OLY ARTS - Weekly Podcast

T.S. Eliot Reading his poem Journey of the Magi

We close out the 2018-2019 theater year with a look at Shakespeare's The Tempest. It's directed by Kate Ayers, produced by the same folks who bring you OLY ARTS and a whole lot of free, family fun at Port Plaza. Also: seagulls.

In a special bonus episode, we catch up with Kevin McManus about his outdoor take on As You Like It, the grand debut of Goldfinch Productions.

We share some quality phone time with Rachel Fitzgerald, director of the first of three (count 'em, three!) free, outdoor Shakespeare productions in Olympia this summer. By gar, it's Animal Fire Theatre's lively rendition of The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Come to the Fun Home! Director Lauren Love of South Puget Sound Community College is the first in the area to produce the 2015 stunner Fun Home, based on Alison Bechdel's graphic novel/memoir and the winner of the Tonys for best musical, best book of a musical and best score.

Marianna Ramsour, Stephanie Wood-Ennett (pictured) and Rachel Zeigler of Studio West Dance Academy & Theatre join us to talk about this weekend's grand ballet production, Coppélia. Think the classic Pygmalion story, but with less singing, no English accents and everybody up on their toes.

There's no two ways about it, playwright Bill Cain has given us a fascinating, Jacobean playground in his script Equivocation. Kathy Dorgan got first Olympia dibs on it with her Saint Martin's University production at the downtown State Theater.

Somebody find Jon Douglas Rake a hammock. He's not only the artistic director of Tacoma Musical Playhouse, he's also the choreographer, director and star of its latest offering, the comic meta-musical The Drowsy Chaperone.

Director Angela Marinella and actor/producer Dave Champagne bring the backstabbing family drama of James Goldman's The Lion in Winter to Standing Room Only at the Triad Theater in Yelm. "We'll have the broadswords now!"

Samantha Chandler directed an uplifting production of The Hundred Dresses for Olympia Family Theater. It's a warm, family dramedy about kids in the late 1930s, jarringly relevant to folks of all ages in 2019.

Director Pug Bujeaud takes us into a literary metaverse in Olympia Little Theatre's production of Tom Jacobson's recent, exquisitely clever script Bunbury.

The Great Work has begun at Lakewood Playhouse. We chat with John Munn in his nerdy inner sanctum as he prepares for the debut of Angels in America, with a stylistic nod to Bertolt Brecht.

Alec Clayton talks to director Blake R. York and actor Christian Carvajal about Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman, now showing at Tacoma Little Theatre. It's a dark, dark ride for discriminating audiences.

John Munn, director of Peter & the Starcatcher at Lakewood Playhouse, details the improvisational origins of this "play with some music." It's a prequel to the more familiar tale about everybody's favorite arrested adolescent and peanut butter purveyor, Peter Pan.

Director (and Olympia High School drama teacher) Kathy Dorgan takes us along for the ride on her production of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, playing now at Olympia Family Theater.

Allison Gerst and Barb Matthews co-directed for the first time on Butterflies Are Free, which has taken flight at Olympia Little Theatre.

It's a double feature! This week we visit Harlequin Productions to chat with director Linda Whitney and actors Xander Layden and Evan Sullivan about The Art of Racing in the Rain. Then, we call British Columbia to interview writer/actor Mike Delamont about his show, God Is a Scottish Drag Queen, playing Thursday, March 8 at The Washington Center for the Performing Arts.

Nancy Tribush Hillman returns to the company she founded, Standing Room Only in Yelm, to direct the drop-dead comedy classic Arsenic and Old Lace.

Critic and novelist Alec Clayton takes over the hosting reins this week, as his guests are 3 Impossible Questions director Ted Ryle and that show's writer, one Christian "Carv" Carvajal.

Director Michael Christopher walks us through Connecting Doors at Olympia Little Theatre.