Tag Archives: theater

Next arts and culture space to lose its lease: Capitol Hill’s Eclectic Theater

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(Image: Alex Garland)

Where do small theatre companies take the stage when their affordable performance spaces can no longer afford the rent? While many actors having long been priced out of the neighborhood, the Capitol Hill theatre community is losing another piece of its charm: affordable rents.

Rik Deskin, the founder of Eclectic Theater, has announced the end of the venue’s 11-year run on 10th Ave at the end of the month.

“We knew that we had a five year lease, and we knew the end was coming. We started exploring the possibility of renewing the lease,” Deskin said. “At the same time, we were having difficulties paying the current rent so we decided to not renew the lease. We heard from some other people who looked into it that he’s expecting $3,500 a month for the space, which is ridiculous in my opinion. With no upgrades, not that I’m aware of.”

“Capitol Hill is the densest area of arts and culture businesses and organizations in the state,” says Tonya Lockyer, executive director at the neighborhood’s globally respected Velocity Dance. “Imagine if you have this incredible natural resource — creative businesses, organizations, and people. When that is threatened, you want to preserve it.” Continue reading →

Central District’s 18th & Union theater aims to be a home for solo performers

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Gassner (Image: CHS)

Gassner (Image: CHS)

David Gassner, an actor, director and producer, has wanted to help solo performers present their work. His vision is becoming a reality. Gassner got the keys to the former New City Theater at 1406 18th Ave on September 1st and with a few small changes, is reopening it as 18th & Union.

Seattle has a lack of venues for solo performers to present their work, Gassner said. He wants to fill that void and provide solo and small-scale artists who create theater, poetry, music, comedy and other art with an audience.

“It’s a big deal for people who are working in this style,” he said. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill’s Annex Theatre recognized for legacy as company prepares to enter 30th season

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In 1986 a group of friends started the Annex Theatre to help emerging Seattle artists produce work. Their endeavor and the effort of those who have lead Annex after was honored this month when Capitol Hill’s Annex Theatre received a legacy honor at the Mayor’s Arts Awards. The theatre is celebrating its 30th season in 2017.

After receiving the award, outgoing Annex artistic director Pamala Mijatov carried it off the stage and handed it to the new AD Catherine Smith.

“I said, ‘This is yours. … I carried this for a long time, but it’s yours now,’” Mijatov told CHS. Continue reading →

CHS Pics | Tempest staged without a stage in Volunteer Park

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In a neighborhood crunched for arts spaces that arts groups can actually afford, the REBATEnsemble might present a few useful lessons.

Bringing “engaging theatre to unconventional spaces,” the “Recession-Era Broke-Ass Theatre Ensemble” has learned how to stage even the greatest works of performance without a stage. Or a theater, for that matter. Continue reading →

‘Girl’ aims to flip heroic journey on its head

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The cast of Girl (Image: Mary Hubert)

Cast members of Girl (Image: Mary Hubert)

Creators of a new play at Capitol Hill’s Annex Theater aim to unravel the classic hero’s journey story framework famously outlined by Joseph Campbell.

“Back in college I was really interested in the hero’s journey structure, but I never really felt like it related that much to women,” said director and cowriter of Girl, Mary Hubert. She came up with the idea for the play in 2015 and said she wanted the work to lay bare the heroic story formula’s “lack of applicability to modern-day women.”

For example, a traditional hero’s journey can be considered a success when the protagonist completes their quest by winning a prize. “In most people’s lives, not just women’s, they don’t get a prize,” said Hubert. Continue reading →

Seattle Outdoor Theater Festival returns to Volunteer Park with mission to make Shakespeare as accessible as the Mariners

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Seattle Outdoor Theater Festival organizer Ken Holmes says that the weekend of outdoor drama in Volunteer Park is outdoors and donation-based because theater should be an accessible form of entertainment like going to a baseball game.

“That’s part of our mission — to provide theater that anyone can go and see,” Holmes tells CHS. Continue reading →

CHS Stages | The Birds at Strawberry Theater Workshop

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Trying to make sense of life in a strange new world of avian murder

As 12th Ave Arts enters its second year of full programming, its three resident companies have begun carving their own niches as their identities change with the benefits that come from permanent homes. It’s from this stable base that The Birds — one of the most chaotic 12th Ave productions yet — takes off.

Strawberry Theater Workshop, with founder and artistic director Greg Carter at the helm, has always been the most political, or at least issue forward, of the three companies, producing such plays as Accidental Death of an Anarchist, The Laramie Project, and The Normal Heart. Their mission statement itself gets at this, saying, “The Workshop is dedicated to the idea of ensemble, in the broadest sense of the word. Our ensemble does not only mean a resident company of workers, but a collective that includes our work, our audience, and our neighborhood. This is an activist stance.” Continue reading →

Balagan Theatre company bows out one year after leaving Capitol Hill

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The Balagan Theatre company has announced it is breaking up one year after it moved out of its Capitol Hill home. Balagan’s incoming executive director said the theater company’s board had apparently been blindsided after discovering a large amount of debt that the company had no chance of repaying.

“This is not a decision that the board took lightly,” said board president Jim Griffin in a statement. “When viewing the big picture of our overall financial health, this was a difficult conclusion, but ultimately a responsible fiscal action to take.”

From 2011-2013 the Balagan troupe had used the Seattle Central College owned Erickson Theater Off Broadway on E Harvard Ave. After moving off the Hill, Balagan relocated its office to Interbay but continued to put on shows around the city.

An SCC spokesperson said the college is currently utilizing the Erickson Theater for classes and occasional special events.

After eight years of performances Balagan built a reputation for producing quirky and inventive shows. The loss to the Seattle theater scene was even noted by the New York Times earlier this week.

In the past year bad accounting practices have created problems at several other Capitol Hill nonprofits. Last year the Friends of the Volunteer Park Conservatory discovered their former treasurer had potentially embezzled thousands of dollars before leaving the state. CHS also uncovered a lawsuit last year that alleged the former director of an after school program at Stevens Elementary school had embezzled at least $236,000 for personal shopping trips and to pay for her kid’s college tuition.

Seattle Fringe: ‘a toehold in the neighborhood for risky, unusual, challenging, non-commercial arts’

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The Famous Haydell Sisters Comeback Tour is part of 2014 Seattle Fringe Festival

The Famous Haydell Sisters Comeback Tour is part of 2014 Seattle Fringe Festival

NWFFmarquee

The marquee at the Northwest Film Forum advertising the Seattle Fringe Festival in 2013. The Film Forum is a Fringe Festival site again this year. (Image: Seattle Fringe Festival)

Ever-increasing pressure from commercial growth and development unfriendly to cash-strapped artistic ventures, venue allocation shifts and the logistics of having committed producers and planners who can keep things running year after year may keep it in a relatively constant flux. Despite these challenges Capitol Hill’s theater scene is showing some signs of renewed vitality in 2014 including the return of the reincarnated Seattle Fringe Festival that kicks off its third consecutive year with performances Wednesday.

The festival is bringing another five-day September wave of unpredictable performances to Capitol Hill venues just a few months before 12th Ave Arts is scheduled to open and provide dedicated homes to three small companies which will join the likes of Annex Theatre and the Eclectic Theater in producing smaller-scale theater in neighborhood’s core year round.

“The more Capitol Hill edges toward the mainstream, the more important it is to keep a toehold in the neighborhood for risky, unusual, challenging, non-commercial arts and entertainment,” Pamala Mijatov, a member of the Fringe Festival’s steering committee and artistic director at Annex told CHS in an email. “Seattle is growing and changing rapidly. As rents escalate, artists are getting squeezed out of the central neighborhoods, and there are fewer small production venues, which means fewer opportunities for artists to take risks on unproven work,” she wrote. “The Seattle Fringe Festival is maintaining a platform for those self-producing artists.” Continue reading →

CHS Crow | Fringe edition — Leroy, Kelly, Mara & Benjamin

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With the Seattle Fringe festival again playing out on Capitol Hill, the crow talked with some of the artists on the bill in 2014.

Leroy Chin, writer and director — Children of This Universe


What inspired this new work? It sounds like pretty intense material.
On Christmas Day of last year my ex committed suicide. I was completely distraught about it. And one of the ways I deal with things is I create stuff. And I ended up writing a play based on the experience. I think it was different for me this time, it just seemed to be so natural — it flowed well. I was inspired. And think it had to do — there must have been some sort of spiritual element about it that made it so easy to write.

… can you say more about that?
You could say he probably helped me from the other side, if you will.

Is this pretty raw for you to put out in front of an audience so soon? Or is that just part of your process?
I’m used to it by now. I think when I first started writing years ago, ’96 or so, that rawness was intimidating. I now I realize it has to feel that way to be effective. I think that’s where the real sharing of experience is. If it’s not that raw, it’s probably not worth sharing. Continue reading →