This show wonders “What does it take to be a high-ranking woman in the business world? Is their success defined by a different set of criteria than men? And, how are women helping or hindering themselves and each other in their rise to the top?” This show has focus and sparkle because the cast has mutual trust and the writing and direction has cut out anything that does not serve. The opening night was packed and it deserves a sold-out run.
Drama and Dreams in the Café
Dukesbay Productions, a wonderful Theatre company in Tacoma opened its fifth episode of an ongoing series, Java 5 Tacoma -Game of Scones, at the Merlino Arts Center in downtown Tacoma. Be prepared for an evening of laughter, irony and poking fun at just about everything fashionable in the Northwest; it is all there, jokes about how bad vegan cooking is, how detestable gluten-free baking is, online entrepreneurship, how nasty even local politics can be and some Monty Pythonish dream sequences.
When considering the OSF seasonal offerings one must finally answer the question: Are they worth the schlep to southern Oregon, nearly California? Is there a reward to be found at the end of that long commuting rainbow? The 80 year old Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s opening weekend ensured all that there is indeed gold in them Ashland hills. I was able to catch three of the four plays now showing. Each offered a solid and rewarding theatrical experience. OSF continues to provide top of the line productions, featuring outstanding staging and stellar jobs of acting. Here are the great shows I caught on premiere weekend.
Two one act plays, Nine by Jane Shepart and The Long Road by Shelagh Stephenson opened Friday at Eclectic Theatre.
The world premiere of Bryan Willis’ and Dwayne Clark’s original play Seven Ways to Get There brings to the ACT
Bureaucratic Vanity in Imperial Russia
For those of us who love 19th Russian literature, the last few months in Seattle have been a wet dream. The Seagull Project produced Chekhov’s The Three Sisters at ACT, Theatre Machine produced the seldom seen play The Lower Depths by Maxim Gorky and now Ghost Light Theatricals has thrust us all into the stratosphere of delight with stage adaptations of two short stories, The Nose and The Overcoat, by Gogol.
Dear Elizabeth opened Feb. 6th at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. Dear Elizabeth is a must-see for anyone with
Superb Female Painter Reduced to a Victim
Blood/Water/Paint, by Joy McCullough-Carranza opened on Friday at Theater-off-Jackson. Produced by Live Girls!, a company dedicated to new works by women, it was didactically written with a supposedly feminist agenda. However, this story about Artemisia Gentileschi, did not seem to attempt to “empower” women but seemed to emphasize their victimhood.
Stone Soup Theater opened The God of Hell by Sam Shepard on Friday February 23, 2015. This politically inspired play
