May Grows Musicals and More

Honolulu Theatre for Youth come to SCT (courtesy HTY)

Musicals and more, this month, as Spring greenery grows entertainment in our fair city. Get out yer calendars!

The Sandwich Ministry, BAT Theatre, through 5/11/25 (at Kennedy High, 140 S 140^th St. Burien)
Following a once-in-a-century storm, three women come back together to make sandwiches for neighbors who have been displaced. Together, despite their differences, they look for purpose in a time of uncertainty and try to support each other and those around them.
www.battheatre.org
 
The SpongeBob Musical, Bainbridge Performing Arts, 5/2-18/25
When Bikini Bottom is threatened by the impending eruption of Mount Humongous, it’s up to SpongeBob and his friends to save the day. What follows is an explosion of color, music, and community as the citizens of the sea learn what really matters when everything's at stake.
https://bainbridgeperformingarts.org

Jam-Packed April Theater in Seattle

Athena at ArtsWest (John McLellan)

April brings an unusually large amount and range of productions to experience. Check the dates – some of them are only a few days long! Get out yer calendar, it’s Spring!
 
Emma, Dacha Theatre, 4/3-19/25 (at 12^th Avenue Arts)
Dacha’s production invites you to indulge in the numerous balls and parties of Austen’s landscape with an onstage seating option that plunges the audience into the heart of the action. Guests in immersive seats might act as a character’s confidante, help choose a character’s accessory, or even enjoy a punch toast with the leading lady. Riser seating is also available for more traditional theatre goers who prefer to watch the chaos unfold from the comfort of their seats.
www.dachatheatre.com/emma
 
The Mammy Project, Intiman Cabaret, 4/3-6/25 (at Erickson Theatre)
Artist Michelle Matlock takes a journey through the icon, stereotype, and myth of the “Mammy” caricature, and its impact on contemporary American culture. This one-person play and conversation weaves the untold history of Nancy Green, the first woman to play “Aunt Jemima” at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, with the documented struggle that African American activists like Ida B. Wells fought to receive representation at that very same World’s Fair. www.intiman.org
 
BITFEST, Theatre33 and other multilingual companies, 4/4-6/25 (Meydenbauer Center)
Many small cultural and bilingual theater companies exist in our community. They join together for the first time for the inaugural Bellevue International Theatre Festival (BITFest) April 4-6, 2025. Gathered from Theatre33’s network of community theaters, companies from OR, CA, and British Columbia will offer curated one-act plays in various languages. Tickets will be sold per block in 2-play blocks on the stage of the Meydenbauer Center. Also available is a BITFest pass. The last block of shows will be scheduled for Sunday, 4/6/25 and the BITFest will culminate with an awards ceremony and a closing reception.
www.theatre33wa.org
 
Squeeze, Seattle Public Theater and UMO Ensemble, 4/4-13/25 (world premiere)
Inspired by the clowning of Buster Keaton and the existential absurdism of Samuel Beckett, the ensemble and acclaimed playwright Trista Baldwin explore five clowns being shut out, in need, desperate to connect and vying for control of territory. Three simple platforms and a series of ladders connect or obstruct them all. Two stunning acrobats magically weave between personal vignettes that explore the issues of today's world.
www.seattlepublictheater.org

Pie Month! “Waitress” at 5th Ave - the Perfect Sweetness!

Tori Gresham, Kerstin Anderson, and Porscha Shaw in Waitress (Tracy Martin)

Waitress
5^th Avenue Theatre
Through March 30, 2025
 
On Pie Day, 3/14/25, a strong and sweet LOCAL production of Waitress opened at the 5^th Avenue. I joke - Pi Day (based on pi = 3.14) was the perfect day to open. The 5^th Avenue was able to snag one of the first regional rights to perform this charming musical and they’ve turned out a hit!
 
Director Lisa Shriver is back again after her triumphant direction, last season, of Beautiful at Village Theatre. Here, her pacing, smart collaboration with adroit set designer Julia Hayes Welch (a complicated set design moved swiftly and efficiently from scene to scene), and her work with the top-notch local cast combined to a light-as-whipped-cream flair.
 
We meet Jenna, a local waitress in a small town, and her waitstaff cohorts Becky and Dawn, the diner cook, Cal, and assorted townsfolk. She’s unhappily married to abusive Earl, feels trapped and scared, but makes amazing pies every morning. Can a pie contest help her win enough money to get out?
 
Kerstin Anderson fully immerses herself in Jenna. Her voice is sublime and sure. Her quirky character comes out and when she meets gynecologist Dr. Pomatter (wonderfully sweet and funny Adam Standley) and finds out she’s pregnant, and accidentally starts an affair with him, she shows a spunk that allows us to like this woman more than feel sorry for her.

Guest Review: "Clue The Musical" at Driftwood

Nicole Roundy, Doug Harkness, Royce Napolitino in "Clue, The Musical" 
at Driftwood Theatre (photo Dale Sutton)

CLUE, THE MUSICAL

Driftwood Theatre

Through April 6, 2025

Guest Reviewer Kelly Rogers Flynt

As the characters from the classic board game come to life and break out of the box and onto the stage with Edmonds Driftwood Players, they invite the audience to play detective and unravel the mystery of who, how, and where Mr. Boddy is murdered. Through music, dance, and witty dialogue, clues and hints are revealed and bring you closer to the answer. Entertaining, engaging, and marvelously fun, the musical delivers immersive theater to the whole audience.

The show proceeds as if the game were being played by the audience, including the sound effect of rolling dice between each move. The killer, the weapon, and the room are selected by random audience members and placed in a giant "confidentail" envelope on the side of the stage. The cast then adjusts the show to fit those results. Mr. Boddy, acting as narrator, gives you hints of motives and opportunities of the characters. Some are clear, some with a caveat, but all bring you closer to solving the mystery.

Lion or Lamb? Lots to See Onstage in March

Cast of A Raisin in the Sun at Taproot Theatre (Robert Wade)

Classic plays, many musicals, world premiere! So many great choices. Get out yer calendars!
 
Mother Russia (or Periods of Collapse), Seattle Rep, 3/6/25-4/13/25 (world premiere)
Playwright Lauren Yee brings us a comic view of the fall of the Soviet Union! Evgeny and Dmitri are just two average guys who dream of joining the KGB—but when the fall of the Soviet Union puts hiring on hold, they find jobs surveilling a former pop star instead. As they bumble their way through the assignment, both spy work and life under capitalism prove harder than they thought. When old systems and strongmen fall away, and we let the free market decide—freedom might not taste as good as we thought it would.
www.seattlerep.org
 
Is This a Room, Harlequin Productions, 3/7-23/25
A true story, still unfolding. June 3, 2017. A 25-year-old former Air Force linguist named Reality Winner is surprised at her home by the FBI, interrogated, and then charged with leaking evidence of Russian interference in U.S. elections. Reality subsequently received a record-breaking sentence. The verbatim FBI transcript of her interrogation is the heart of Is This a Room, conceived as a play by Obie Award-winner Tina Satter, in which an extraordinary human drama unfolds between the complex and witty Reality, and the agents who question her. As Reality’s autonomy shrinks before her eyes, a simmering real-life thriller emerges, asking what it is to have honor in this American moment, and how the personal can reverberate globally.
www.harlequinproductions.org

What does "Mother Russia" tell us about ourselves?: An interview with Lauren Yee

(photo Beowulf Sheehan)

Mother Russia (or Periods of Collapse)

By Lauren Yee

Seattle Rep

March 6 to April 6, 2025

World Premiere

Nationally known playwright Lauren Yee has a tight connection with Seattle, as she and the Seattle Rep get ready for the March world premiere of her latest play, Mother Russia (or Periods of Collapse). Not only have two of her  works premiered here first, but also years back, she would periodically visit Seattle to hang out with acclaimed director Desdemona Chiang, using her house as a kind of developmental Hedgebrook.

Prior to Mother Russia, our city has been privileged to have major productions of Yee's Cambodian Rock Band, The Great Leap, King of the Yees, and Ching Chong Chinaman. She has won some amazing playwrighting awards and now also contributes writing for shows on Apple+ and Netflix.

Before her burgeoning success, a 22-year-old Yee mused about what her future looked like. "[I imagined that] by day I'd work at an arts nonprofit, probably a theater, in development or marketing," she said. "In the evenings, I'd write and maybe I'd have a show at a small theater... I think about what I have achieved, and what I've been lucky enough to enjoy has far outpaced what I imagined when I was coming into this world professionally."

As for Mother Russia's plot: Two men find jobs surveilling a former pop star in 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union. As they bumble their way through the assignment, spy work and life under capitalism prove harder than they thought. It sounds like it will have a great deal of humor in it.