photo: The Colonel and Shenille (l. to r.–Lisa Koch, Bruce Hall, Peggy Platt) (c) Sage Alixander
Theater obliges, this month, with holiday fare, non-holiday fare, and spoofs of holiday fare! There are shorts fests and new plays and comedy sketches. A month stuffed with something to warm everyone’s heart!
Emma, Book-It Repertory, 12/2/15-1/3/16
(Based on the book by Jane Austen) Emma Woodhouse lives with her father and doesn’t think she will ever need to marry. She thinks she’s a very good matchmaker, but finds herself both failing at matchmaking and falling in love, surprisingly, with family friend, George Knightly. First presented by Book-It Repertory in 2009, Rachel Atkins’ adaptation shows us that we need to question our assumptions, sometimes. (Pretty much non-holiday!)
Ham for the Holidays: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Ham?, Tonguieinchic Productions (at ACT Theatre) 12/3-20/15
The Spudds (l. Peggy Platt, r. Lisa Koch) PHOTO (C) by Heather Trimm
Seattle comedians Lisa Koch and Peggy Platt (aka Dos Fallopia) return to ACT with their wackadoodle, gender-bending holiday sketch series. Platt and Koch take you on a holiday outing including: The Colonel and Shenille, Three’s Custody, a 70’s sitcom set in prison, Presidential Family Feud, featuring relatives of political candidates, the tiny Sequim Gay Men’s Chorus, and The Spudds merging Dr. Seuss with Dynasty, for How the Bitch Stole Christmas! Guaranteed to knock your socks off the fireplace!
Wonderful Life, Artswest, 12/3-27/15
Andrew Lee Creech stars in a solo show encapsulating the entire town of Bedford Falls! A new way to see this old chestnut.
Expressing Willie, Phoenix Theatre, 12/4-20/15
Rachel Crothers wrote this play in 1924 about a man who becomes obscenely wealthy in Long Island, NY. With newfound money and an increased ego, Willie Smith finds himself involved with free thinkers and all that accompanies sordid wealth – until his former unsophisticated girlfriend arrives and pits Midwestern values against the idle rich. By the time Willie realizes he has been a self-centered fool, it may be too late. (Note: woman playwright, and non-holiday.)
SnowGlobed, Playing in Progress (at West of Lenin), 12/4-19/15
Writers are invited to create short pieces that are ‘holiday inspired.’ This year, playwrights span centuries and styles, visiting a Christmas tree forest, a holiday-infused divorce court, a depraved orphanage, a puppet show blood bath, and a very [very] White Kwanzaa.
Holiday of Errors, Sound Theatre Company, 12/4-20/15 (at 12th Avenue Arts)
In the sly spirit of Black Adder and Shakespeare in Love, Holiday of Errors is a jolly, irreverent send-up that mashes Twelfth Night, Richard III, and A Christmas Carol with historical inaccuracies and slanderous fabrications into an Elizabethan pudding that serves everyone! Things look grim for Will Shakespeare on Christmas Eve, 1593. An urgent invitation from Queen Elizabeth to perform at Whitehall Palace for Twelfth Night is a golden ticket to solvency and royal patronage but Will’s quill has been limp! Christopher Marlowe’s ghost inspires him to begin a new play featuring ghostly visitors who attempt to save the soul of their murderer, Richard III…with song and dance. (A 2013 Gypsy Rose Lee Award-nominee)
Hung By the Chimney, The Pulp Vixens at Theatre Off Jackson, 12/3-19/15
For the first time in ten years, The Pulp Vixens return with a film noir classic in the tradition of Bogey & Bacall–if Bogey wore a skirt and Bacall was a monkey. Can lonely but loveable private eye Molly O’Malley unmask the Big Lady before she puts the finishing touches on her evil plot or will the wild monkey chase end with Molly dead and her good name forever tarnished?
