Editor’s note: In this feature, our arts and culture writers take a deeper look at the local arts scene, shining a spotlight on issues and trends, both local and national, and the art makers in our community. Bad news will always travel fast, so giving good news a signal boost feels imperative these days — and ambitious, inventive new theater projects are always good news. While this is in no way a comprehensive list, here are a few of the new spaces and new (or new-to-Seattle) companies I’m excited to keep an eye on.
The Underground Theater began as an online queer film festival launched by TUT creative director Ry Armstrong during the height of the pandemic, then pivoted to live performance. In April, TUT produced its first stage production, Cris Eli Blak’s “Brown Bodies on a Blue Earth,” directed by Executive Director Brodrick Ryans, in a fittingly underground space in Belltown. “As a Black, queer human, I’m excited to be able to tell my own stories,” Ryans said.
“I was given the opportunity to tell a Black and brown queer story from a Black and brown queer perspective, and we’re not always given the reins to those stories.” The company’s stated mission is to “develop new works that release shame and nurture community,” and Ryans aims to encourage artists working with TUT who trained in predominantly white institutions (which is many, if not most of them) to show up authentically, not as the version of themselves adapted inside those rigid educational structures. For TUT Managing Director Lynette Winters, that mission manifests in the leadership as well.
“It took my breath away,” she said, of this new team’s effortless collaboration, which allowed her to show up as her full self, “not having to put on airs or be something that I wasn’t.” Among TUT’s projects in the works are a new monthly cabaret series spotlighting local artists, and a five-show 2025 mainstage season that will include “Neglect,” a new queer history play by Armstrong; an immersive production of “Rent”; and “Babbott Elementary,” a new parody musical with lyrics by Winters, book by Armstrong and music by Richard Baskin Jr. At Theatre Off Jackson, a relatively new outfit called Magpie Artists’ Ensemble recently built a show called “FABLE,” a one-day, immersive storytelling experience where audiences were invited to come and go as they pleased throughout the show’s six-hour duration.
While the section of “FABLE” I saw felt somewhat underripe, I respect big artistic swings in a risk-averse time and really look forward to seeing what Magpie does next. When Adrienne Mackey moved from Philadelphia to Seattle in 2021, to take a job as assistant professor of acting, directing and devising at the University of Washington School of Drama, she brought her innovative company, Swim Pony, with her. Mackey’s background comprises original and devised performance, site-specific and immersive work and new play development, as well as game design.
In Philly, Swim Pony’s projects included “giant, choose-your-own-adventure installations” in warehouses, and a piece at a historic prison called “The Ballad of Joe Hill.” “I’m really interested in the question, ‘What is the function of theater now?’” Mackey said, an inquisitive approach that perhaps accounts for how broadly the company defines theater, as an art form. TrailOff , an app that Swim Pony developed on the East Coast, will soon expand to include its new Seattle home.
In the app, which is “sort of like having a site-specific theater performance on demand,” users download a story and head to the attendant walking or hiking route; once there, the phone’s GPS triggers an immersive audio story connected to the location you’re moving through in real time. This first Seattle iteration will follow a story, written by local author Clare Johnson, on a 2-mile loop around Capitol Hill. “It’s a really beautiful story, looking at the missing and obscured queer history of Capitol Hill through the lens of her experience growing up gay in the middle of the HIV crisis,” Mackey said.
Swim Pony’s first in-a-Seattle-theater show will be the new piece “The Stupidest, Scariest Time,” which will run Oct. 29-Nov. 9 at 12th Avenue Arts.
“The question of the show is: ‘Why is this country so obsessed with productivity, to the detriment of actually living happy lives?’” Mackey said. She describes the piece as “an interactive productivity boot camp seminar,” and said audiences should expect a fully participatory experience. “I don’t want to spoil anything, but I’ll say that it’s maybe a kind of ritual to release yourself from the God of obsessive workaholism.
” In Pioneer Square, Rose Cano and David Nyberg (as Creative Hiatus Productions ) are breathing new life into Skid Road Theatre with their musical “People in the Square,” inspired by the neighborhood’s many lives and many residents, running through July 27. Cano, a longtime Seattle theatermaker who saw her first play at Skid Road Theatre at 15 years old, remembers the neighborhood as a vibrant theatrical hotbed, with venues including Skid Road, Pioneer Square Theater and the original home of Empty Space Theatre all near one another. Now she’s hoping to help reinvigorate that creative spirit, and entice theatergoers back to Pioneer Square.
The original Skid Road Theatre presented shows in the basement of what is now the Good Arts Building , on the corner of First Avenue and Cherry Street, in the ’70s and ’80s, before closing in 1983. After pounding the Pioneer Square pavement for an appropriate space during the pandemic, Cano said she and Nyberg approached the folks currently occupying that space, the Beneath the Streets underground tour. “We said, ‘Well, this is like a musical tour, and you guys do tours,’” Cano said.
“So, what do you think about doing it here and we sell our tickets through you?” Today, Skid Road Theatre is by day the home of Beneath the Streets, and after 7 p.m., performing folk can move into the flexible, brick-lined performance space.
Cano calls herself “a goodwill ambassador” for the new Skid Road, which is part of the Good Arts Building owned by Jane Richlovsky and Steve Coulter. Performances so far have included concerts, tango classes and, of course, “People in the Square,” so hopefully a wide variety of artists will make use of this unusual space. The performance future isn’t clear yet for Nippon Kan Theatre , the newly reopened 115-year-old space in the Kobe Park Building, but owner Eric Hayashi told The Seattle Times he plans to operate the historic Chinatown International District venue as an event space.
Stay tuned. In addition to these new spaces and faces, this year, the broader Seattle-area arts and culture scene is continuing its “once-in-a-generation” leadership churn . Scott Stulen will join Seattle Art Museum as director and CEO on Aug.
26. Kate Nagle-Caraluzzo is the newly appointed executive director of Town Hall, after serving as acting executive director since February; she succeeds David Song, who had joined the organization in April 2023 . At Wing Luke Museum, Deputy Executive Director Cassie Chinn recently announced her retirement, effective Aug.
8. Katie Maltais, who took over as The 5th Avenue Theatre’s managing director in September , departed the company in May. Bill Berry, formerly the company’s producing artistic director, is now leading The 5th solo as executive director.
At Village Theatre, Laura Lee has also departed as managing director, and ACT Contemporary Theatre has yet to announce a replacement for outgoing artistic director John Langs . At Frye Art Museum, Amanda Donnan’s position as chief curator was recently eliminated . Seattle Symphony has yet to announce a new music director , and no successor has been named yet for Seattle Opera General Director Christina Scheppelmann, who announced last year s h e would be leaving after her five-year contract expires at the end of the 2023-24 season.
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