Dakota's Belly, Wyoming, a one-act dramedy by Wilson, in which Vern flees to his sister Dakota's ranch to
Arts
For some guys it was guitar chords and epic weekends at Bumbershoot. For others it was the crack of a line drive into deep center field. My childhood cultural milestone was George Lucas's 1977 rocket opera, Star Wars. I was 9 years old that long summer, the perfect age to
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Look, this isn't a review. I'm in Oleanna, so I'm hardly unbiased, but I hope you'll take my word for it that this play has impact. (Our Tacoma critics will be unable to attend.) Whatever you may think of David Mamet or his he-man gender politics, two weekends of this
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"I just want to smack her!" Let's face it, you're unlikely to hear an audience member gasp anything like that at Summer in the Sixties or Godspell, but she wasn't complaining. In a way, she was cheering. I'll explain. The smack-worthy character in question was Carol, a student played by
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This production is adorable. Not every joke's a corker, mind you, but remember that the definition of "comedy" in the early 1600s was that someone gets married at the end. A Shakespearean romp doesn't have to be joke-setup-joke like an episode of How I Met Your Mother. The plot, about
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Oh, how people get wiggly for A Midsummer Night's Dream! They get truly excited when they hear of an upcoming production; it's like the return of an old friend. It was a crowd-pleaser in Shakespeare's lifetime and in every age since. It's been reimagined for discos and acrobats and massively
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We're hearing it all over the South Sound these days: "We're gonna bring you a season of the classics!" As one troupe after another announces its 2011-2012 schedule, that cry of fiscal desperation, always delivered by the house manager with insincere enthusiasm, is ominous music to a theater critic's ears.
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The years from 1967 to 1977 were the richest of the radio era. Abbey Road is the single greatest album ever recorded, and whatever's in second place is also by the Beatles. Leather pants will always be awesome. These are indisputable scientific facts, Gentle Reader, so I welcome your nods
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The years from 1967 to 1977 were the richest of the radio era. Abbey Road is the single greatest album ever recorded, and whatever's in second place is also by the Beatles. Leather pants will always be awesome. These are indisputable scientific facts, Gentle Reader, so I welcome your nods
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For the sixth year in a row, the Washington State History Museum has selected a juried exhibit of contemporary Native American art for display in one of its featured galleries. This year's exhibit is called In the Spirit: Contemporary Northwest Native Arts. I was allowed to browse
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I don't feel at all guilty about the pun above. They're fun to write, puns, not to mention de rigueur in entertainment review titles. They're scattered throughout Riot to Follow's production of Honk! The Ugly Duckling Musical like chicken feed in a barnyard. Kids enjoy puns. They also like hummable
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I don’t feel at all guilty about the pun above. They’re fun to write, puns, not to mention de rigueur in entertainment review titles. They’re scattered throughout Riot to Follow’s production of Honk! The Ugly Duckling Musical like chicken feed in a barnyard. Kids enjoy puns. They also like hummable
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The device of a "play within a play" is hardly new, of course. Theater has always been meta. A Midsummer Night's Dream incorporates Pyramus and Thisbe, and Hamlet directs a loaded performance of The Mousetrap. Cyrano berates a ham actor, Montfleury. Actors love finding excuses to overact, and portraying a
Stage
The device of a “play within a play” is hardly new, of course. Theater has always been meta. A Midsummer Night’s Dream incorporates Pyramus and Thisbe, and Hamlet directs a loaded performance of The Mousetrap. Cyrano berates a ham actor, Montfleury. Actors love finding excuses to overact, and portraying a
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Capital City Pride began under the aegis of Rainbow Center Olympia. Back then, the festival drew a few hundred people. Now as many as 10,000 celebrants converge on a two-day extravaganza that marks the climax of a very busy year for the organization. After a champagne kickoff party at the
Arts
"It definitely doesn't hurt being an out performer," says Jade Jericho, "when you enjoy playing for a queer audience." Jericho will be singing for gay-positive folks of all stripes this weekend, as she's among the featured performers at the 20th anniversary Capital City Pride Festival in Olympia. She's a five-foot-tall
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If the history of the Olympia Comics Festival were told in funny book form, this year would be its splash panel. Whether you know what that sentence meant or not, the folks at Danger Room Comics think this it's time you dropped by. "This is our 10th year," says Executive Director
Arts
If the history of the Olympia Comics Festival were told in funny book form, this year would be its splash panel.Whether you know what that sentence meant or not, the folks at Danger Room Comics think this it's time you dropped by. "This is our 10th year," says Executive Director
Stage
In many ways, Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead is exactly what it promises to be, a juvenile parody of Charles Schulz's beloved Peanuts comic strip and characters. Imagine You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown as rewritten by Kevin Smith. It's undeniably hilarious, even as it goes to
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In Laura Numeroff's 1985 social treatise If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, she uses the analogy of a mouse to illustrate the dangers of welfare. If you give a mouse a cookie, she warns, he'll want milk. And once he has milk, he'll want a place to sleep. Soon