STEVE DUNKELBERGER: THEATER THURSDAY >>>

My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is ending its run at the Encore! Theater. This classic musical about the battle between nature and nurture is presented on the always entertaining open-air stage at Gig Harbor. The play deals with the transformation of Eliza Doolittle at the hands of Professor Harry Higgins, who takes her under his wing in an effort to transform her into a lady. Bring a picnic dinner, beach chairs and blankets to watch this fun show with some of the best music the genre has to offer.
[Impact Church International, My Fair Lady, through Aug. 31, 7 p.m. Thursday-Sunday, $6-$15, 4819 Hunt St., Gig Harbor, 253.858.2282]

Shrek: the Musical
Shrek: the Musical at the Fifth Avenue Theatre is another option for your theater dollar. This Broadway-bound show is exactly what you would expect. It has the usual line of characters but a new story and original music.
[Fifth Avenue Theatre, through Sept. 21, downtown Seattle]

LINK: Psychopathia Sexualis review
LINK: Steve Dunkelberger rocks

DANIEL BLUE: MEET RON SWARNER >>>

Ron Swarner is the co-owner, publisher, editor, and master and magician of the Weekly Volcano. There are few people who work as hard in this town to achieve what they know in their hearts to be their passion. It will be hard to write about Ron without writing about his paper, but seeing as that would seem like shameless self advertising, I will try to write about the man's character instead.

Raised by hippies in the mountains of Zimbabwe, Ron was a special child from the very start. He could speak all seven dialects of the Swahili people by the age of 5 and began a sort of word of mouth news network from village to village that included advertisements for local goats milk for which he received a pig's bladder full every month. His fondest memories are of helping his mother churn the fresh goat milk into cheese. He would take half the cheese to the capitol city of Harare where he quickly learned English from a wealthy safari hunting man named (no shit) Volcano Joe.

Murky details surround Ron's youth, rumor has it that Volcano Joe's dying wish put him on a boat to America, a boat that sailed into our very own Commencement Bay.

LINK: The Tacoma Files archive

DANIEL BLUE: MEET CHILTON AGRESON >>>

Chilton Agreson stands at attention.

Chilton is an art collector, by day and a black market art distributor by night.  Some people call that stealing. Chilton calls it the redistribution of public treasure. Art is magic, you know, pure magic.  Rich people don't pay gobs of money for spectacular works of art because they are stupid.  They pay so much money for it because they feed off of the magic that the artist put into it.  This magic helps them to be spiritually and emotionally healthy and in turn helps them make more money.  Chilton knows this, and without art, he knows that the common man is suffering.  He weeps as the masses gather in front of their televisions to get a dose of what they know they need. He sobs at the idea that "entertainment" is more attractive than "enlightenment." Chilton knows that the longer you sit and contemplate a great work of art, the more time it has to effect your psyche and bring you to a place of understanding about life and your role in the fabric of it.  He believes that the happiness of that person depends on their ability to find their place in the great weaving of souls that has become our everyday lives. 

"True art rends us under the veil between the physical and the emotional (or spiritual) planes of existence.  It is a physical object, that has the power to effect spiritual space," explains Chilton. 

He wants you to encounter that magic, and is "rescuing" art every day from the hidden places of the greedy elite.

LINK: The Tacoma Files archive

DANIEL BLUE: MEET SEAN ALEXANDER >>>

Sean Alexander is the co-founder of The Helm gallery on Broadway in Downtown Tacoma.  I trust him when he tells me why my art works, and why it does not.  He is not afraid to pull any punches, and he is never just trying to be nice.   

Long ago, he showed me some dreamland paintings that were hanging in his hallway.  His roomie at the time wanted them gone, and I wanted them on my wall.  I took them for free, and a couple of years later Sean asked for them back.  He said his mom wanted them; she had taken a sudden interest in him as an artist.  I told him that he was S.O.L.  and that his mom could pay him to paint something else.  This may have harmed our relationship, but I own two matching early Alexanders, do you? 

Recently he has begun preparations for the first ever Austin-style Tacoma music festival that will premiere in October in correspondence with the opening of the New Frontier.  This is the future of our town.

Oh, Sean Alexander is also continually inspired by the whales. 

LINK: The Tacoma Files archive
LINK: Natasha waxes New Frontier
LINK: More New Frontier (that didn't open in April)

STEVE DUNKELBERGER: THEATER THURSDAY >>>

Urinetown
This is the last weekend to see the best musical with the worst name at Paradise Theater in Gig Harbor. The theater's production of Urinetown: The Musical takes a funny look at a world gone wrong when a single company owns all the toilets in the city following a 20-year drought that forces a ban on all public toilets. Thus comes an uprising as the residents of the city yearn to pee free.
[Paradise Theater, 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday, $10 to $20, 9911 Burnham Dr. N.W., Gig Harbor, 253.851.PLAY]

Psychopathia Sexualis
Harlequin Production gets funny with Psychopathia Sexualis, a delightfully clever and brilliantly inspired comedy about love, marriage, psychiatry and deciphering what is important in life.
[State Theater, through Sept. 13, 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, $12-$33, 202 E. Fourth Ave, Olympia, 360.786.0151]

LINK: Review of My Fair Lady at Encore! Theater
LINK: Viva South Sound arts and entertainment calendar

DANIEL BLUE: MEET JOEL MYERS >>>

Joel Myers was trained in classical dance and modern dance entirely on scholarship in a studio in Auburn.  Kinetically gifted from an early age, Joel was first attracted to martial arts as a means of disciplining his body to function at higher levels of majesty and grace. Now somewhat of a pacifist, his training hardened abdomen was brought into its manhood by the lifting of ballerinas as apposed to the absorption of karate kicks. 

Currently Joel is living in Hilltop Tacoma and dancing in Seattle for Spectrum Dance Theater, but having recently hosted and authored his third feature length show, his career as a choreographer is beginning to show definite promise. Joel has found out how to take what he loves and shape it in a way that not only promotes his own talent, but also cultivates the talents of young dancers who, as he introduced them after the show, are taking jobs in the dance industry all over America. 
Outside of dancing for professional companies and creating his own choreography, Joel teaches all types of dance; one on one, and classes of all ages, skills, and sizes.  You can find him biking his way up and down the hills of our city to and from the bus stop that allows him passage to the north metropolis of Seattle.

LINK: More about Joel in today�s Weekly Volcano
LINK: The Tacoma Files archive

SUZY STUMP: 5 THINGS TO DO TODAY >>>

10 A.M.: Train enthusiasts embody both the history (choo-choo trains, cow catchers, waving handkerchiefs from the platform) and the future (mass transit, commuter rails, park and ride) of transportation. Further study of their beliefs and practices is encouraged- try, for example The West the Railroads Made, the Washington State History Museum's salute to the tracks and equipment from the Great Northern, Northern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads beginning in the 1840s. Climb aboard here.

6:30 P.M.: The Olympia Poetry Network hosts the "poets of Bellingham" followed by a traditional open mic (that's your que) at Traditions Café in Olympia.

7 P.M.: Blues trombonist Randy Oxford has moved his Blues Theatre jam back to Wednesdays at Jazzbones. And he's giving away $50 in Jazzbones cash every week.

7 P.M.: Every Wednesday Doyle's Public House in Tacoma hosts Knowledge Night where individuals or teams answer two pages of brain teasers, trivia and current events for shirts, tickets and gift certificates. It's a challenging, fun night.

7:30 P.M.: The rules are simple: bring food and drink to share and introduce yourself to at least three people you've never met before. That's the core basics of the 100th Monkey parties, which consumes the Theatre on the Square tonight. Expect works or art by Lynn Mackey, Dayton Knipher, Lisa Fruichanti, Joel Myer and Claudia Riedener. And Deborah Page will entertain the masses with her incredible guitar and voice. Tonight's Monkey tiles are created by Jim Francis. Be the Monkey.

LINK: Viva South Sound arts and entertainment calendar
LINK: Live music and DJs tonight

DANIEL BLUE: MEET LINDA DESANTIS-LAPPING >>>

Linda DeSantis-Lapping is addicted to tea. This is good since her best friend and compatriot, Maureen, co-owns the Mad Hat Tea Company.

Pictured here at Art on the Ave, Linda is wearing a fancy hat that she found.

A ploy-entrepreneur, Linda owns both a graphic design firm and a yoga studio. 

I met Linda at the 100th Monkey party that took place in Claudia's tile factory. She is kind and remembered my name far faster than I could remember hers. I must have asked her for it every time we met for at least a few years. I hate it when people do that to me, it makes me feel unimportant. Linda, however, didn't seem to mind.

She is mild mannered and patient, and an artist in most every sense of the word. Having been a founding member of Hogbot, an arts collective with greats such as Dave Davidson and Mary Kay Johnson, Linda is accustomed to working in tandem with other artists. Collaboration can be a tricky game to play when artists become emotionally attached to their work. Recently she has helped Maureen with two shows at the tea shop: The Crow Show, which was her idea anyway, and a psychedelic show, which was I'm sure born out of some late night girls only belly dance body paint wine binge after hours.

LINK: The Tacoma Files archive

SUZY STUMP: COME CLEAN NOW >>>

Naomi Strom Avila, cultural arts specialist with the Tacoma Arts Commission, needs your events, exhibits, performances, workshops, classes and other related things that you have planned in Tacoma during this coming November for the Art at Work extravaganza.

Email your event name, director name, description, location, date, time, cost, phone number, Web site and other nifty information to her before Aug. 29.

Email your information here.

LINK: Previously in the Weekly Volcano