TeenTix Blog Reviews

Nothing ever gets old in the Market Theatre, where, for over 30 years now, Unexpected Productions has resided and produced spontaneous shows for its eager audience. As surprising as it may seem, they’re Seattle’s oldest improvisational company and have been entertaining theater-goers with nothing less than truly one-of-a-kind experiences.

Attending THIS IS FOR YOU: An Improvised Theatre Poetry Experience, which ran from April 5-28 in honor of National Poetry Month, was the first time I attended an improv show, and I was excited to find out how the performers would combine improvisation and poetry. Most of all, the idea of going to a show that would never happen again was intriguing. That’s the thing about improvisation: it’s always changing. The only constants are the actors on stage and their immense creativity.

Romeo and Juliet is the classic tragedy of star-crossed lovers who are famously doomed from the start. This version, produced by the Seattle Shakespeare Company, consists of 2.5 hours immersing the audience in beautiful language and guiding us through a complete rollercoaster of emotions.

Taking my seat in the audience at the Center Theatre, the sense of intimacy struck me immediately in the small, dimly lit space. This was heightened by the fact that the stage was on the floor, with the actors on the same level as the audience, blurring the line between performer and spectator. As the theatrical smoke wafted over us, anticipation hung in the air. Everyone sensed that something momentous was bound to happen; we just didn’t know what.

At Jet City, improvisation is the name of the game. With their new production, Journey of the Wind, they use the malleability of improv storytelling to explore themes of humanity, loss, and childhood– all with the whimsy and finesse of your favorite animated films.

Atop the simple, rounded platforms of the stage, this collaboration, running from May 3-18 at Theatre Off Jackson, between Jet City Improv Presents and Chinatown’s Pork Filled Productions shines.

On the cold rainy evening of April 20, the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra performed a selection of pieces from Blues and the Abstract Truth, the 1961 landmark jazz album by composer and saxophonist Oliver Nelson. SRJO performed the repertoire, along with two pieces composed by artistic director Michael Brockman, with smooth, assertive skill and an infectious love for the music at hand.

That night, Benaroya’s Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall was distinctly warm, even before the concert started. Its field of red seats sloped softly under the overhead lights. Patrons talked to and greeted each other, some so familiarly it felt like a monthly community potluck. The stage sat close and cozy to the audience, with a piano, drum set, and array of chairs for the musicians gleaming a short distance from the front row seats. As the hall filled, a few orchestra members started coming onstage and taking their seats, quietly laughing with each other and tuning their instruments. One musician spotted friends in the front few rows and chatted with them from the stage. As the lights came down and people settled into their seats, the person introducing the band made sure to shout out volunteers and board members in the audience. Before a single brassy note was played, there was a joyful lack of divide in that hall.

Then, when the performance truly began, that lack of division made SRJO’s concert something special. Nelson’s album cascades (even beyond the song called “Cascades”) in conversational yet calculated melodies, dulcetly energetic. The mood of the concert varied from song to song, but each piece played – including the ones not from Nelson’s album – shared that conversational yet calculated aspect. In “Hoe Down,” my favorite song of the repertoire and one of the first ones SRJO performed, the band blared brightly and assertively like a morning parade, while in “Teenie’s Blues,” they wound their way through deeper, darker sounds like rafts through a river. Every member of the band, from the saxophones to the trumpets to the trombones to the rhythm section, and guest vocalist Jacqueline Tabor, got a chance to shine in a solo, and shine they did. When a musician stood up, or stayed seated in the rhythm section’s case, all eyes in the audience and the band turned to them as they played their solo. Photo by Jim Levitt

And it’s here where you could spend the whole concert watching a single musician. Each band member plays at least one solo, but each person also reacts to the rest of the band’s musicianship. When drummer D'Vonne Lewis takes command of a song, the rest of the band stays active, tapping their feet, watching him play, or nodding their heads as they listen intently to the rhythms. When Tabor joins the band onstage for a vocal piece, she’s a lightning rod of attention. When trumpeters stand up to improvise a section, the saxophonists in the front row smile as the riffs hit their ears. Every single musician is absolutely in it, steadily and seamlessly. Watching them know this music inside and out, enjoying each other’s musicianship, is delightful.

Throughout the show, artistic director Michael Brockman intersperses the music with explanations of the pieces and introductions to soloists, conversing smoothly with the audience. The energy in the room is a call and response, in which the audience gladly participates. People laugh at the right moments, whoop and cheer for soloists, and soak in the anecdotes of Nelson’s return to classic jazz at a point in time when the genre’s future was uncertain. It’s no surprise that there’s no fourth wall in Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra’s Blues and the Abstract Truth. It’s easy to be an attentive audience member when the performers are simply masters of what they do. It’s easy to sit back and enjoy when SRJO reminds you of the truth, abstract or not: it’s pure fun to listen to great musicians performing great music.Photo by Jim Levitt

When you read the word “theater,” what do you picture? A raised stage with red curtains and footlights? Dramatic dialogue spoken from behind the fourth wall? Silence from the audience broken only by appropriate laughter and polite applause?

Well, if that sounds boring to you, welcome to Scrambling the Goose! Washington Ensemble Theatre’s newest show, which ran at 12th Avenue Arts from April 26 to May 17, challenges conventional boundaries of theater, not only by showcasing a wide variety of mediums and genres, but also by incorporating the audience as a crucial part of the show.

K-pop is famous for immersing its audience in bright colors, electric performances, singing, dancing, and endearing connections between artists and fans. One popular Korean boy group is Enhypen, a seven-member ensemble formed within the K-pop survival show I-Land. Enhypen consists of members Sunghoon, Heeseung, Sunoo, Jungwon, Jay, Jake, and Niki, who each contribute a distinct energy to the group. Whether elegant, grungy, or endearing, Enhypen pulls off an array of aesthetics. Since their iconic debut in 2020, Given Taken, Enhypen has experienced tremendous success, leading them to tour globally.

Love problems, and moral issues, Village Theatre’s The Fantasticks deals with it all. This interpretation delves into childhood naivety and the ways we can be misguided by the things we least suspect. Despite its well-trodden storyline, the production breathes new life into the classic tale, ensuring familiarity doesn't breed lethargy.

Set against a backdrop of two houses separated by a wall, the musical follows the story of two fathers who conspire to unite their children, Luisa and Matt. The show invites the audience to engage in the unfolding narrative, allowing for a more interactive and immersive experience. At times, the audience gets questioned by El Gallo, the narrator, and bandit in charge of uniting the children, or looked at directly by the cast, treated like the lesson is the audience’s to learn too. It is worth noting that while the production succeeds in revitalizing the script by taking out many controversial scenes, there are moments where it stumbles. A fleeting reference to rape felt out of place and unnecessary, detracting from the scene. As it was spoken so quickly, it solidified that the show could have easily gone on without it. Photo courtesy of Auston James

The first thing you hear at the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s performance of The Seasons' Canon at McCaw Hall, and the thing that sticks with you throughout the rest of the performance, is the sharp and dynamic choir that begins Twyla Tharp’s Sweet Fields, the first of three works. Constructed of eleven voices, the choir accompanies the ten-part operation with religious hymns from the 18th and 19th centuries. The songs are simple but elevated by crisp tenor voices, later joined by the winding sopranos and altos. Pacific Northwest Ballet company dancers in Twyla Tharp’s Sweet Fields™. Photo © Angela Sterling, 2024.

Due to the power and excellence of the music, the linked dances sometimes feel like they accompany the score, instead of the other way around. The choreography is creative, switching between blue-toned, lighthearted vignettes and brooding, funeral-march-inspired processions. Visually, most of the dances work quite well. Tharp’s fast-paced, complex actions are sometimes lost in their technicalities, but the overall, folksy theme and the duality of celebration and death make for a series of enticing pairings.

Two spinster sisters sit in the parlor of their ancestral mansion. The mastiff, with his drooping jowls, pants rhythmically atop a brocaded carpet. The windows let in the weak light from the endless gray sky of the Moors; the maid Marjorie (or is it Mallory? Margret?) coughs and complains that their company is late. A governess, fresh-faced from London, arrives today.

Walking into Seattle Public Theater (known affectionately as “The Bathhouse”), the intimate, public-bathhouse-turned-blackbox-theater is filled with soft, slightly ominous piano music. On the stage is a dark sitting room, where antique, dark tones are counterbalanced by a millennial-pink velvet sofa. The moody set is a perfect, yet slightly quirky, canvas for a period piece—so long as you can ignore the paintings donning sunglasses and the converse-clad cast. Highlights in hair and pom-pom pens abound.

STEW at the ACT is a truly contemporary performance that explores the hefty concepts of family, guilt, and maturity. Centering on an intergenerational female household, the play relays the importance of breaking generational trauma through visual and aural cues. The narrative opens by introducing the family’s matriarch, Mama. Soon after, in a chaotic fashion, the rest of the family is introduced: Mama’s daughters Lillian, and teenage Nelly, and Lil’ Mama, Lillian’s daughter. At first, It was difficult to understand their relationships, but it became clear by the second act. The family is deeply interconnected, and each family member’s life parallels those from earlier generations. For example, Mama had Lillian at 17 and Lillian also had Lil’ Mama at 17. The other parallels are revealed at tense points throughout the performance, and the newer generations’ drive to break the often unfair norm created by their previous generation serves as a turning point for each character.

The story revolves around Mama making a large batch of stew. Stew brings the whole family together—even though Lillian and Lil’ Mama live elsewhere, they visit Mama to help her make and eat the stew. Stew serves as a symbol of hope and togetherness, and the progress of cooking the stew throughout the play reflects the mood of the story. Shaunyce Omar, Varinique “V” Davis, Shermona Mitchell, Kataka Corn in Stew, photo courtesy of Rosemary Dai Ross

In the 21st century, the possibility of supernatural disasters constantly looms above us. Each year, we are subject to more and more unprecedentedly catastrophic events, an aspect of environmental collapse that threatens the livelihoods of thousands. It’s almost surreal, except for the fact that it isn’t: this is the new world we live in. These devastating occurrences, along with how people and the media react to them, are part of what’s examined by slowdanger’s SUPERCELL. An hourlong quintet performance that questions human attraction and passivity towards environmental events. I was lucky enough to partake in the self-reflection involved in watching the show, presented by Velocity Dance at 12th Avenue Arts from March 21 to 24, and the experience left me contemplative, to say the least.

My journey began in a crowded foyer filled with chattering Seattleites. As the sun set, we made our way into the theater, and the change was drastic. In an instant, we were transported from the brightly lit, corporeal world to a hazy realm of darkness. Two sheets of sheer cloth hung down from the ceiling and the yellow-tinged shine of a pale red cast mesmerizing shadows through them. On the stage, five performers lay together in the shape of a star, each bearing a large, see-through sack full of what seemed to be water, connected to those beside them by a complex entanglement of rope.

The devil himself orchestrates chaos in the heart of 1930s Moscow in Mike Lion’s adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita presented by Dacha Theatre. This adaptation, staged at 12th Avenue Arts, delves into the philosophical dichotomies of good and evil, exploring their coexistence against the tumultuous backdrop of the Soviet Union. This production shows the power of theater by bringing complex philosophical narratives to life, inviting both newcomers to the story and fans of the original novel to engage with its depth.

The Master and Margarita uses magical realism and gothic elements to challenge societal norms and present deep philosophical questions. Set in a time when atheism was state policy, the story starts with the arrival of Professor Woland, the devil in disguise, and his eclectic entourage, who set Moscow ablaze with events that peeled back the layers of hypocrisy and corruption embedded within society.

Aside from the ferry’s foghorn, there’s rarely a reason for things in Edmonds to be loud. It’s a quiet suburban town with overly nice drivers and a median age ten years above the national average—that is to say, it’s not the place you’d expect to find an experimental dance/theater/martial arts performance on a Saturday night. But there it was: a half-full house at Edmonds Center for the Arts and Radical System Art’s eight-person cast who brought more energy than this writer’s ever seen in her sleepy town.

The show, Momentum of Isolation began, even before the brief curtain speech and the extinguishing of the house lights, with a man typing at a desk. Unbeknownst to the audience at that point, he’d soon become the main focus of the show, the continuing plot that tied together other seemingly disparate stories. One scene included a depiction of online dating, followed by one dancer trying to woo another, providing brief comedic relief. Another featured the ensemble falling in and out of step with each other. Going into the show with no clue of the performance’s themes, it was at times difficult to parse the significance of scenes or moments. One had the sense that things were supposed to be profound, that the audience was supposed to feel something or react a certain way, but at times the jarring effects and mixture of movements seemed blended beyond coherency. Until checking the website and finding that this performance was “centered around the themes of loneliness and social isolation,” I struggled to describe the overall sense of the show. Photo Credit: Emilie Bland

The genre of the holiday movie is tried and true; from Home Alone to Elf, Frosty the Snowman to A Charlie Brown Christmas, Christmas movies have been done before, and they’ve been done well. As Thanksgiving rolls around, viewers observe the tradition of watching their favorite characters celebrating the festive time of the year. This makes 2023’s The Holdovers even more of a triumph as a worthy addition to the holiday canon for years to come.

Director Alexander Payne had the task of adding something new to the holiday genre and creating a film that could hold its own outside of the holiday season. Helped by the incredible talents of Payne’s Sideways collaborator Paul Giamatti, seasoned actress Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and rising star Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers is bound to become a modern classic.

On February 27, Seattle Arts & Lectures hosted Joy Harjo, who performed a breathtaking blend of song, poem, and musing followed by a Q&A session with Arianne True, the current Washington State Poet Laureate.

The event began with a reading of “Dear Spanish” by Seattle’s Youth Poet Laureate Mateo Acuña. His poem reflected the frustrations and struggles of multicultural people like himself. The poem artfully moves from a bitter tone to an unending longing and desire to understand Spanish, to reconnect with what he loves and his Peruvian roots. His words and reading truly spoke to my experience as an American-born Chinese person, specifically with his reflections on accent, demonstrating a unique command of the poetic form. Acuña’s reading immediately set up a more intimate, almost conversational atmosphere, like he was sharing secrets that could either resonate with the audience or prime them with a mindset of understanding.

“We are a nation trapped inside a nation. We are a nation dying to be born,” Malcolm X sings, and thus begins a tale of freedom, hatred, and martyrdom, all performed by the talented and dynamic performers of Seattle Opera at McCaw Hall. X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X is a three-hour-long journey, taking audiences through the 1900s from the perspective of the marginalized Black community, facing crushing oppression and horrific violence. It stars Kenneth Kellogg in the titular role of a complex leader during the Civil Rights Movement. The opera tells an intricate story that everybody needs to hear.

Act one opens with the characters waiting for Reverend Earl Little, Malcolm’s father. While they wait under high stress, the characters inform us of their constant fears of violence and murder by white supremacist groups as the names of people who had to pay for this hatred and racism with their lives are projected on the ceiling, scrolling quickly to showcase the immense scale of this tragedy with a powerful impact. In this act, Leah Hawkins, who plays Malcolm’s mother, Louise, is featured in a stunning aria about the haunting attacks she fears. After this, it is revealed that Earl Little was killed, leading to the mental ruination of Louise. Malcolm is subsequently brought to Boston by his older sister, where he gets involved in a robbery and is arrested.

“Who are we to pity the dead? We don’t even pity the living.” The Seagull Project and Intiman’s production of Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths highlight the disregard for human life and the tendency to separate ourselves from struggle. Its' raw portrayal of poverty seeks to challenge the viewer to see beyond themselves to ignore issues in society.

This discomfort begins immediately. As the lights fade in, cramped bunk beds and trash are seen littering the stage as the flophouse inhabitants live in semi-darkness. Illness, death, and hopelessness call this basement a home more so than the characters. The play attempts to welcome the audience in, to fully immerse in this nightmarish housing, empathizing with those who have spent their entire lives in such poverty. The majority of the play is set in this one-room home. I quickly grew weary of the littered and cramped set, and I craved something to bring me out of the horrific storyline. For me, the despair it evoked demonstrated that the play was dedicated to sharing the life-long experiences of mistreatment and poverty.

How many museums not only tell grounded stories with honesty and celebration but welcome their visitors with a community living room and a book vending machine? The Northwest African American Museum is advertised as a “museum that uses Black heritage to cultivate healing and hope for all,” and I sensed that as soon as I walked in. In the main exhibit, screens flash with students and community members naming their heroes, claiming the museum as “ours,” and offering it to all as “yours.” Plaques, posters, and art document Black Americans’ victories, setbacks, injustices, pain, joy, and resilience with respect and love. NAAM is a welcoming, celebratory, healing space, and the art and artists of the exhibit Positive Frequencies embody that.

Positive Frequencies features “iconic Neo-POP artist” C. Bennett, along with local artists Eric D. Salisbury, Myron Curry, and Samuel Blackwell. Bennett’s mixed media pieces line half the gallery, while paintings by Salisbury, Curry, and Blackwell line the other half. Music by artists like Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Nina Simone plays, immersing the viewer in the exhibit’s thesis: music can heal by “transcending societal and cultural boundaries.” All four featured visual artists approached that theme differently, but when all the pieces are viewed as a collection, with the music they sought to capture and elevate playing around them, their connection and power are deep and palpable. Photo courtesy of Elite Collective

In the many centuries it has existed, Western classical music has taken on a set of firm conventions that permeate mainstream classical culture. This is what makes classical music intimidating for inexperienced listeners. They are expected to act in a way that they are not accustomed to, keeping them from engaging with it. This strict culture hasn’t always been the norm, and it doesn’t have to be today. There is an increasing prevalence of classical venues that seek to establish a more open and inclusive environment.

I got to experience this when I saw Inspired by Gamelan, a unique collection of modern classical music that draws inspiration from Indonesian gamelan, at Emerald City Music. ECM is a non-profit chamber music organization that presents an eclectic range of classical music in a laid-back, intimate environment.

The Kingdom of Bohemia, now known as Czechia, was located in central Europe for more than a millennium and was a melting pot of cultural influences. Musicians would travel to and through this land-locked country, bringing with them musical influences from other countries such as Italy and Germany where Vivaldi and Bach reigned. Party Bohemienne, presented by Early Music Seattle and featuring the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, seeks to spotlight the compositions that came out of this rich musical society. Nate Hegelson, the director and bassoonist in the event, describes the musical event’s aim to highlight lesser-known Czech composers from the Baroque period. The pieces Hegelson chose for this event contain several elements typical of the classic Baroque style, but they elaborate on all of these elements to create a unique, truly Bohemian style.

The performance I attended was at the Bastyr University Chapel, a gorgeous chapel with tiled mosaics on the walls and a St. Petersburg-reminiscent frieze at the altar. The weathered wooden paneling created a gothic aesthetic and also lent a hand to mimic the original sound of Baroque Era performances, in great halls and estates. The chapel’s uncomfortable pews added a layer of authenticity to the performance. Looking at the program, I didn’t recognize any of the names there—the director was right about the little-known status of the composers.