Walkie Talkie Blog
YOUR SOURCE FOR SOUTH SOUND THEATER COVERAGE >>> We're hearing it all over the South Sound these days: "We're gonna bring you a season of the classics!" As one troupe after another announces its 2011-2012 schedule, that cry of fiscal desperation, always delivered by the house manager with insincere enthusiasm, is
Walkie Talkie Blog
YOUR SOURCE FOR SOUTH SOUND THEATER COVERAGE >>> The years from 1967 to 1977 were the richest of the radio era. Abbey Road is the single greatest album ever recorded, and whatever's in second place is also by the Beatles. Leather pants will always be awesome. These are indisputable scientific facts,
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A CRITIC POSES AN INDELICATE QUESTION >>> We theater folk are, for the most part, a tribe of earnest liberals. I'm sure there are a few Glenn Beck junkies running around on the boards, but they stay mostly in our GOP closet. We're all wonderful, kind, inclusive people who embraced color-
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ORIGINAL PEOPLES; ORIGINAL ART >>> For the sixth year in a row, the Washington State History Museum has selected a juried exhibit of contemporary Native American art for display in one of its featured galleries. This year's exhibit is called In the Spirit: Contemporary Northwest Native Arts. I was allowed to
Walkie Talkie Blog
ON ADDICTION TO ACTING >>> Can I tell you how busy I am? You are, too, of course, but please, bear with me a moment: I got married last month, so I'm trying to squeeze all my possessions into my new wife's Tumwater condo. Not that I'm complaining, mind you;
Walkie Talkie Blog
YOUR SOURCE FOR SOUTH SOUND THEATER COVERAGE >>> The device of a "play within a play" is hardly new, of course. Theater has always been meta. A Midsummer Night's Dream incorporates Pyramus and Thisbe, and Hamlet directs a loaded performance of The Mousetrap. Cyrano berates a ham actor, Montfleury. Actors love
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KIDS LIKE FARM ANIMALS AND DANCING >>> I don't feel at all guilty about the pun above. They're fun to write, puns, not to mention de rigueur in entertainment review titles. They're scattered throughout Riot to Follow's production of Honk! The Ugly Duckling Musical like chicken feed in a barnyard. Kids
Walkie Talkie Blog
WEEKEND-LONG FESTIVAL IN OLY >>> Capital City Pride began under the aegis of Rainbow Center Olympia. Back then, the festival drew a few hundred people. Now as many as 10,000 celebrants converge on a two-day extravaganza that marks the climax of a very busy year for the organization. After a champagne
Walkie Talkie Blog
WHEN IT ALL GOES SOUTH >>> One of the shows I saw this weekend was Play On! at Olympia Little Theater, in which an amateur company bumbles through the disastrous opening-night performance of a not-so-great production. Tread the boards long enough and you, too, Gentle Reader, may know the joys of
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(A WEDDING CEREMONY) >>> When we hear the phrase traditional marriage, we have to ask, "Whose tradition do you mean?" Every culture has its own wedding day customs, and the nature of marriage itself changes from land to land and from year to year. In German villages, for example, the couple's friends
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WHEN THE WORLD DOESN'T END >>> Having written a novel about the end of the world (Lightfall, available at bookstores and libraries near you) I've spent a fair amount of time talking to people about the Apocalypse. Actually, having been one of Jehovah's Witnesses until adulthood, I've spent a lot of
Walkie Talkie Blog
MORE THAN MEN IN TIGHTS >>> If the history of the Olympia Comics Festival were told in funny book form, this year would be its splash panel. Whether you know what that sentence meant or not, the folks at Danger Room Comics think this it's time you dropped by. "This is our
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MICE ARE IN IT FOR THEMSELVES >>> In Laura Numeroff's 1985 social treatise If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, she uses the analogy of a mouse to illustrate the dangers of welfare. If you give a mouse a cookie, she warns, he'll want milk. And once he has milk, he'll
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EXTENSIVE LOCAL THEATER COVERAGE IN THE WEEKLY VOLCANO >>> In many ways, Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead is exactly what it promises to be, a juvenile parody of Charles Schulz's beloved Peanuts comic strip and characters. Imagine You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown as rewritten by Kevin Smith.
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ON STANDING (OR SITTING) OVATIONS >>> Packed with parents and other well-wishers, a full opening-night house leaped to its feet at the end of the show. Only two unrepentant naysayers remained seated: myself and my fiancee. It's happened before. It'll happen again. And yes, we did see you staring bloody daggers
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THE PERILS OF REAL, LIVE THEATER! >>> When actors or crew members improvise a detour around line glitches, missing sound cues, and other onstage mayhem, we call that a "cover." All stage performers know the thrill and relief of clever covering; we've all had to do it, and we're all grateful
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EURYDICE OPENS THIS WEEK >>> We've learned our lesson. I was happily disinvited from reviewing Riot to Follow's production of Eurydice (pronounced "you-RID-a-see") two weeks early; since it opens the same weekend as four other shows, I volunteered to watch a rehearsal and write this preview instead. What happens between now
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SEEKING SALVATION >>> In no way do I mean this as a slight, but it doesn't take long before Everyman starts to feel just a bit silly. That's a good thing. I find silliness extremely underrated in modern art critique. Indisputably the most famous English morality play of the late 15th century,
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BUT HE THINKS YOU'RE FULL OF SHIT >>> I'd never heard of Ken Balsley when I was assigned this interview, but that was my fault, not his. He's been doing everything he can to get his name out there. If you grew up in this area, you know him from his
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WHAT A DIFFERENCE A WEEK MAKES >>> As you know if you read my review of what I called Cannibal! the Rehearsal, it's a tragically bad idea to invite your critics eight days early when you're still putting in lights and sound equipment, your costumes aren't finished, and you still have