Eight Little Sit-Coms in a Row
Live Girls! Quickies is an annual event of short ten minute plays written by female playwrights about women, which has happened annually since 1999. This year’s offering, Live Girls! Quickies 16 opened at the Annex Theatre on Saturday June 6th.
In the past, Live Girls! Quickies has produced some of the most enjoyable theatre in Seattle with scrumptious short, superbly written and performed plays which were bothprofound comedies and hilarious tragedies; however, Saturday’s production compared to past productions was disappointing. Suffering from sit-com type writing, the less than perfect acoustics of the Annex Theatre on a warm Seattle evening, and some very sloppy diction from the actors, the evening was not worthy of the Live Girls! name. ( in terms of sloppy diction, sitting in the back row I heard the word “stick” instead of “dick” in the first line of the first piece Dinner Party Foul creating a huge amount of confusion)
Having said that, the young mostly raucous audience seemed to enjoy the audience participation, which in fact detracted from my enjoyment of the evening. There was so much drinking in the audience that it was more like a late night cabaret than serious theatre and I frankly miss the days when Live Girls! Quickies was at the vanguard of Seattle Theatre.
Live Girls! Quickies #16. Annex Theatre 1100 E. Pike St.Seattle 98122 ( corner of 11th and Pike-Pike Pine corridor). June 6-20 Tickets: Brownpapertickets.org. Info Lgtheater.org. ( Parking is impossible- take the bus)