March Stages Roar To Life

Compiled from press releases by Miryam Gordon

Seattle theater continues to roar back to life, producing as many shows this month as was usual pre-Covid! Seattle theatergoers need to continue to step up and step out to see these great shows! World premieres and early Sondheim musicals, prize-winning scripts, a horrific medical story with a happy ending – take a look and get out yer calendars and get them booked!

Sanctuary City, Seattle Rep, 3/1-31/24 (opens 3/6)
In the winter of 2001, in Newark, NJ, two teens, undocumented DREAMers-pre-DACA. meet up on the fire escape. They grapple with life’s challenges, from family to their futures. She promises to him that when she becomes naturalized, she will marry him so he can receive his papers. As time passes and their relationship shifts, both must confront what they are willing to sacrifice to live freely and belong. This searing and captivating new play by Pulitzer Prize-winning Martyna Majok asks what we’re willing to risk for those we love.
www.seattlerep.org
 
Something’s Afoot, 5^th Avenue Theatre, 3/1-24/24 (opens 3/8)
A musical to poke fun at Agatha Christie murder mysteries; ten people are stranded in an isolated country estate during a raging thunderstorm. One by one, they are picked off by cleverly fiendish devices. As bodies pile up, the survivors frantically race to solve the mystery! Join in the tomfoolery of this farcical, raucous, and outrageous play, that will appeal to lovers of shows like Arrested Development, The Office, and Schitt’s Creek.
www.5thavenue.org
 
Ada and the Engine, Edmonds Driftwood Players, 3/1-17/24
Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer program! In 1830! Playwright Lauren Gunderson envisions a fiery, brilliant woman who sees the boundless creative potential in the “analytic engines” of her friend and soul mate Charles Babbage, inventor of the first mechanical computer. Ada envisions a whole new world where art and information converge—a world she might not live to see. A music-laced story of love, friendship, and the edgiest dreams of the future.
www.edmondsdriftwoodplayers.org

The Complete Works of Shakespeare (abridged) (revised) (again), Red Curtain Foundation for the Arts, 3/1-17/24
All 37 of Shakespeare’s plays are performed at a breakneck 97 minutes by three actors. The show is fast-paced, witty, and physical… To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s classic farce, two of its original writer/performers thoroughly revised the show to bring it up to date for 21st-century audiences, incorporating some of the funniest material from the numerous amateur and professional productions that have been performed around the world.
www.redcurtainfoundation.org

Broken Wide Open, Broken Wide Open, 3/7-10/24 (at West of Lenin)
Shana Pennington-Baird (the invaluable local resource for all things voice-over) had a near death experience visiting Ireland and has now written a solo show (performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival – 2023) to tell this fascinating tale of survival. This hour-long musical story includes ten songs and forty minutes of comedic and dramatic narrative including a 3-person Celtic band. You’ll hear her harrowing and terrifying experience of almost dying alone and what it took to get back home to Seattle.
https://brokenwideopen.com

Anyone Can Whistle, Reboot Theatre Company, 3/8-23/24 (at Theatre Off Jackson)
An opportunity, finally, to experience a very early Stephen Sondheim work! This musical features a corrupt mayor who fakes a miracle to revitalize her bankrupt town, and the ill-fated romance between the rational nurse, out to expose the fraud, and the easygoing doctor who is determined to enjoy the chaos that it brings.
www.reboottheatre.org

The Sunless Scar, ACT Theatre Young Core Company, 3/8-10/24 (world premiere)
In a post-apocalyptic world, environmental damage has turned air and light into poison. To appease the gods in keeping with ancestral traditions, regular “sacrifices” are made in the form of young villagers being thrown into a deep crater called the Sunless Scar, from which there is no escape. Instead of certain death, the Scar turns out to contain safety, community, and light in a way that the harsh surface never could. Should the denizens of the pit try to climb out and escape? And what exactly will they be escaping to? Maggie Lee debuts a thrilling speculative fiction adventure that explores how we honor ourselves and our past, and what we’re willing to risk for an uncertain future. This was commissioned specifically for ACT’s Young Core Company.
www.acttheatre.org

Rent, Tacoma Little Theatre, 3/8-31/24
A group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggles to survive and create in New York’s Lower East Side, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. The physical and emotional complications of the disease pervade the lives of Roger, Mimi, Tom and Angel. Maureen deals with her chronic infidelity through performance art; her partner, Joanne, wonders if their relationship is worth the trouble. Benny has sold out his Bohemian ideals, and Mark, an aspiring filmmaker, feels like an outsider to life in general. How these young bohemians negotiate their dreams, loves and conflicts provides the narrative thread to this groundbreaking musical.
www.tacomalittletheatre.com

Steel Magnolias, Olympic Theatre Arts Center, 3/8-24/24
In Truvy’s beauty salon in Chinquapin, Louisiana, all the ladies who are “anybody” come to have their hair done. Outspoken, wise-cracking Truvy dispenses shampoos and free advice to the town’s rich curmudgeon, Ouiser; an eccentric millionaire, Miss Clairee; and the local social leader, M’Lynn, whose daughter, Shelby, is about to marry a “good ole boy.” Filled with hilarious repartee and not a few acerbic but humorously revealing verbal collisions, the play moves toward tragedy when Shelby risks a dangerous pregnancy. The characters’ underlying strength and love show how they manage life in good times and bad.
www.olympictheatrearts.org

The Fantasticks, Village Theatre, Issaquah: 3/13/24-4/14/24, Everett: 4/27/24-5/19/24
The Fantasticks was the longest-running musical in the world. Timeless songs like “Try to Remember” and “Soon It’s Gonna Rain” add buoyant humor and charming tunes. A boy and a girl fall madly in love, and their two meddlesome fathers agree try to keep them apart. This production features a newly revised and updated script and a lush new approach to this beloved classic. Don’t miss this magical, wild and witty tale about young love, wild fantasy, and growing up.
www.villagetheatre.org

Colder Than Here, As If Theatre Company, 3/14-30/24 (Kenmore Community Club)
Myra’s typical, middle-class family is normal in its eccentricities, especially when it comes to dealing with her illness. The boiler keeps breaking, the cat’s gone missing, and the perfect funeral needs planning, but her husband would rather bury his head in a newspaper while her two daughters wrestle with their own problems. Myra might be busy researching flatpack coffins and creating a PowerPoint presentation of her dying wishes, but her last big project is to fix her family.
www.asiftheatre.com

Stew, ACT Theatre, 3/15-31/24
This play by Zora Howard was a 2021 Pulitzer Prize finalist. Mama’s up early to prepare the perfect stew for a very important community meal. As the day rolls on, tempers go from a simmer to a boil, and secrets rise to the surface for three generations of Tucker women. When the violence hovering around the periphery of their lives begins to intrude upon the sanctity of the kitchen, mothers and daughters wrestle with loss and hope in this hilarious, haunting drama.
www.acttheatre.org
 
THE PARTICIPANTS!, Annex Theatre, 3/15-23/24 (world premiere)
Loca playwright Jesse Calixto presents four strangers who are invited to participate in a focus group where they are asked to watch a trailer about an infamous hidden-camera prankster. Despite being told “Your opinion matters!” they suddenly begin to wonder if they themselves are the subject of a sick joke or a life-threatening disaster.
www.annextheatre.org
 
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), Harlequin Productions, 3/15-31/24 (at Washington Center)
Another opportunity to see this irreverent, hilarious, high-speed romp through all 37 of the Bard’s plays (and 154 sonnets) in under two hours! Titus Andronicus becomes a cooking show, all the Histories are performed as a football game, and we go NUTS with Hamlet!
www.harlequinproductions.org
 
Act A Lady, Woodinville Repertory Theatre, 3/15/24-4/7/24 (at Sammamish Valley Grange, 14654 148th Ave NE, Woodinville)
In a small Midwestern Elks Club group in 1927, the men want to mount an 18th Century romance play. But dressing as women in the play scandalizes the Ladies Moral League who threatens to shut it down. Miles is eager and not at all dismayed by the idea of getting into women’s clothing. But Miles’ wife is conflicted with supporting her husband or giving in to sin, as embodied by men wearing women’s clothing. The fact that everyone seems to have someone else inside him or her is revealed in this play.
www.woodinvillerep.org
 
How to Write a New Book for the Bible, Taproot Theatre, 3/20/24-4/20/24
“Write what you know” the saying goes. But when Bill Cain moves home to help his dying mother, he doesn’t have the words to capture the mystery of his own family. Amidst doctor appointments and baseball games he begins to see how seemingly ordinary details become the lifegiving rituals that shape our lives.
www.taproottheatre.org
 
The Bed Trick, Seattle Shakespeare Company, 3/20/24-4/7/24 (world premiere)
Seattle favorite ex-pat, and longtime SSC collaborator, Keiko Green applies her sharp provocation and biting humor to contemporary discussions of consent and manipulation in direct conversation with one of the most problematic devices in Shakespeare. College freshmen Lulu and Marianne test their limits as they party through the school. When their drama-nerd-roommate Harriet brings in baggage from a student production of All’s Well That Ends Well, ideas of consent and manipulation start to seep into their lives.
www.seattleshakespeare.org
 
The Moors, Seattle Public Theater, 3/22/24-4/14/24
Two sisters and a dog live out their lives on the bleak English moors, dreaming of love and power. The arrival of a hapless governess and a moor-hen set all three on a strange and dangerous path. The Moors is a dark comedy about love, desperation, and visibility.
www.seattlepublictheater.org
 
The Master & Margarita, Dacha Theatre, 3/22/24-4/13/24 (at 12^th Avenue Arts)
The Devil went down to Moscow…1930’s Soviet era Moscow that is. The Master is missing. His novel about Pontius Pilate was rejected, and he himself has disappeared. To find her lover, Margarita must embark on a journey that will bring her into contact with a mysterious foreigner and his otherworldly crew. This gothic Soviet fairytale, full of magical realism, and satire of greed and corruption is a sometimes charming, sometimes bewildering, always hilarious ride through a strange, but all too recognizable world.
www.dachatheatre.com
 
Merrily We Roll Along, SecondStory Repertory, 3/29/24-4/21/24
Merrily We Roll Along, an early Sondheim musical, begins in the present and moves backwards, tracing the lives of wealthy, jaded composer, Franklin Shepard, and his two estranged friends through each milestone of their personal and professional lives (good and bad). The show ends with a touch of rueful irony, as the three best friends at the start of their careers face a bright future: young, talented and enthusiastic about the worlds waiting to be conquered.
www.secondstoryrep.org
 
First Date, Centerstage Theatre, 3/29/24-4/21/24
A meet-cute musical. When blind date newbie Aaron is set up with serial-dater Casey, a casual drink at a busy New York restaurant turns into a hilarious high-stakes dinner.
www.centerstagetheatre.com

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