Walkie Talkie Blog
THOUGHTS FROM THE VOLCANO'S THEATER CRITIC >>> I've heard people say casting is half of directing, but if that's true, then play selection is the other two-thirds. (I may have forgotten to carry a one somewhere.) When I critique a script, I'm looking at a wide variety of considerations, the foremost
Walkie Talkie Blog
ALTERED STATES >>> As you may have seen in the current issue of the Weekly Volcano, this week's cover story is about hypnosis. Specifically, I let a mild-mannered hypnotist an all-access pass to my innermost mysteries. You can read it here. Ideally, this will be one in a series of articles about legally
Walkie Talkie Blog
NO REGRETS BUT ONE >>> In interviews with professional critics, one question arises again and again: Is there a review you regret? Looking back, is there anything you wish you could change or take back? Well, I've been doing this for about a year now; and in all that time, over
Walkie Talkie Blog
WHY I DO THIS >>> I don't sleep well the night before a negative review goes online. There are probably critics who enjoy shredding the dreams of theater artists, but I don't happen to be one of them. I try to keep my critical writing, if not impartial, then at least
Walkie Talkie Blog
RAGELESS IN SEATTLE >>> Times are tough. The Weekly Volcano can't dispatch correspondents across the country at the drop of a hat. But much like Jon Stewart's Daily Show, which routinely employs greenscreen to fake stand-up news reports from overseas, WV editor Matt Driscoll can, just barely, afford to send me
Walkie Talkie Blog
2.5 ACRES OF AWESOME >>> The current record for Largest Food Drive Ever netted half a million pounds of food. Now Emergency Food Network, Northwest Harvest, Tacoma Public Schools and the Stadium Centennial Foundation hope to celebrate the Stadium Bowl's 100th anniversary by doubling that record from Friday to Saturday. Fill
Walkie Talkie Blog
THE PERFECT 9/11 >>> When I woke up last Saturday, Facebook was ablaze with remembrances of Sept. 11 and debates about the advisability of constructing an interfaith community center, including a Muslim prayer room, two blocks from Ground Zero. I don't mind telling you I cried many times over what
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NO DAY AT THE BEACH >>> 1:20 p.m.: I arrive on Pacific Avenue, relieved to find a space in one-hour parking. I'm here for Seaside Opera, a performance art piece by A K Mimi Allin, aka ThePoetessAtGreenLake.blogspot.com. She promises a 10-15 minute celebration of "sea-inspired operas" in Tollefson Plaza. Aha, I
Walkie Talkie Blog
Harlequin Productions opens up the read through of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hide >>> In movies and TV, they call it a table read. In theater, we call it a read-through. It's the first rehearsal, at which the cast meets for the first time to sit around a
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IT'S GOOD YO BE YOUNG >>> Properly speaking, Harlequin Productions' Sixties Kicks isn't musical theater, it's a concert. Five talented young people backed by a killer five-piece rock band sing 37 hits of the 1960s. I'm not a music critic, but I don't have to