Solo Performance

Past

The Slipknot

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Drugstores are Full of Euphemisms.

“Slipknot” is not an inappropriate word for this outstandingly performed and well-crafted solo play which opened at 18th & Union, (formerly New City) this weekend. Slip refers to casual jobs one just innocently “slips” into without realizing the knots which will bind us as we keep working at them day by day, week by week, month by month until we feel our brains have been reformatted to do only that one thing. Andrew Litzky’s superlative performance was, for me, a once in a life-time experience, because it was without a doubt not only the best solo performance I have ever seen, but probably, the best solo performance I will likely ever see.

Past

The Reckoning, Pecora for the Public

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Government of the Banks, for the Banks and by the Banks

The above quote appeared in a Wall St. Journal article, during the 1933 United States Senate Banking Committee hearings, which investigated the role that the Wall Street head honchos played in the 1929 stock market crash. The investigation as well as the lead investigator, Ferdinand Pecora, was the subject of a world premier, The Reckoning, Pecora for the Public, at the Alhadeff Studio Theatre at Seattle Center, this weekend. Enthralling was one adjective which sprang to mind, along with extremely topical. When I was not laughing, I felt intense moral outrage, as well as feeling that it was the best one-person show I have ever seen. Possibly it is the best solo play ever written.

Past

The Waiting Period- Review

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A Comedic Look at the Tragedy of Depression.

Brian Copeland, nationally known and award winning solo performer revives his most personal one man show, The Waiting Period, in response to the tragic suicide of Robin Williams. This show is an unrelenting look at the period in Copeland’s life, during the mandatory ten day waiting period before he could lay his hands on the newly purchased gun, with which he planned to take his own life.

Amish Project
Past

The Amish Project: Amazing Grace Under Fire

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Marianne Savell excels as the sole performer in The Amish Project about the shooting of school girls at the West Nickels Mines School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on October 2, 2006. Robert Quinlan directs this powerful fictionalized account by Jessica Dickey in the small and intimate Isaac Studio at Taproot Theatre. Isaac Studio is the right space for this, it seats 120 and with a bare set by Mark Lund of a hanging window and a simple wooden chair, it suggest the aggressive “simplicity” of the Amish as understood in our popular imagination.

The facts this play is based on read like yet another tragic school massacre:

Past

25,000 Posts-A New Construction

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” Life was happening to me at an alarming rate and it was not of my making”

Was among the numerous witty and profound quotes that made me laugh and cry at the same time as I sat through 25,000 Post-A New Construction at West of Lenin, an outstanding solo performance by veteran actor Jim Lapan.

Past

10 Days to Happiness

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Vipassana-Buddhist Concentration Camp for Gentiles

10 Days to Happiness is a not entirely irreverent, not entirely one-person show, written and performed by Donna Rae Davidson about her ten day meditation retreat at a Buddhist center in the wilderness. Each scene represented the trials and tribulations of getting through just one day of 10 hour meditations, bland vegetarian food, and halo-wearing, serene-emanating poseurs.

Past

Me vs My Subconscious

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My Life is One Long Freudian Slip

Me vs my Subconscious, an original solo show written and performed by Rebecca Goldberg, demonstrated that the best humor is that which says something profound about serious existential questions. Like Woody Allen, Me vs. My Subconscious was all about one person’s insecurities in life.

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