April 2017

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PREVIEW Bret Fetzer and The Moonshine Revival Tent

“Carny Girl”

Bret Fetzer and The Moonshine Revival Tent’s fusion of sprightly storytelling and lush choral singing was described by the MC at a recent Folklife performance as “The Brothers Grimm meet O Brother Where Art Thou.” In their next performance at West of Lenin in Fremont, the Moonshine Revival Tent debuts their newest piece: “Carny Girl”

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PREVIEW Sandbox Radio May 1st, Town Hall

Get Ready to Laugh

I would like to have some explanation, as to why Sandbox Radio has chosen May 1st for their Spring Radio show, but I have no great insight about it. Perhaps it is because it takes place on May 1st, a day designed by the 2nd International as International Worker’s Day. A more likely explanation is that it is the universal cry for help when shipwrecked, having originated in the days when French, rather than English was the lingua franca. In French it is m’aidez, meaning HELP ME, but the English render it phonetically into May Day! May Day!

At any rate, it seems highly appropriate for a Sandbox Radio show, because at times, I felt like calling for help, because I seriously thought my sides would split with laughter, while sitting in the audience at Sandbox Radio shows. Often the only way I could have possibly stopped laughing was with outside help.

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PREVIEW Research and Development Wing-Not just for Techies

R & D not just in SLU

Annex Theatre has been one of the most explosive research & development laboratories of the Seattle theatre scene for 30 years. Curators Catherine Blake Smith and James Weidman take it one step further to discover what happens when process is product. Invited artists who embody Annex’s mission will create improbable, risky, and bold new work in Research & Development Wing.

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REVIEW-FROZEN-HOW HARD IT IS FOR HUMANS TO CHIP THROUGH ICE.

Searing acting, tense and thought provoking lines and the powerful energies of fear and deep sadness. Frozen is an arresting play. Delving into outrightly difficult territory- exploring a serial killer and those affected by him, this play asks hard questions. The play asks us to explore the difference “between a crime of evil and a crime of illness.” We’re asked to grapple with the idea that people are perhaps not born evil but act evil due to circumstances beyond their control.

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Here Lies Love: Disco Down at Seattle Rep-Extended thru June 18

Here Lies Love is one of the first songs and it is was what Imelda jokingly said should be put on her tombstone. Despite the conflicts she had that are the story arcs of the show she may well get her wish. Currently 87, she returned to the Philippines and served four terms as a congresswoman after her husband died in 1989.

Okay, Imelda (Jaygee Macapugay), having called out love, what does it mean to be loved by one person who is not treated fairly by your family, and later by you? I’m referring to the poor woman who helped to look after her when she was a child, Estrella Cumpas (Melody Butiu). In several songs moving from their nearly shared poverty (Imelda may have been materially poor, but her family had some better-off members and social prominence), through Estrella being blocked from Imelda’s wedding party, to Imelda insisting on a meeting and offering a bribe for silence after Estrella writes a book about their mutual origins. Imelda lived the jet-setter life while Estrella’s was still mired in poverty. Still, as Estrella sings in their last encounter, there’s no shame in being poor.

Or again, what does it mean to draw the romantic attentions of both the future dictator of your country and the man who will lead the Opposition?

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4twenty: WARP theatre’s weed-inspired spring showcase

Social justice, Care Bear Stare, and Billie Holiday’s ghost. WARP Theatre’s 2017 spring showcase, 4twenty, is a fun, uneven, and undeniably Seattle-grown night of cannabis-inspired theater.

4twenty’s mission is to tell “stories that examine, celebrate, demystify, and normalize cannabis culture.” The pieces may share a common theme, but the range of genres and tones couldn’t be wider.The program of short plays, film, and spoken word draws from weed’s demonized past to its legalized present. 4twenty includes Seattle-specific sketch comedy, politically-charged historical fiction, a romantic-comedy musical, and more…

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REVIEW-NADESHIKO

As Seattle skylines are awash with pearly pink cherry blossoms, it’s a good time to consider how hard it is to break from stereotype. Nadeshiko, an original play by Seattle based playwright, Keiko Green, seeks to expose and question ongoing assumptions about Asian women.

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Possum—A Workshop Performance

Former firebrand radical Lucinda Celeste (Macall Gordon) is on the lam, which is like playing possum, in a primitive log cabin deep in the woods. Her devoted protector and supporter and ever hopeful to-be lover, Rex Eaglejeep (Asa Sholdez) is convinced that the State has revived the search for Lucinda. Lucinda is much less worried. Note to readers: it’s not paranoia if they are out to get you.

The pair’s non-stop haggling about security and safety is interrupted by Otto (Connor Kinzer). Otto claims to be Lucinda’s adult son

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