Walkie Talkie Blog
LAST CHANCE >>> Animal Fire Theatre's A Midsummer Night's Dream 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
Walkie Talkie Blog
WHEN IT ALL GETS A LITTLE TOO REAL >>> In David Mamet's Oleanna, a play in which I just appeared thanks to Theater Artists Olympia, a blowhard professor is accused of sexual harassment, battery, and attempted rape by his student, Carol, played in our production by a lovely, dedicated actor
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WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO IS DIRECT ... >>> I'm always skeptical when someone tells me he or she has directed dozens or hundreds of shows. It's too much work. Where'd they possibly find the time? I have an MFA in directing, and I've managed less than a dozen
Walkie Talkie Blog
MEETING THEATER PATRONS HALFWAY >>> It's that time of year again, when theater companies gather to haggle over their upcoming seasons. For various reasons (including, I suspect, our training in academic theater), most troupes operate from September to May. Directors stride into meetings with all guns blazing, ready
Walkie Talkie Blog
SLAP-HAPPY JOYS OF BACKSTAGE CHATTER >>> Gene Siskel used to say the mark of a bad movie was when you'd rather watch its actors sitting around the craft services table chatting than the movie itself. I'm blogging to you almost-live today from Olympia Little Theater, where we'll be
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I'VE GOT DREAMS TO REMEMBER >>> The other day in Oleanna rehearsal, I expressed my theory that David Mamet hates actors. "Mamet loves actors," our director countered, "the way Sondheim loves singers." Some of you laughed really hard at that. You others aren't theater geeks, so why are you reading this? My annoyance
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YOUR SOURCE FOR SOUTH SOUND THEATER COVERAGE >>> 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
Walkie Talkie Blog
YOUR SOURCE FOR SOUTH SOUND THEATER COVERAGE >>> 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,
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A CRITIC POSES AN INDELICATE QUESTION >>> We theater folk are, for the most part, a tribe of earnest liberals. I'm sure there are a few Glenn Beck junkies running around on the boards, but they stay mostly in our GOP closet. We're all wonderful, kind, inclusive people who embraced color-
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ORIGINAL PEOPLES; ORIGINAL ART >>> 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
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ON ADDICTION TO ACTING >>> Can I tell you how busy I am? You are, too, of course, but please, bear with me a moment: I got married last month, so I'm trying to squeeze all my possessions into my new wife's Tumwater condo. Not that I'm complaining, mind you;
Walkie Talkie Blog
YOUR SOURCE FOR SOUTH SOUND THEATER COVERAGE >>> 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
Walkie Talkie Blog
KIDS LIKE FARM ANIMALS AND DANCING >>> 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
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WEEKEND-LONG FESTIVAL IN OLY >>> 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
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WHEN IT ALL GOES SOUTH >>> One of the shows I saw this weekend was Play On! at Olympia Little Theater, in which an amateur company bumbles through the disastrous opening-night performance of a not-so-great production. Tread the boards long enough and you, too, Gentle Reader, may know the joys of
Walkie Talkie Blog
(A WEDDING CEREMONY) >>> When we hear the phrase traditional marriage, we have to ask, "Whose tradition do you mean?" Every culture has its own wedding day customs, and the nature of marriage itself changes from land to land and from year to year. In German villages, for example, the couple's friends
Walkie Talkie Blog
WHEN THE WORLD DOESN'T END >>> Having written a novel about the end of the world (Lightfall, available at bookstores and libraries near you) I've spent a fair amount of time talking to people about the Apocalypse. Actually, having been one of Jehovah's Witnesses until adulthood, I've spent a lot of
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MORE THAN MEN IN TIGHTS >>> 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
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MICE ARE IN IT FOR THEMSELVES >>> 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
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EXTENSIVE LOCAL THEATER COVERAGE IN THE WEEKLY VOLCANO >>> 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.
