Center stage fall season

Too many choices, too few free evenings: Fall season highlights at the Broadway and Washington Centers

By Bill Timnick on September 13, 2007

At a loss to decide among the performance choices lined up at the Tacoma’s Broadway Center and Olympia’s Washington Center? Here’s a selection of highlights from what’s in store to make it even harder to decide:

Broadway Center for the Performing Arts

Cirqueworks Birdhouse Factory

I’m still not sure what it is, but I want to see it anyway. It’s the Cirqueworks Birdhouse Factory, coming to the Pantages Sept. 21 and 22. The performers make use of an array of mechanical devices — cobbled together to form an oversized “factory” with which the acrobats, clowns and contortionists can interact.



Northwest Sinfonietta’s “Beethoven Revealed” Program I

The Rialto seems an ideal setting for chamber music, and Tacoma’s Northwest Sinfonietta seems an ideal chamber orchestra to fill the Rialto space on October 6. This first program in the season’s Beethoven series features the composer’s 4th Symphony.



Neil Berg’s 100 Years of Broadway

Current Broadway performer Neil Berg is bringing the music of Cole Porter, Gershwin, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Leonard Bernstein, among others, to the Pantages in a revue format — the “best moments from the biggest shows” — all on Oct. 21.



Tacoma Opera: “Orpheus in the Underworld”


In case you didn’t know, it’s a comedy — based on a tragedy. Audiences are invited to spend an evening in Hell (and return to the Rialto) November 2, in this Offenbach classic performed in English.



Puget Sound Revels presents “The Christmas Revels”

This holiday favorite is returning for a four-day run beginning Dec. 15. As in previous years, the Revels shifts to a new theme this season — turning to the music and dance of Eastern Europe.

To find out more, visit www.broadwaycenter.org or call 253.591.5894.

Washington Center for the Performing Arts

Filling the Stage: Great Opera Choruses

The Masterworks Choral Ensemble brings a program of chorus selections in English from Russian, French and German opera (with a touch of Gilbert and Sullivan) to the Center Oct. 13.



In the Mood

“In the mood” for a Big Band theatrical swing revue? A company of more than 20 performers present the music of the Andrews Sisters, Glenn Miller and other swing wra greats in this collection of song and dance supported by a live orchestra. The date is Nov.1.



Blind Boys of Alabama — Go Tell it on the Mountain

You could see a production of “The Nutcracker” at the Center in December, or you could attend a concert featuring the Blind Boys of Alabama instead on Dec. 21. The holiday-themed concert incorporates the group’s renditions of “pure soul gospel.”

For more information, visit www.washington center.org or call (360) 753-8586.