Tag Archives: seattle central

With behind the scenes challenges and financial turmoil for the arts, Intiman Theatre ready for Capitol Hill debut

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Intiman and Seattle Central’s partnership offers an associate of arts degree, allowing for students and union members to work alongside another on mainstage productions (Image: Intiman)

costume designer Pete Rush puts the finishing touches on Jesse Calixtoā€™s dress for the Irma Vep production (Image: Intiman)

By Danielle Marie Holland

In the face of the pandemic, Capitol Hillā€™s theater community is trying to grow. This February, Intiman Theatre debuts its first production in its new home on Capitol Hill. This will be Intimanā€™s first stage production since COVID cast theaters across the country into darkness — and first on Harvard Ave.

It comes amid a backdrop of huge challenges for Seattle arts organizations and financial tumult for crucial public services that have its new partner Seattle Central seeking new paths to overcome deepening budgetary shortfalls.

Intiman Theatre is now ready to kick off its first production since the ā€œbefore timesā€ with The Mystery of Irma Vep – A Penny Dreadful directed by Jasmine Joshua, and staged at The Erickson Theatre Off-Broadway.

ā€œI can pretty much speak for all theatre artists, that the last few years have been pretty devastating,ā€ director Joshua tells CHS. Continue reading →

Small protests on Capitol Hill mark Rittenhouse acquittal in Seattle

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A group of people dressed in black bloc marched around Cal Anderson Friday night while a small protest gathered Sunday night at Capitol Hill’s Seattle Central to demonstrate after last week’s acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse on all counts in the 2020 Kenosha shootings.

Friday night, a group of a few dozen was reported marching on Broadway and through Pike/Pine. Police reported the scene as “a group size of about 75 people all dressed in black attire with helmets, shields, face coverings and protective eyewear.” SPD says it formed a “task force” with officers from other precincts coming to the area due to the size of the group “and small number of officers.” No significant property damage was reported and SPD said it made no arrests. Continue reading →

Harvard Ave repaving: a city priority before rains set in

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City of Seattle street work crews are in a hurry. Seattle rain is coming. You’ll see a crew the next couple days working on one of the bumpiest stretches for drivers and riders on Capitol Hill — Harvard Ave behind Seattle Central.

“We strive to accomplish as many paving projects as possible before the rainy season arrives,” a city spokesperson tells CHS.

The planned two-day paving project — weather permitting! — is planned to stretch on Harvard Ave from E Denny Way south to just below E Olive St. Continue reading →

Intiman Homecoming street party and performances joins growing list of in-person Capitol Hill events coming soon

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Capitol Hill’s in-person events calendar is beginning to fill up including a new “homecoming” celebration planned for September to mark the arrival of Intiman Theater in the neighborhood.

The Intiman Homecoming street party is being planned as a ticketed event and will fill Harvard with performance, vendors, and celebration between Pike and Pine the weekend of September 18th.

The event will celebrate the theater group’s new partnership and programs at Seattle Central: Continue reading →

Seattle Central president Edwards Lange named to UW Tacoma post

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Dr. Sheila Edwards Lange (Image: SCC)

After six years of leadership at Capitol Hill’s Seattle Central College, Dr. Sheila Edwards Lange will leave her post this summer after being selected as chancellor of University of Washington Tacoma.

For Edwards Lange, the new post is an opportunity to expand her work from leading an academic institution dedicated to students in the core neighborhoods of a major city to an opportunity to shape learning for an entire growing city and region in the South Sound.

ā€œTacoma is beginning to experience a lot of the same things that Seattle did maybe 10 years ago,” Edwards Lange said. “An explosion in growth.ā€

First taking the role of president at SCC on an interim basis in 2015, Edwards Lange’s tenure leading Seattle Central has been most marked by the past year of challenges including the COVID-19 crisis and Black Lives Matter protests that shook the neighborhood. Continue reading →

CHS Pics | Seattle Central Class of 2021 celebrates socially-distanced graduation above Harvard and Pine

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For the second June in a row, graduates from Capitol Hill’s Seattle Central College had to celebrate their accomplishments with a socially distanced ceremony. For the second June in a row, they made the best of it.

CHS stopped by Saturday as SCC graduates marked the milestone with a celebratory drive/walk ceremony atop the school’s Harvard and Pine parking garage. Continue reading →

A growing Seattle Central talks near-term changes to improve its streetscape, plans for new Broadway tech building, and student housing to replace its E Pine parking garage

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The proposed Information Technology Education Center could eventually be part of the growing campus along Broadway

Coming decades will bring big changes to Seattle Central College with plans for several new developments currently being proposed.

The school plans to build a six-story Information Technology Education Center on Broadway with nearly 200 underground parking spots next to the Capitol Hill light rail station on Sound Transit property. The space, divided between classrooms, laboratories, and other student uses as well as office space, would be funded by the college from sources outside the state, architect Stephen Starling said in a meeting last week with the Pike Pine Urban Neighborhood Council.

On the site of the massive, 510-stall E Pine and Harvard parking garage, there would be over 500 beds of student housing. That existing garage would be demolished and rebuilt with about 260 parking spots, which would include charging stations for electric bikes and cars, and the housing built above. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill-bound Intiman Theater adds new director

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Intiman Theater, set to make a new home on Capitol Hill in an innovative partnership at Seattle Central hoped to create opportunities for BIPOC stage and performance workers, has announced a new leader to help guide its move into the new neighborhood.

Amy Zimerman has joined Intiman as its new managing director and will lead the organization alongside artistic director Jennifer Zeyl.

The nonprofit veteran will guide Intiman as it develops a new associate degree program emphasis in Technical Theatre for Social Justice at Seattle Central with training and roles for diverse designers, lighting techs, and theater crews.

The new partnership and program slated to start in fall of 2021 will put Intiman to work on Seattle Centralā€™s stages inside Harvard Aveā€™s Erickson TheaterĀ and inside theĀ Broadway Performance Hall and puts an end of the recent wanderings of Intiman productions and, hopefully, years of financial uncertainty.

The theater group hopes to raise $1.5 million as part of its move to Capitol Hill. You can learn more and donate here.

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Seattle Central will make new home for Intiman Theater on Capitol Hill — and new opportunities for diverse crews to work behind the scenes

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(Image: Broadway Performance Hall)

Someday, actors will again put Seattle Central’s Capitol Hill theater spaces back to work. When the lights come up, the spotlight will fall on a new partnership for the Broadway school that will shine light on social justice — and equity in the vital theater roles behind the scenes.

Last week, the college announced it is making a new home for longtime Seattle arts group the Intiman Theater that will create a new associate degree program emphasis in Technical Theatre for Social Justice at the school — and help to provide training and roles for diverse designers, lighting techs, and theater crews.

“We look forward to working with Intiman to provide students with a pathway into the world of technical theater. This partnership is a vivid model of how to better serve our students and how to close the opportunity gaps in our community,ā€ college president Dr. Sheila Edwards Lange said in a statement. Continue reading →

Back to school, remotely, on Capitol Hill — Seattle Central College ready to start new year amid COVID-19 challenges

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By Ben Adlin

Seattle Central College will remain on lockdown as the fall quarter kicks off on Tuesday, with limited access to the schoolā€™s Capitol Hill campus and nearly all coursework conducted remotely. Stations will be set up outside building entrances to screen visitors for COVID symptoms, and an updated ventilation system is designed to swap out indoor air every three minutes.

With no end in sight to the pandemic, college administrators expect the precautions to stretch at least into early next year. The schoolā€™s operations are limited by the Gov. Jay Insleeā€™s phased reopening plan.

ā€œUntil we get there in terms of public health, the number of cases, testing, everything, weā€™re not going to be able to bring back more people onto campus,ā€ said SCC President Sheila Edwards Lange. ā€œInitially we thought that weā€™d be in Phase 3 right now, to be honest, but weā€™re still in Phase 2.ā€

The concerns about the virus go beyond health. Last week a small group of demonstrators gathered in a parking garage on campus to demand that Seattle Colleges, which includes Seattle Central, establish a worker-led decision-making process, make cuts to the administrative budget to pay for programs and staff, provide free tuition for students and enact progressive taxes to fully fund colleges as the pandemic seems likely to bring budget cuts to the system.

Already the back-to-school season has brought fearsā€”and growing evidenceā€”of new coronavirus outbreaks. One recent study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, estimated that an extra 3,200 cases a day may have been caused in recent weeks by face-to-face instruction at U.S. colleges and universities.

To combat that spread, only a handful of Seattle Centralā€™s course offerings this quarter will include in-person instruction. Most of those programs, such as nursing, carpentry and culinary arts, require in-class evaluation for accreditation or practical reasons.

And students in those programs, administrators said, will still see a number of pandemic-related changes, including an increased emphasis on remote learning. Nursing students, for example, will rely more on computer simulations instead of hands-on practice.

Most other programs, meanwhile, will be entirely remote, relying on video presentations, the online learning management tool Canvas and even, on occasion, good old-fashioned snail mail. Continue reading →