This Week in Arts: Wednesday Roundup (1/29)
Highlights this week include a diverse slate of openings, from prep school to monsters, and low-brown opera to fairy-tale ballet. It’s another busy week of performances in an already-bustling start to the year.
Special note this week: If you don’t care about America’s National Holiday: Joe Montana Faceoff edition (read: Super Bowl Sunday, featuring 49ers vs. Chiefs), you’ll probably luck out with some half-empty roads and theatre seats as others indulge. But use caution on the roads after game time, as the bars and parties start to empty out.
Openings
There’s a great variety opening this Friday, so choose your own adventure — or, better yet, choose a few.
Annex Theatre opens the futuristic-comedy-sounding play, You’d Better Sit Down for This, a new work from playwrights Jasmine Joshua and Eric Navarrette, in which the star receives some interesting news from the Department of Monster Verification (DMV). And Seattle Public Theater opens Admissions, in which a prep school administrator’s supposed progressive values are rattled when things get personal.
Further out, Centerstage Theatre in Federal Way opens Let There Be Love, the premiere of a modern romantic comedy that centers on a matchmaking agency. And on the eastside, SecondStory Rep in Redmond opens Saint Joan, the George Bernard Shaw take on Joan of Arc.
In other high-brow arts, the Lowbrow Opera Collective presents #adulting, a modern opera about four roommates brought together through Craigslist; it returns to 18th & Union for a short run, opening Thursday through February 9. And on Friday, Pacific Northwest Ballet opens Cinderella, which features a host of different performers in the leading role over its run; it also closes February 9.
On the UW campus, the Undergraduate Theatre Society (UTS) performs Vietgone, a look at some of those who found themselves immigrants during the Vietnam War; it opens Thursday and runs through February 9. And beginning previews this week is UW Drama’s The Best of Everything, a play about career women in the typing pool of a publishing house, directed by Valerie Curtis-Newton. Previews begin this Saturday at the Jones Playhouse; the show opens February 6.
Last Call
Drama Tops, this is for you, a new work from Elby Brosch with Shane Donohue and Jordan Macintosh-Houghham, concludes its three-day run at Washington Hall on Thursday. It’s a rare, interesting, and at times gorgeous work exploring a trans experience and masculinity, between non-binary and male dancers. Tickets say sold out, but $10 balcony tickets are available at the door, so don’t let that stop you. (See NWT’s review here.)
On Sunday, Sound Theatre’s latest, the world premiere of Reparations (by Darren Canady, directed by Jay O’Leary) closes at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. With several sold-out shows under its belt, the closing weekend is likely to be bustling, too. Financially accessible tickets start at $5.
Also closing on Sunday is the comedy The Rivals from Seattle Shakespeare Company. And closing Monday is Dance Nation, from Washington Ensemble Theatre. (See NWT’s review here.)
Wednesday Roundup is a weekly (ish) feature, with NWT’s picks for the upcoming week and recaps around town.
Want to plan your show schedule further out? See what’s happening on NWT’s Calendar page, which aims to list just about every theatre show in town. And for news on all the openings each month see Miryam Gordon’s openings coverage here.