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Throwback Edition: Superstar

This is maybe the first review I ever wrote (with the intention of writing a review.) This is what got me eventually to get published in the Edmonds Beacon and to keep on writing after that. I can hardly believe I hadn't transferred this to here yet. Here it is, form 3/24/2013, on a production of Jesus Christ Superstar.  So this is my first foray into theater criticism, in public anyway. Look out Frank Rich, whoever at the New Yorker and all y’all. I saw Jesus Christ Superstar at Burien Little Theater tonight. First, let me say tomorrow (Sunday, March 24 at 2:00 pm) is the last chance to see it. You should. Here’s why.  I grew up listening to the original recording on vinyl, the one with Murray Head, Ian Gillan and all the rest, over and over. I loved it. BLT did it justice and opened new layers of meaning.  The show as presented at BLT is about failure of leadership: the failure to lead; the failure to be led; and the inevitable failure to live up to expectations. Director Steve C

Anyone Can Whistle, by Reboot Theatre

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I don't want to change the world I'm not looking for a new England I'm just looking for another girl - Billy Bragg You say you want a revolution … If you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow - John Lennon This, really, is the theme of Anyone Can Whistle, the vintage Sondheim show now playing at TOJ and produced by Reboot. Reboot has been knocking out bangers for several seasons now. And this one takes it up yet another notch. The publicity for the show, the director’s notes, and the reviews I’ve seen mention the show did poorly when it opened on Broadway in 1964. On the one hand, it’s hard to see why. On the other, it makes sense. Briefly, it’s a satiric farce of small town USA, with a stranger coming to town a la The Music Man, and stirring up trouble for the mayor and her plans to market a phony miracle (water from a stone!) to save the town’s fortunes. There is a parallel plot involving the nurse at the local mental insti

Running Man

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I found this post on my Facebook from exactly nine years ago. I couldn't believe I had never transferred it to here before. So, here it is. If I run through a city, I feel like I own it. On a twenty-four hour stay in London in 2010, I made time for a three-mile run from my modest hotel, the Brunel, a few blocks south to an entrance to Hyde Park, down and around the lake counter-clockwise, then past Speaker's Corner and back again to the Brunel. Walking, sweating the last two blocks. Tonight, I ran five miles or so through Seattle. I began near Volunteer Park, east down Aloha past Saint Joe's and Holy Names and around the corner onto 23rd. Three songs on the iPod from the start, there was Uncle Ike's pot shop, gleaming on my left. Then past where Ms Helen's used to be, and on to the Garfield complex and Ezell's. Already so much city history, -- such as it is here Out West -- and culture. On down 23rd and rounding the corner at The Promenade, heading west on

The Book of Will

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This is not the greatest song in the world, no This is just a tribute On the way home from The Book of Will  by Lauren Gunderson, at Taproot Theatre, I stopped at Molly Maguires for karaoke. Someone sang Tribute, by Tenacious D. The epigraph above is two lines from it. The idea is just what it says. Tribute is not the greatest song in the world, it simply acknowledges the greatest song in the world, points to it, pays homage to it. So it is with The Book of Will. In addition to acknowledging, pointing to and paying homage to Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets, it brings some greatness of its own into play. It’s not the thickest plot. The set up is: Shakespeare has died and many of his original company of actors, the Kings Men, are not feeling too good themselves. They decide to cement their legacy, before it’s too late, by publishing all of Shakespeare’s plays in one volume. The rest involves the hoops and hurdles they must clear to get the book done. What makes the show special is the p

The suspension of disbelief

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This post, above, has me revisiting the concept of the “suspension of disbelief” that we talk about in the theater world. To be up front, I hardly ever stop thinking about how flawed and inadequate “suspension of disbelief” is as an idea. Supposedly, it goes like this: when I am out in the street, in front of the theater, I am disposed to believe everything I see and to take it at face value. Then, as I move through the lobby, show my ticket, take my program and make my way to my seat – somewhere in that transition, I am supposed to have reset my default to disbelief. Then the challenge for the theatrical production is to have me set that disbelief aside, and toggle back to belief. This idea acknowledges something but seems to miss the mark. Surely, the first part is right. I wouldn’t last long in the world if I didn’t generally, and pretty automatically, believe that the things around me were really happening. I could hardly cross the street to catch the E Line bus downtown to the the

Miss You Like Hell

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The song says Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn’t already have. That is the theme, I’ll say, of Miss You Like Hell by Strawberry Theatre Worksop . It’s a mother-daughter roadtrip across America to a reckoning. They aren’t heading for Oz, instead it’s Immigration Court. Mom, Beatriz (Maggie Corrido) rolls in from California in a Nissan pickup like a whirlwind to estranged daughter Olivia’s (Stephanie Roman) apartment building in Philadelphia. It’s maybe Beatriz’s last shot at a relationship with her daughter, and her last chance to remain in the United States, if only Olivia will drive with her back to California to testify at the deportation hearing. It’s a sort of last chance for Olivia, too, in a couple of ways. So off they go. There are colorful characters on the road. A biker couple on a quest to get married in all 50 states. A sad tamale salesman. A Yellowstone Park Ranger. A callous court clerk. A Wisconsin State Police officer. An earnest immigration attorney

14/48 2023

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I have lived in Seattle for 30 years and been an actor for the past 12, but I have somehow never been to 14/48. Tonight, I went. It was a revelation. First, some impressions: There was an actor who I had only ever seen playing very serious roles but tonight played a wacky goofball. That was so fun. Wow, look at what they can do! Then there was another actor who played the same kind of character as I had seen before and I loved that too, because they are so good at it. Play that one again! It’s never been more clear that the audience is responsible for the play. Everyone was ready. Ready to cheer. Ready to engage. Ready to love. I would guess that most of the audience was friends of the writers, actors, band members – theater people, eager to help make it a success. I have seen many short play festivals. This is not to denigrate any of what I saw tonight, but if I had seen these same seven plays in the unusual short play festival set-up, I don’t know if they would have landed as well.