Welcome To Braggsville Poses Big Questions at Book-It
Book-it wraps up their current season with a knockout punch of a production: Welcome to Braggsville. Josh Aaseng and Daemond […]
Busman’s Honeymoon Offers a Mysterious Ride
Taproot’s artistic director Scott Nolte pulled off some crafty sleuthing in finding a script for Dorothy Sayers’ novel Busman’s Honeymoon. He had enjoyed the book and learned that the story was originally written for the stage. The work hadn’t been in publication for some time, but eventually Nolte was able to track down a photocopy of the play from a publisher’s shelf. Lord Peter Wimsey would be proud! The show lays out a baffling mystery with a basketful of clues available for the audience to help puzzle out the solution.
Seattle Shakespeare’s Midsummer Taps into Something Special
Director George Mount notes that Seattle Shakespeare has been nurturing the idea of a 40’s musical style Midsummer Night’s Dream for twenty years. Their vision finally hits the stage in the troupe’s closing production for the season. Nir Sadovik wrote the original tunes used for the show. The concept: put Shakespeare’s lines directly into 30’s and 40’s style songs and intertwine the tunes within the Midsummer script.
Waning at Annex Theatre
On a rain sodden, midweek night on Capitol Hill, Annex Theatre presented a unique and thought provoking production, Waning. Playwright Kamaria Hallum-Harris filled her fifty-minute play with startling juxtapositions pitting the horrific history of the treatment of African Americans in the early part of the 20th century with a young black woman, Luna (Danela Butler), searching for her sexual identity today.
Room Service Delivers at Taproot
Room Service first hit Broadway in 1937, in the midst of our country’s long dark Depression. The Marx Brothers took the play’s script, written by John Murray and Allen Boretz and made it into a movie the following year. It was their only movie not specifically created for them. Although there are lots of wacky shenanigans in the Taproot’s production, don’t expect to see specific Groucho and Harpo bits here. Director Karen Lund has her own original take on the comedic madness.
A Charlie Brown Christmas at Taproot Theatre
The Taproot Theatre is again offering up a cute little stocking stuffer with its take on A Charlie Brown Christmas. The play recreates the warmth and good cheer Charles Schultz and director Bill Melendez first served up with their award winning television special back in 1965.
The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge at the Taproot
Playwright Mark Brown poses the question: “Can Scrooge learn yet another life lesson?” with his holiday farce The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge. The play revolves around Old Scrooge charging Jacob Marley and the Christmas Spirits with trespassing, kidnapping, assault and battery. The stakes are not enormously high here; how much can be emotionally invested in a lawsuit against a bevy of ghosts? But uniformly solid acting and a clever surprise ending provide enough fun to send us out into the Seattle winter night with a good amount of holiday cheer.
Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 In Edmonds
Ray Bradbury returned to his classic novel Fahrenheit 451 years after its 1953 publication to create a dramatic version of the dystopian tale. In his play, Bradbury kept many of the same characters but altered some of the plot points of the novel. Most notably, the production’s resolution has a somewhat brighter outlook than the novel’s last pages.
Joyful Noise Extended to Oct. 29
Hearing performances of the Messiah has long been a major musical highlight for me during the holiday season. Last year I even joined the sing-along Messiah they put together in Wedgewood and had a ball! I had no idea that the story of Handel’s composing of the work and its first performances in London had such dramatic intrigue behind it. Taproot Theatre’s season closer, Joyful Noise, brings alive the story of the birth of this classic piece.
A Dazzling Winter’s Tale
Seattle Shakespeare has chosen The Winter’s Tale to launch their 26th season. Believed to be the second to last script the Bard ever penned, the unusual play is filled with intriguing points and counterpoints as a devastating tragedy is ultimately averted in the later acts. The work has been described as a tragicomedy and presents many challenges for any acting troupe. Fortunately, the company has gathered some of Seattle’s most talented actors and technicians to present an earnest and remarkably thoughtful show.