JUNE 2018 Jun 8–Jul 8 June 2018 Seattle Volume 14, No. 7 International Dance Festival Paul Heppner Publisher SUMMER 2018 Susan Peterson June 7–23 Design & Production Director Ana Alvira, Robin Kessler, Stevie VanBronkhorst Production Artists and Graphic Design Contents Mike Hathaway Feature Sales Director Brieanna Bright, Joey Chapman, 3 Open-air arts for summer Ann Manning Seattle Area Account Executives Dialogue Amelia Heppner, Marilyn Kallins, Terri Reed 9 Rachel Guyer-Mafune on San Francisco/Bay Area Account Executives city life and new works Carol Yip Sales Coordinator 11 Yussef El Guindi on belonging and knowing your audience Intermission Brain Transmission 15 Test yourself with our Leah Baltus Editor-in-Chief trivia quiz! Andy Fife Publisher Encore Stages is an Encore Arts Dan Paulus Program that features stories about Art Director our local arts community alongside Gemma Wilson, Jonathan Zwickel information about performances. Senior Editors Encore Arts Programs are publications Amanda Manitach of Encore Media Group. We also publish Visual Arts Editor City Arts, a monthly arts & culture Artists from magazine, and specialty publications, including the Offical Seattle Pride Guide and the SIFF Guide and Catalog. Learn Israel more at encoremediagroup.com Paul Heppner Encore Stages features the President following organizations: Switzerland Mike Hathaway Vice President Kajsa Puckett Vice President, Japan Marketing & Business Development Genay Genereux Accounting & Office Manager Canada Shaun Swick Senior Designer & Digital Lead Barry Johnson Digital Engagement Specialist Seattle Ciara Caya Customer Service Representative & Administrative Assistant seattleidf.org Corporate Office 425 North 85th Street Seattle, WA 98103 p 206.443.0445 f 206.443.1246 [email protected] 800.308.2898 x105 www.encoremediagroup.com Encore Arts Programs is published monthly by Encore Media Group to serve musical and theatrical events in the Puget Sound and San Francisco Bay Areas. All rights reserved. ©2018 Encore Media Group. Reproduction without written permission is prohibited. 2 ENCORE STAGES EAP 1_3 V template.indd 1 4/19/18 9:50 AM Arts al Fresco From left: James Ehnes, Stephen Rose, Jordan Anderson, Edward Arron, and Jonathan Vinocour. Photo by Tom Mark Photography. Shakespeare, chamber Living in Seattle means living for the the park. And the Seattle Art Fair takes summer. Between hiking, biking and over the CenturyLink Field Event music, puppetry...no visits to the city’s incredible beaches Center every August, attracting local matter your preference, and lakes, it’s easy to fill every evening and national art aficionados alike. I there's a way to soak and weekend with glorious outdoor had the opportunity to speak with the activities. But while you’re solidifying artists behind three of our city’s most up the arts and the sun your summer schedule, don’t forget to anticipated outdoor performances: this summer. Danielle make room for the arts. Several intrepid Wooden O’s productions of King Lear and The Merry Wives of Windsor, Seattle Mohlman previews Seattle arts organizations program their summers around the great outdoors, Chamber Music Society’s Chamber Seattle's arts al fresco. taking advantage of public spaces to Music in the Park and Common Area bring art to the entire city. The Seattle Maintenance’s inaugural puppetry Art Museum programs a biweekly production. Don’t forget the sunscreen! concert and arts series at the Olympic Sculpture Park in Belltown, aptly named Summer at SAM. GreenStage produces the Seattle Outdoor Theater Festival at Volunteer Park in Capitol Hill each George Mount, artistic director of summer, a festival that boasts sixteen Seattle Shakespeare Company, started performances on three stages across encoremediagroup.com/programs 3 ON STAGE NOW! MAINSTAGE HOWARD FAMILY STAGE AS YOU LIKE IT TIMON OF ATHENS LYSISTRATA MACBETH Concertgoers get into it. Photo by Tom Mark Photography. TICKETS FROM $24 CAD Book Early for Best Seat Selection 1.877.739.0559 | bardonthebeach.org Wooden O twenty-five years ago as monster of a play and an audacious a way to reconnect with his Pacific choice to present in the summer Northwest roots. The Mercer Island under two hours. But Wooden O was native noticed that the island’s annual pretty much started as an audacious summer festival, Mostly Music in the endeavor.” Park, was entirely music in the park. Eager to bring outdoor performance Mount pointed out that King Lear’s to his hometown, Mount solicited the cynicism makes it the perfect play for Arts Council of Mercer Island for a grant 2018. to perform Shakespeare at the Luther Burbank Park Amphitheatre—just three “So many of the people act out of venal nights of Much Ado About Nothing to self-interest and casual disregard of justify the “mostly” in the festival’s title. others around them,” Mount said. “I Twenty-five years later, Wooden O has worry about that behavior when I expanded its scope to include parks look at our politics, our consumerism, across the Puget Sound region. But one digital isolation, tribal isolation and thing remains the same all these years ideological insulation.” later: the festival opens and closes at Mercer Island’s Luther Burbank Park Actor Vanessa Miller’s Wooden O Amphitheatre. connection is longer than the festival’s history. Miller attended Mercer Island I had the opportunity to speak with High School with George Mount George Mount about the significance and when he asked her to return to of Wooden O’s twenty-five year Washington to play Beatrice in Much 310 Terry Avenue. anniversary and his role as director of Ado About Nothing, the decision was Seattle, WA 98109 this summer’s King Lear. simple. 206-971-0717 “We’ve never done it outside,” Mount “I really think that free theatre is www.bravehorsetavern.com said of Shakespeare’s tragedy. “It’s a important,” Miller said. “When I was 4 ENCORE STAGES Concertgoers get into it. Photo by Tom Mark Photography. BY ALLISON GREGORY a kid, I remember seeing some park DIRECTED BY SHEILA DANIELS shows produced by Empty Space. Watching those shows changed my A ONEWOMAN PLAY life, inspired me to follow a path into STARRING DEDRA D WOODS theatre. It only takes one beautiful summer evening in front of a happy MAY 31JUNE 24, 2018 crowd of people eating picnic dinners, laughing or listening to the beautiful AT 12TH AVENUE ARTS 1620 12TH AVENUE, SEATTLE poetry, to get hooked for life.” She loves the community aspect of Wooden O and the way the actors truly connect with the audience. And YOU CAN'T CHOOSE she’s always aware that she could be YOUR NEIGHBORS... part of an audience member’s first Shakespeare experience. “Our job as actors is to be very specific with the language and the relationships,” Miller said. “If we know what we’re saying, and we act with intention, then it clicks for the audience too. If we, as actors, are bluffing it, or generalizing, then it’s really hard for the audience. Plus, BY KAREN ZACARÍAS Wooden O shows are very physical and lively. It’s not an academic experience.” SEPTEMBER 630, 2018 AT THE JONES PLAYHOUSE, 4045 UNIVERSITY WAY NE, SEATTLE encoremediagroup.com/programs 5 “People can enjoy the weather and maybe a picnic while they listen to us play.” might not have the chance to hear us downtown at Benaroya Hall,” Ehnes said. “It’s tremendously gratifying to see all the families and young people that attend these events in the parks.” Last summer, SCMS introduced a community play-along component to Chamber Music in the Park, inviting string players from the Puget Sound region to play alongside SCMS musicians. A lovely evening out. Photo by Tom Mark Photography. “Everyone had a really fantastic time,” Ehnes said, “and it was very meaningful Reginald Andre Jackson made his an audience member’s liking, they still and moving to see so many cross- Wooden O debut eighteen years ago and spent two hours in a gorgeous Seattle sections of Seattle represented in the says that there’s nothing like performing park, with a picnic dinner, surrounded group—people of different genders, Shakespeare outdoors. He loves seeing by friends and family. Who could ask for ethnicities, ages and backgrounds, all audience members reclined on a a more perfect evening? sharing in the joy of music.” blanket, enjoying a bottle of wine and a cheese plate or sending their kids off to Violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti loves play as they enjoy the performance. performing in any venue, but whenever she performs outdoors she feels a deep “Every now and again, nature will come King Lear and The Merry connection with the world and the lives in and lift the play in unexpected ways,” Wives of Windsor run July around her. Jackson said. “We took Macbeth to 12 to August 12 in parks Walla Walla. One night during dusk, throughout the Puget “One of my favorite memories of a bats began to swoop and circle in Sound region. Visit Volunteer Park concert was during a a feeding frenzy near the trees that seattleshakespeare.org for performance of the Dvorak Viola Sextet,” surround the stage. Wooden O has more information. she shared. “I had a moment when I hired some pretty great designers. But wasn’t playing for a few measures where nature—she is queen.” I was so taken by the beauty of the scenery and music-making. I saw an George Mount left me with some words airplane flying over carrying people to of advice for audience members who are On a walk through Capitol Hill’s their various destinations, heard children hesitant to give Shakespeare a try. gorgeous Volunteer Park one summer, laughing and dancing, and just had a James Ehnes, director of the Seattle general sense of all being right with the “Wooden O was founded on the Chamber Music Society (SCMS), and w o rl d .” conviction that Shakespeare’s plays are his wife Kate, came across a small stage popular entertainment,” Mount said.