There are not enough superlatives in English, nor perhaps in any language to describe the enchantingly entertaining A Romanian Nutcracker, A Night of Awakened Tradition, produced by the Romanian dance group Datina on Saturday, December 20th at the Redmond Performing Arts Center to a sold-out audience.
A Note from the Editor
After 14 years and 1,200 DITH review (with 658 written by me), I have decided to retire, to tend my garden, take up knitting and other age appropriate activities. It has been both an honor and a pleasure to review and promote so many small emerging companies. When Scott Taylor and I started in 2010, our mission was to review the shows “in our ‘hood,'” that is to say, the small, fringe companies in Capitol Hill, which were not being reviewed. Originally, DITH was an online feature attached to the Capitol Hill Times, but when it was sold, we went independent. Now there are other website reviewers, so I trust the community will be well served. The other websites are NW Review, Show’s I’ve Seen, Broadway World and Sound on Stage
I especially want to thank my trusted assistants, Alan Sydney and Mark Douglass along with all the interns and other writers over the years, who have made DITH such a success and especially Vera Chan-Pool, former Editor of the Capitol Hill Times, who agreed to our original proposal, as well as the Pacific Publishing Company, the owners of Capitol Hill Times and so many other neighborhood newspapers.
The DITH site will be closed down, but all the articles will be archived, so anyone can access them.
Thanks again for this great opportunity and good luck!
Marie Bonfils
Combating gentrification one art show at a time.
This past Saturday, Wa Na Wari with musicians Karim Koumbassa, held a free reception to open the new art exhibits in the Central district, featuring Gherdai Hassell, Nandi Jordan, and Kino Galbraith & Kelsey Van Ert. Unfortunately, the ceramics from Nathalie Djakou Kassi, were held up in customs. Nevertheless, the evening was full of neighborhood friendliness, some dancing, excellent nibbly bits and visually scrumptious art.
What we have gained in Logic we have lost in Faith
Under the direction of the Artistic Director Hjalmer Anderson, Heart Repertory Theatre just opened the Broadway hit, Agnes of God by John Pielmeir at the Sammamish Valley Grange.
This thought-provoking, suspenseful production proves to be as big a hit in Woodinville as it was on Broadway. It questions legal, psychiatric, religious and existential certainties, exposing moral ambiguities using an extremely zippy, dramatic dialogue, which was full of humor and wit.
Performance and Tales of Heroism.
A Child’s Dream, a concert by the Chamber Group of the Kyiv Classic Orchestra to benefit the thousands of of children wounded in the war, and specifically Ukraine’s largest Children’s Hospital, Ohmatdit, on Saturday May 25th at Benroya Hall in downtown Seattle.
A Child’s Dream was made famous by its courgeous and defiant concert in Kyiv’s Central Square in the first days of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine.
Three original plays elevating new and diverse voices:
8 nights by 9 directors and playwrights, 16 actors and 5 designers,
15 actors, and 5 designers.
Laugh. Weep. Celebrate.
The Shattered Glass Project 2024 New Works Festival: New Voices, New Narratives is the culminating presentation by the participants in the Director and Playwright Incubator/Mentor Program. The Shattered Glass Project is unique in Seattle’s rich theatrical ecosystem, presenting a festival created by a cohort of women and non-binary directors and playwrights supporting one another through a year of skill building and play development workshops.
Ranging in style from lyrical to camp to realism, the three plays elevate new and diverse voices re-examining traditional narratives and socially relevant topics through the powerful medium of theater. 
Solidarity Forever-Our Unions will make us Strong
Suspenseful Historical Play with a Message.
As a reviewer, I seem to have hit the jackpot this weekend. Not only was I invited to Blue Hour’s The Plague Master General, but also to Rainy Day Artistic Collective’s The Triangle Factory Fire Project, two brilliant, enjoyable shows about corruption produced by two small promising companies. The latter, written by Christopher Piehler with Scott Alan Evan was staged at TPS’s Theatre 4. This first-rate script was directed with balletic precision by Jack Seamus Conley.
Yes, Minister and Monty Python humor, Serious subject
Friday night, I had the great honor to review the first performance of the world premiere of The Plague Master General-a Bubonic Comedy, which promises to be an award-winning script and production. This thoroughly entertaining, enlightening production was written and directed by Greg LoProto, produced by Blue Hour Theatre, with an ensemble of astoundingly talented actors at West of Lenin. It was one of the highlights of my 14 years of reviewing.
Loosing your cultural identity in a Classroom in Iran
The Pulitzer prize winning play English, a co-production of Artswest and Seda-Iranian Theatre Ensemble, opened this weekend. The action takes place in 2008 in an English classroom in Iran where four very different students are preparing for the all-important TOEFL prior to emigrating to English speaking countries. Author Sanaz Toossi, uses the students attitudes towards learning English as a vehicle to explore issues of ethnic identity and loss.
Dramatic Three-person play examines faith.
Summoned to a convent, Dr. Martha Livingstone, a court-appointed psychiatrist, is charged with assessing the sanity of a novice accused of murdering her newborn. Miriam Ruth, the Mother Superior, determinedly keeps young Agnes from the doctor, further arousing Livingstone’s suspicions. Who killed the infant, and who fathered the tiny victim? Livingstone’s questions force all three women to re-examine the meaning of faith and the power of love, leading to a dramatic, compelling climax.
