ARTS COVERAGE TO END ALL ARTS COVERAGE >>>

At this point it goes without saying. If you're looking for coverage of local arts in Tacoma, Olympia, and all points in between, the Weekly Volcano is THE place to find it. Our goal is to consistently provide the best local arts coverage possible to our fantastic readers. We're always on the lookout for ways to shine a light on all the awesome creativity we see around us.

This week's Volcano arts section includes Chuck Gumpert and Tom Anderson at Childhood's End Gallery, Someone Who'll Watch Over Me at TLT, Rabbit Hole at PLU, plus much more ...

Here's a look at the Volcano arts coverage waiting for you this week in print and online.

VISUAL EDGE: CHUCK GUMPERT AND TOM ANDERSON

Chuck Gumpert and Tom Anderson are the featured artists at Childhood's End Gallery this month. Both are painters in the Abstract Expressionist tradition.

It seems like I've been seeing invitations to Chuck Gumpert's shows for as long as I've been reviewing art; but unless my memory has failed me - which it does quite frequently - I don't think I've ever reviewed his work, and I'm not even sure I've seen any of his paintings except in reproduction. I was surprised at the small-to-moderate scale of these paintings, because on websites they look much larger. It's Gumpert's very expansive explosion of color and loosely brushed forms with no definite edges that make them look so much larger. ... -- Alec Clayton

THEATER: SOMEONE WHO'LL WATCH OVER ME

Tacoma Little Theatre is known for putting on consistently good productions. TLT chooses a variety of plays that appeal to a wide audience. The theater's current production, Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, is one of the few TLT productions intended for a mature audience. Rated R for "explicit language and situations," the play by Frank McGuinness is as relevant now as it was when it first opened in 1992. 

Adam (Tim Shute) is an American doctor held in captivity who shares a Beirut cell with Edward (Tim Samland), an Irish journalist. Kidnapped and thrown together, Adam and Edward go through a range of emotions as they try to make sense of their circumstances. Part way through Act I, Adam and Edward are joined by a third man, Michael (Martin J. Mackenzie). Michael is an English professor who was nabbed while on his way to the market. The play has limited action and is driven by dialogue. Chained to the floor of their cells, the men struggle to keep their spirits lifted and to hide their despair from their captors. ... -- Joann Varnell

THEATER: RABBIT HOLE

ow do you cope with a pain most people can't even conceive? How do you mourn the death of your young son? And when you know it was a senseless accident that took his life, and when there's no target for blame, where does your anger go?

David Lindsay-Abaire won a Pulitzer exploring these questions in Rabbit Hole, and it's not hard to see why. It is a masterpiece of human emotion; raw dialogue coupled with a share of humor, the way life is.

Produced as part of a series of events on compassion by the School of Arts and Communication, Pacific Lutheran University's staging of this powerful piece succeeds on a level somewhat higher than one might expect from student performers. Seniors Kate Howland and Jordan Paul Tjarks Beck portray as Becca and Howie, parents of 4-year-old Danny, who has perished in an accident some months before. ... -- Joe Izenman

LOCAL FILM: NFFTY

Let's talk numbers.

21

Jesse Harris' age when he co-founded the National Film Festival for Talented Youth (the cool kids call it NFFTY) in Seattle with Jocelyn R.C. and Kyle Seago. What had YOU accomplished by that time in your life? Probably starting your career and/or going to college, you sad underachiever you.

Actually, Harris also heard the higher calling to higher education, but ultimately listened to the moviemaker within and completed his first feature (shot mostly in Puyallup) at ...

17

But first Harris' parents had to help bankroll the project, which meant dipping into the college fund. "It took a little convincing, but I think finally they realized that no matter what they said, I was going to do it anyway," Harris laughs.

Harris wasn't going at it alone, as he soon found out. When other teenage filmmakers began taking notice and seeking him out for distribution advice, Harris started NFFTY. "There's so many other young people other there ... who have films (but) nowhere to have them screened," he says. ... -- Christopher Wood

WE RECOMMEND: MAAZA MENGISTE

Ethiopian-born novelist Maaza Mengiste's 2010 book, Beneath the Lion's Gaze, deals with the lasting impacts of former Ethiopian ruler Haile Selassie on the country, and the 16 difficult years that came between Selassie's death in 1975 and the rebel overthrow of Ethiopia's Marxist government in 1991 - with the novel centered around the effect this turmoil had on the lives of a fictional doctor's family. Championed as, "as one of a new generation of African writers who take on the continent's brutal history of colonization," Mengiste will be in Tacoma this week to discuss her book at the University of Puget Sound. ... -- Weekly Volcano

WE RECOMMEND: TWO YEARS OF ART BUS

Tacoma's Third Thursday Artwalk is awesome ... the only trouble is it's completely unwalkable. Thankfully, for the last two years Tacoma has had the Art Bus to rely on - the creation of T-Town's own Angela Jossy, and pretty much the bestest idea there ever was. Each Third Thursday the Art Bus shuttles riders from gallery to gallery, and from museum to museum, accomplishing more than any one person could ever dream of on foot, and at the same time building a communal vibe that's worth its weight in gold.

This month, in celebration of two years of Art Bus - there'll be TWO BUSES and TWO ROUTES! Pierce County Auditor Julie Anderson and former Washington State Rep turned stand-up comic Dennis Flannigan will act as the celebrity guides, ensuring all involved experience maximum artistic enjoyment. ... -- WV

PLUS: MORE LOCAL THEATER

PLUS: IN DEPTH ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT CALENDAR

PLUS: MINDLESS NONSENSE