The Invisible Hand at ACT Encore Arts Seattle
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SEPTEMBER 2014 Sep 5–28 ES014 covers.indd 3 8/18/14 2:21 PM September 2014 Volume 11, No. 1 Paul Heppner Publisher Susan Peterson Design & Production Director Ana Alvira, Deb Choat, Robin Kessler, Kim Love Design and Production Artists Mike Hathaway Advertising Sales Director Marty Griswold, Seattle Sales Director Joey Chapman, Gwendolyn Fairbanks, Ann Manning, Lenore Waldron Seattle Area Account Executives Staci Hyatt, Marilyn Kallins, Tia Mignonne, Terri Reed San Francisco/Bay Area Account Executives Denise Wong Executive Sales Coordinator Jonathan Shipley Ad Services Coordinator www.encoreartsseattle.com seattlerep.org Paul Heppner 206-443-2222 Publisher Season The Great Society was developed, in part, with assistance Jack Willis in All the Way. Marty Griswold Sponsor from The Orchard Project, a program of The Exchange Photo by Jenny Graham. Associate Publisher Leah Baltus Editor-in-Chief SRT 080414 society 1_3s.pdf Dan Paulus Art Director CONCERT MONDAY, Jonathan Zwickel SELLS OUT Senior Editor QUICKLY, SO GET DECEMBER 1, Gemma Wilson YOUR TICKETS Associate Editor EARLY! 7:30 P.M., Amanda Manitach Visual Arts Editor MCCAW HALL, Amanda Townsend SEATTLE CENTER Events Coordinator www.cityartsonline.com Seattle Pacific University’s 15th annual Sacred Sounds of Christmas concert Paul Heppner features the acclaimed President SPU Concert Choir, Mike Hathaway Symphonic Wind Vice President Ensemble, Symphony Erin Johnston Orchestra, and other Communications Manager performing groups. Genay Genereux Accounting Tickets start at $16.50. Use “SPU” promo code. Corporate Office Group rates available. 425 North 85th Street Seattle, WA 98103 p 206.443.0445 f 206.443.1246 [email protected] For more information, 800.308.2898 x105 visit Ticketmaster or www.encoremediagroup.com spu.edu/sacredsounds. Encore Arts Programs is published monthly by Encore Media Group to serve musical and theatrical events in Western Washington and the San Francisco Bay Area. All rights reserved. ©2014 Encore Media Group. Reproduction without written permission is prohibited. 2 ENCORE STAGES ENCORE ARTS NEWS FROM CITY ARTS MAGAZINE Splendor in the Grass “Blood Ensemble’s process is really organic. The land is really what drove this produc- tion—someone would bring in an image or a scene and go to a part of the property and show the rest of the ensemble. This tree in particular was very inspiring. It reaches into the sky, protective but silent. The ability to walk toward a lit barn at sunset is an amazing asset. Why should theatre stay in theatres? As long as you have artists and an audience, you have a show.” —Emily Harvey, co-director of Blood Ensemble’s Barn Show, a site- specific theatre piece built around a 100-year-old barn in Marysville, Wash., and the (fictional) family that built it (seen here). The show spans a hundred years and several generations, from first loves to last breaths. SEE MORE PHOTOS AT cityartsonline.com/barnshow MIGUEL EDWARDS MIGUEL encoreartsseattle.com 3 CONTENTS SEPTEMBER 2014 Sep 5–28 The Invisible Hand A1 A-1 Title Page A-2 Welcome to ACT A-3 Up Next at ACT A-4 An Interview with Ayad Akhtar A-8 Who’s Who A-10 ACT Partners A-16 ACT Board & Staff ES014 covers.indd 3 8/18/14 2:21 PM ENCORE ARTS NEWS FROM CITY ARTS MAGAZINE THREE YEARS AGO, Phoenix native and Whitman College grad Ben Hunter, now 29, started Community Arts Create, a nonprofit that offers folk-music classes and a mural program and runs the Columbia City Art Walk, among other things. For years CAC operated without a home base, until seven months ago when Hunter and his volunteer cohort opened the Hillman City Collaboratory, a multi-purpose arts and co-working space on the corner of Rainier Ave. S and S Orcas St. Now a new arts hub is taking root there. LEAH BALTUS How did CAC start? It started with the Columbia City Art Walk, which provided this really good foundation for meeting people, for having the conversations that eventually led to where we are now. For example, Taste International, our culinary arts program, was a vendor for the Art Walk at first. How did you find your way to community work? I stumbled upon a job at the [arts education] nonprofit Arts in Motion about six years ago as a violin teacher. But not everybody wants to be a musician. For me, the idea isn’t to create an army of performing artists, but Keeping an army of artists generally. People who are imaginative and want to use their creativity for whatever they want to get into. How did you identify Columbia City as the place where you wanted to Tradition Alive work? When I first came to Columbia City for Arts in Motion, I remember walking around and everything was so different. I see black people—regularly. People of Fiddler, violinist and teacher color. And people say hi on the streets. The rest of Seattle is so different. Not just culturally—economically, development-wise. People in South Ben Hunter forges an arts hub Seattle need to own South Seattle. We need to build up this community the way this community wants to build it up and not at the hands of in South Seattle’s Hillman City. developers who have no intention to keep the cultural traditions alive in this neighborhood. PERRY SHANNON 4 ENCORE STAGES ENCORE ARTS NEWS What’s it’s like now that you have the 8000 25th Avenue NE • Seattle Collaboratory? www.universityprep.org This space has been a big step for us. In the Have you discovered your potential? seven months we’ve been open, I’ve developed University Prep is an independent school relationships with people on a whole new level serving grades six through twelve. because people can come in and just talk. It’s Our program takes students on a collaborative journey of learning in a diverse and inclusive been really enlightening. I can ask questions community. Our alumni span the globe, and listen to what people from all backgrounds fulfilling their dreams in professions that range have to say, what they see, what they’re hoping from chef, to professor, engineer, to see. A lot of people have ideas about what physicist, and musician... they want this place to become and a lot of Come visit University Prep and people want to talk about what once was. Discover the Puma in You! One of the first guys I met in this For information, call 206.523.6407 neighborhood, Joe, sweeps the sidewalk pretty much every day. He works at the mortuary down the street. He’s got an interesting perspective because he sees the kids that get shot and killed; he works on them. He’s lived here for a really long time and he’ll come in to get coffee. He’s a beautiful piano player. Northwest Art Alliance presents Fall 2014 Art and Fine Craft Show “A lot of people have ideas about what they want this place to become and a lot of people want to talk about what once was.” Back Street Bazaar just got started and it kicked ass. We had a 10-piece brass band, we had three chefs here cooking and giving out food. There was a guy who came who a lot of art by Dennis Brady people would probably consider a thug. He just saw this place, walked in and was like, this is A Two Act Show: cool. No one needs to know who I am or what I do. I can just come in here and be. On a Thursday or Friday night, I usually cook October 24 - 26 & November 14 - 16 some food and suggest a donation. It’s bring- your-own-beer, like a living room concert, which goes back to the whole idea of folk in the first place. We’ve done three months of installations Hangar 30 • Magnuson Park • nwartalliance.com in our art gallery. And there’s a community garden out back, too. How does your love of folk music connect to the Collaboratory? Benaroya Hall, the S. Mark Taper Folk music is a tradition. It’s this idea that you Foundation Auditorium pass down something from one generation to Benefiting Ballard NW the next or one family to the next. From some person to some other person, you’re telling a Senior Center & story. Maybe retelling exactly how it was told Senior Center of West Seattle to you, maybe reinterpreting that story and tickets: changing some of the storylines. America’s music and arts scenes lost that connection online at BenaroyaHall.org, by phone with the people before us and we’ve lost our 206.215.4747 or 1.866.833.4747 (toll free) responsibility to pass that down to the next in person at The Benaroya Hall Ticket Office at generation. There’re a lot of musicians and the corner of Third Avenue & Union Street, open there’s a lot of artists in our culture. Who are Mon-Fri, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sat, 1 p.m.-6 p.m. they learning from and who are they teaching? Back Street Bazaar takes place the first Sunday of every month at the Collaboratory. encoreartsseattle.com 5 EAP 1_6 H template.indd 1 8/18/14 11:10 AM ad proofs.indd 1 8/15/14 1:35 PM ENCORE ARTS NEWS FROM CITY ARTS MAGAZINE WHO Eric Howk, the 32-year-old guitarist, music producer and partner at iconic Seattle businesses Never like the Crocodile, the Forge and Ghost Gallery. Born to arts journal- ists in Wasilla, Alaska, who named him after Eric Clapton, Howk was Summer surrounded by guitars, typewriters, cameras, good books and hand Eric Howk tools from the beginning.