Fall Into Fall: Things to Do This Weekend
Live performance isn’t fully back yet, but it’s certainly getting into the swing of things this season.
Here are some shows to check out this weekend, whether you feel like sitting on the couch at home, or in a theatre seat, or … at a field out in the rain.
Stream From Your Seats
Want to ride out the storm from the comfort of your living room? Understandable. And we’ve got options for that.
Friday. Tonight, the early-innovators at Macha Theatre Works will conclude their pandemic-spanning series, 17 Minute Stories. In Resistance: A Love Story, actor Alyssa Keene honors her grandfather who escaped from occupied France in 1944. Tickets available for purchase ($7-$37, sliding scale) until 7pm, here.
If you aren’t able to watch it at showtime, you can use the pre-purchased ticket link to watch it on YouTube later. Or, if you want to see this and earlier shows in the series, you can buy them in bundles; see details here.
Saturday. Taking a cue from the popular (and frantic) 14/48 Festival, long-standing Asian American theatre company Pork Filled Productions is undertaking a single-night version: 7 brand new 10-minute plays, all written, rehearsed, and put up in a 24-hour period, and then streamed out to viewers. The project is the brainchild of Kendall Uyeji, who wanted to respond to anti-Asian violence by showing the resilience and creativity of Asian American artists. Tickets available for purchase ($10-$50, sliding scale), here.
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Friday & Saturday. With 18th & Union offering performances both in person and on simultaneous livestream, both the venture-outers and the homebodies can be in the same place all at once.
For this weekend’s offering, that means watching three of Seattle’s favorite prolific-and-strange playwrights (Scot Augustson, Kelleen Conway Blanchard, and Bret Fetzer) tell you new stories about animals. The venue uses a tiered ($7, $17, $27) sliding-scale approach for all its shows, with the same experience at every price point. Livestream and in-person tickets available here.
Go Forth and See New Works
Friday & Saturday. For those eager to see new work unfold with other humans, live and in person, Sound Theatre Company presents two opportunities this weekend as it concludes its Making Waves series at 12th Avenue Arts (Seattle – Capitol Hill). On Friday, performances include a double-bill from Young Hot Thespian and Annie Jankovic (show info here; tickets appear to be sold out). Saturday night’s schedule features the reading of a new full-length play by Rose Cano called Pariah; tickets ($5-$50, sliding scale) still available, here.
Don’t Leave Olympia
This weekend (& beyond). I don’t think they’ll let you just camp out in the State Theater all weekend — but if they did, you could catch three different full productions in two days without ever leaving the building. Harlequin Productions has an ambitious kick-off for its 2021-22 season, with all three shows in rotating rep: the Rosemary Clooney biographical musical Tenderly; the Billie Holiday biographical musical Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill (see NWT’s review here); and Dael Orlandersmith’s quasi-documentary play Until the Flood (see NWT’s review here).
Advance tickets range from $35-$42; but anyone can grab half-price rush tickets for any unsold seats half an hour before showtime, and Harlequin has also expanded its pay-what-you-choose program by offering a couple of PWYC shows in each run. See information on rush tickets here, and PWYC nights here. (As of this weekend, all three shows have at least one PWYC show left in the run.)
Have a Reigny Rainy Sunday
Sunday. Sports coverage isn’t usually NWTheatre’s forte, but … hey, if you want to see live performance outdoors, the OL Reign’s second-round playoff game this weekend is a great way to do it. The team’s got a loaded roster, with numerous players on their respective national teams around the world, and we get to watch them right here at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma.
The game is an early start (noon). Tickets range from $12-$45 (available here), with many of the further-out seats under the rain cover, and the sidelines seats out in the elements.
Want more? View NWTheatre’s full performance calendar here.
Chase D. Anderson is Editor & Producer of NWTheatre.org.