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The Double (XX) Fest

THE FREMOCENTRIST

posted 6 April 2011

by Kirby Lindsay

On Thursday, April 7th, Stone Soup Theatre will launch its annual Play Fest. For three weeks the Double (XX) Fest will showcase dozens of short plays, written by female playwrights. A majority of the works will be performed, under the direction of female directors, at the Stone Soup DownStage. However, eight works will also be introduced in readings at the UpStage. In addition, the Double (XX) will incorporate two, open-to-the-public, writing workshops, and a marathon, 24-hour, all-female play marathon where 3 writers will gather Friday (April 15th) to write a play by the morning, to be staged (by 3 directors and 9 actors) the night of April 16th.

The Blur In The Background
Sounds hectic? Meet the production manager for Stone Soup, the person who must organize the calendar, including rehearsals and readings, in two theaters. Chris Scofield has this unenviable position, and describes his responsibility, as he guides the show(s) through technical rehearsals, “to make sure everyone has everything they need.”

As of mid-March, Scofield, also known as Scofie, also had his own name down to work as stage manager for the play fest. He did admit that he was “trying to replace myself.” After all, if he does, “I might get to take a night off, for once.”
If he does end up doing both stage manager and production manager, it won’t be his first time juggling myriad responsibilities – and productions – at once. Throughout the year, “I work with other theaters, if I can work around Stone Soup,” as stage manager or lighting designer, he admitted. At the end of March 2011, he had work going on four different shows.

Born To The (Back) Stage
Scofield got into theater in high school – through computers. He started by lending his significant computer skills to the drama teacher, and decided to join the class and get credit. Working on a production as a stage manager, he found he deeply enjoyed it. “I love organizing things,” he admitted.
After he graduated, he answered ads on Theater Puget Sound postings. “One of the first two jobs was on A Child’s Christmas In Wales at Stone Soup,” he explained. For the last six years, he’s managed to work – on average – on a show every month, as well as being at Stone Soup in some capacity. The cost is steep, however, he proudly admitted, “I’ve had two vacations in six years.”

His long-term plan, right now, is to get into the union and maybe work up to being managing director of a theater. Shorter term, he’d like to direct, and he might consider acting, again. “I want to learn what stage managing is like for the actors,” he explained. However, after a one-line, walk-on during the 2010 Play Fest last year, he swore, “Never again! Too much pressure.”

What Do You Do?
For now, as Production Manager, Scofield must make sure “everything is in place and working,” on every Stone Soup production. For the Double (XX), that means checking, and double-checking, everything at two locations including the actors in 18 plays, plus the production staff. “It’s hard to anticipate since this is the first time we’ve done it,” he said of coordinating the two theaters, and the 24-hour marathon.

The job of stage manager is more detailed, but less comprehensive – in theory. The Stage Manager oversees “anything that happens on stage,” Scofield explained, including the actors, the props, the lights and the scenery. All items for the set(s) must be present, accounted for and in working condition – which has included costumes, props, furniture, lighting instruments, a fog machine, disco ball, strobe lights, sword-filled trunks, a pig’s head, etc. Each director (all 18 of them for the festival) decides what their work requires, and what the actors do, but the stage manager must note those directions and see them carried out.

During the play fest, each play will requires a change of set, and props, and Scofield – or the poor soul who replaces him – must organize the transitions between the pieces. “We’ll try to aim for 30 seconds to change sets,” he admitted. Most of the plays chosen don’t specify a lot of props, but “there is always one that has a lot.” For Scofield, the nightmares are food props – keeping a tequila bottle filled with watered down tea (or the bourbon bottle full of watered down coffee.)

Directors make decisions about how a show will be staged, but they often don’t stay through the run of the play. The Stage Manager maintains the show as originally directed, which means keeping on actors who might – accidentally or on-purpose – change their blocking, inflections or lines during the run. The stage manager must point out any departures from the director’s orders, and for those actors that refuse to listen, “in our level of theater,” Scofield admitted, “there is not much you can do. In an equity theater, they can get fired.”

Building A Career
Yet, the chance of working with anyone truly obstinate is unlikely. “In a community like Seattle,” Scofield said, “it is unusual to go to a show,” and not know at least one person. “If an actor is disrespectful to a show,” he explained, “word gets around,” and that holds true for those in every theater position.

Scofield has reason to feel confident about his own reputation, especially if he manages to keep the complex, and wonderfully rich, Double (XX) Fest on-track, and on-stage.

Be sure to check out the Fest, and experience this unique theatrical opportunity and, while there, figure out if you can spot, in the background, the blur that will be Scofield. Purchase tickets to individual nights of the festival through Brown Paper Tickets, or at the Stone Soup box office, or consider purchasing an all-Fest pass, for $50. Don’t miss it!



How I Learned to Drive

THE SEATTLE WEEKLY

[[LINK">http://www.seattleweekly.com/events/how-i-learned-to-drive-1216723/

Wednesday, February 7, 2011

by Laura Easley

During the ’60s and ’70s, Li'l Bit’s family bestowed nicknames corresponding to genitalia, such as “Li’l Bit” and “Uncle Peck.” Still, many things were taboo. How I Learned to Drive, the 1997 Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Paula Vogel, is the story of Li'l Bit’s confusion during a sexual relationship with her uncle (Zachariah Robinson). Her account of this abuse unfolds through the pair's driving lessons—which, paradoxically, grant Li'l Bit (Kelli Mohrbacher) a little bit of independence. Period music helps transport the audience to the years of Li'l Bit’s youth. And music helps Li'l Bit leave Peck in the rear view, as she flees using the same steering wheel Peck taught her to master. With her hands at 3 and 9 o’clock, of course. The tiny Stone Soup Downstage Theater holds barely over 50 patrons, meaning you feel like you’re in the same car as the two main performers—an uncomfortably close intimacy that parallels their bond. The play jumps between the grown woman's and the little girl's, though not always clearly. Robinson emits a subtle creepiness that sits well on his character. The set design, appropriately, is of a curvy road painted on the floor, which ends in a glass-like shattering on the wall.

THE FREMOCENTRIST

http://www.fremocentrist.com/archives/222_02-09-11.html

Friday, February 9, 2011

By Kirby Lindsay

For the last play of their season (the last production of this season will be the Double XX Play Fest in April) Stone Soup Theatre has produced an award-winning play so well-suited to the small theater, and its limited resources, that it could potentially spoil first-time visitors.
From February 4 – 27, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, and at two Sunday matinees, audiences can see How I Learned To Drive by Paula Vogel. The 1998 play won the Pulitzer, Obie, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and New York Drama Critics’ Circle awards, and this production, ably directed by John Vreeke, showcases the many reasons this work earned acclaim.

A ‘Mother’s Guide’

While performed on the larger of Stone Soup’s two stages, the Downstage, this still provides little distance between audience members and the action. In Fool For Love – the relentlessly emotional Sam Shepherd play, produced last season at Stone Soup – the close quarters gave audience members no escape from an emotionally powerful performance. The same holds true here, where Vreeke deliberately removed even the few perceptual boundaries usually in use at Stone Soup.

Entering the theater means walking onto the stage, and the actors – once introduced - never leave the stage, even as they occasionally try. Yet, as a member of the audience during a preview performance, I never felt trapped, as in the Shepherd play. For Vogel has carefully balanced a harsh, intimate subject matter with humor, and humanity. This production feels less a slap in the face than a steady tap on the temple.

Quality performances by the entire cast – Kelli Mohrbacher, Jaryl Draper, Maureen Miko, Zachariah Robinson, and Jager Weatherby – realize an ultimately tragic story. The use of abstract images, and the abundant driving metaphors that provide transitions between scenes that take place over thirty years, can be vaguely distracting. The opening, with an abrupt delivery by Mohrbacher, made it initially hard to enter the story. Abstract blocking used during an immediate, and intimate, scene between the principle characters also made it hard to warm up to the story, at first.

That doesn’t last. As one audience member observed during the after-show ‘talk back,’ “the play got deeper, and deeper, and deeper.” Instances like Miko, founder of Stone Soup, who skillfully draws laughs with her delivery of, ‘A Mother’s Guide To Social Drinking,’ make the play accessible. “Stay away from ‘Ladies Drinks,’” she advises, in a dulcet, cultured voice at complete odds with the characters and situations we’ve so far encountered. The bit of much-needed comic relief also underlines the hypocrisy and delicate societal shadowplay that create this play’s horrible story.

An Uncle’s Charm

For this is a story about incest; about an inappropriate relationship. And it is the simple, charming and deeply disturbing role of Uncle Peck, as portrayed by Draper, that captured the preview audience. Draper gives an outstanding performance of an incredibly complex character – a credit to his talent as well as that of the playwright and director.

Rather than a simple, cardboard villain that allows audiences to feel justifiable righteous indignation, this production provides nimble navigation of the thin line between charm and manipulation; between self-deception and awareness of wrong. As Draper has boldly admitted about his role, “I don’t feel he’s wrong.” This disturbing, distasteful, and dysfunctional relationship is honestly portrayed, as a tragedy for all involved.

To experience this unique, layered work, step inside How I Learned To Drive at Stone Soup by February 27th. Tickets can be purchased through Brown Paper Tickets, the Stone Soup box office, and sometimes just before a performance. Go enjoy this excellent showcase of a deservedly award-winning play – and decide for yourself!

JOURNAL

http://www.journal-newspapers.com/articles/2011/02/08/in_this_issue/entertainment/doc4d51e04d9c161974100396.txt

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

by Katherine Luck

Stone Soup Theater's How I Learned to Drive is a tour de force

Stone Soup Theatre: a theater with an unassuming name, located in an unassuming performance space in the heart of Wallingford. Who knew there was brilliancebehind that unassuming front door on Stone Way North?

Their recent production of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel is a tour de force of genuine emotion and restrained power. Staged in Stone Soup Theatre’s intimate 62-seat DownStage theater space, the play is set in and around Maryland spanning the years between 1963 and 1983. Tackling the difficult subject of incest between protagonist Li’l Bit and her Uncle Peck, the script plays with chronology, frequently speeding ahead several years, then reversing as unexpectedly as a teenager taking their first driving lesson.

Vogel, who grew up in Maryland, paints vivid word pictures with her prose. She deftly makes the audience smell the farmland, see Uncle Peck’s beloved childhood fishing spot, and feel the bumpy road as Li’l Bit steers her life inexorably off course.

Bobbi Kiopakas’s set was a simple yet highly effective black wall and floor sparingly painted with swerving yellow road dashes and broken glass. Using little more than a four-wheeled flatbed and a few chairs, the actors were able to create a whole world ranging from a seedy motel room to a contentious family dinner to a car speeding down a wide open road.

Moving effortlessly between directly addressing the audience and interacting with the other characters on stage, Kelli Mohrbacher as Li’l Bit displayed an astonishing ability to channel 20 years of growing up in a 90-minute play.

Improbably, Jaryl Draper was able to make the inherently vile Uncle Peck a sympathetic figure, deepening their fraught relationship and bringing a sense of unexpected pathos to the drama.

The Greek Chorus — Jaeger Weatherby, Zachariah Robinson and Maureen Miko — provided a solid narrative thread from start to finish. The “How to drink like a lady monologue,” delivered by Miko, in particular provided a welcome moment of hilarity in an otherwise intense production.

In the deft hands of director John Vreeke, this inherently “hard to watch” topic became a play that was impossible to look away from.

How I Learned to Drive is on stage through Feb. 4–27 at Stone Soup Theatre, located at 4035 Stone Way N. in the Wallingford neighborhood. For tickets or more information, visit www.stonesouptheatre.com.

The Real Inspector Hound

Seattle Weekly

http://www.seattleweekly.com/events/the-real-inspector-hound-and-the-boundary-1135556/

November 10, 2010

by Margaret Friedman

Two theater critics indulge their own fantasies and insecurities in the satirical whodunit unfurling before them onstage in Tom Stoppard’s one-act classic. Second-string Moon (James Lyle) dreams of replacing his more powerful absent colleague Higgs; Birdboot (beard-y Daniel Guttenberg) scams on the pretty ladies while indignantly claiming perfect fidelity to his wife. As the critics’ “reality” within the play blends with the silly formulaic mystery of Muldoon Manor, identities flip as quickly as the genre’s clichés. The contrived 1961 piece feels dated in its self-conscious attacks on the fourth wall, but remains junior-high cute. Zachariah Robinson’s serviceable directing might be enhanced by selectively prioritizing the material; as it is, he delivers much of the mundane with the same intensity as the climactic (possibly a vision shared by young Stoppard that’s more clever in concept than in practice). It's paired with “The Boundary” (co-written by Clive Exton), about logorrheic lexicographers trying to re-collate the contents of their dictionary after a perceived break-in. MARGARET FRIEDMAN 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends Nov. 21.

Vagina Monologues

Seattle Gay News

http://www.sgn.org/sgnnews38_15/page21b.cfm

April 9, 2010

By Scott Rice, SGN Contributing Writer

Performances of Eve Ensler's award-winning play The Vagina Monologues are a lot like vaginas; they've been around a long time, each one is totally different, and you should plan ahead if you want to get in.

The Stone Soup Theatre's 2010 production of The Vagina Monologues is part of the V-Day Campaign, a global movement, founded by Ensler, to stop violence against women and girls. The production runs April 2-25 and includes five new "Spotlight Monologues" created specifically for the V-Day Campaign.

The "V" in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina. That's vabulous!

If you have loved The Vagina Monologues before, you won't be disappointed. Familiar monologues like "My Angry Vagina," an indignant rant about thong underwear and cold ducklips; "Flood," wherein arousal and shame mark an insensitive boy's car upholstery; and "Reclaiming Cunt," which, well, reclaims the word "cunt," are present and accounted for.

There are also five newly written monologues designed to focus on situations around the world where women are at risk, situations where women have been raped, murdered, dismissed, subjugated, or denied the right to even exist. The two most powerful of the five concern a Transgendered woman and women living under the burqa.

Aiden Karamanyan gives a powerful reading of "They Beat the Girl Out of My Boy & or So They Tried" based on interviews with Transwomen from all over America. Karamanyan has a rich voice and delivers the monologue in a halting fashion that conflates the courage and fear in asking the world to acknowledge this kind of vagina. The inclusion of the Transwoman in The Vagina Monologues is politically important and comes awfully late, but I'm glad it was present, and Karamanyan is terrific.

"Under the Burqa" is performed by Frances Hearn, a veteran of the Seattle and Los Angeles acting scenes. After an awkward disclaimer about cultural choices and a mysterious time when the burqa was/is/will be a choice (or not), Hearn dives into a monologue about life for women under the Taliban government of Afghanistan. The monologue is a blistering response to the oppression wrought on Afghani women by the religious leaders.

The material is controversial and handled delicately (thus the unwieldy disclaimer at the beginning). There's a narrow space left between standing up for women oppressed by the rules and regulations of a major religion and respecting the religious freedom of hundreds of millions of Muslims. Regardless of all the cultural politicking of the monologue, Hearn gives a poignant and nuanced take, choreographed around a red curtain that divides the stage. Hearn's expressive eyes speak entire stories by themselves.

Things started shakily for the cast, but chalk that up to opening-night jitters. Once they settled in and the strange accents got smoothed out, everything fell into place. Camille Campbell and Hearn give stand-out performances throughout. Melissa Topscher finds her comfort zone doing a stand-up version of "My Angry Vagina" and, as mentioned, Karamanyan has an odd cadence to her speech that works well with her role.

The small stage at Stone Soup Theatre and intimate seating is perfect for a five-person ensemble performance like this production. The blocking is nicely designed and the constant entries and exits keep things interesting without being distracting. The monologues can get static if the actors aren't moving; I've seen it happen.

The Vagina Monologues has been around a while now and I've seen it performed a number of times. Many people question if they are still relevant after so long in the public sphere and after so many productions all over the world. Other people seem to want some equal time for other identities to speak out (an issue at least partially addressed through the inclusion of the trans character).

The Vagina Monologues are certainly still relevant. The new pieces have a broader cultural scope than the original play. They have a definitive international perspective due to new pieces like "Say it" and "Under the Burqa."

Sure, women have come a long way here in the U.S. of A, but as long as a woman's body is considered a threat to male virtue anywhere, as long as women's bodies are routinely mutilated to ensure fidelity anywhere, as long as vaginas are routinely considered nothing more than penis receptacles and birthing tubes anywhere, as long as women anywhere in the world suffer under patriarchal oppression, The Vagina Monologues will be relevant.

The Seattle Weekly

http://www.seattleweekly.com/events/the-vagina-monologues-940833/

April 8, 2010

By Margaret Friedman

Coochie, twat, vajayjay, honeypot. If you’re uncomfortable reading ‘em, you might really squirm at Eve Ensler’s evolving 1996 play, Stone Soup’s version of which features five new, never-before-published monologues that “spotlight” five culturally diverse plights of oppressed women (transgender, Juarez murders, Lakota domestic abuse, Korean comfort women, life in a burqa). The other pieces are mostly lighter-hearted–paeans to the feisty/filthy/fabulous life socket. Actors in celebratory formal attire penetrate the cramped space from all directions with stories of gushing, gashing, gnashing, seductions, sedations, and secretions. A child rape victim, for example, gets back on track through the sexual affections of a glamorous female neighbor. Despite some faltering dialects, the performances I saw were powerful in their unflinching present-ness; and in giving voice to that long-silent mouth downstairs, a few were actually funny. Directed by Tyrone Brown. Two casts perform on alternating days.

Fool for Love

The Seattle Weekly

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2010-03-03/calendar/fool-for-love

March 3, 2010

By Brent Aronowitz

Stone Soup Theatre has taken leaps and bounds with its current production, an intimate staging of Sam Shepard’s motel-room drama. Where past shows at the company’s tiny Fremont theater have often felt lacking in pizzazz or technical prowess, this one has raised artistic expectations on all levels. As Eddie and May, an endlessly bickering couple with a sordid past, Anders Bolang and Annie Lareau are a pleasure to watch. Bolang has captured the suppressed insecurities of a rough-talking stuntman, while Lareau keeps her own insecurities just beneath the surface, and we wait for her to explode at any moment. As the ghostly Old Man, John Clark makes his presence known even in silence, constantly weighing on the minds of Eddie and May. Daniel Arreola as Martin is charmingly innocent as he walks into yet another one of Sam Shepard’s crazy, messed-up families. Director Charlotte Tiencken has rushed nothing, lingering where we want to linger and making sure the audience doesn’t miss a punch line—Shepard has only given her so many laughs to work with. Here’s hoping that Stone Soup can continue this success.

Seattle Gay News

http://www.sgn.org/sgnnews38_09/page24.cfm

February 26, 2010

by Miryam Gordon, SGN A&E Writer

Sam Shepard's plays don't shy away from violence. He's known as an in-your-face playwright who tackles dark themes and delves into uncomfortable human relationships. Fool For Love, now at Stone Soup Theatre, is one of his best-known works, and is definitely dark.

Eddie (Anders Bolang) has come back to start up the on-again, off-again relationship with May (Annie Lareau). All the typical push and pull of dysfunctional lovers is present. They can't live with each other, they can't live without each other, they tell each other to leave, they come back, etc. Then it's revealed that they are half-brother and sister, and it gets even more uncomfortable. As the audience squirms, we're told that they fell in love with each other, not knowing of their sibling status until it was "too late."

Their father, Old Man (John Clark), had two separate families who didn't know about each other. By the time they found out, they say, they had already formed a deeply dependent bond, which included sex. There is a huge potential script flaw here, since they later describe how they met, and if you believe that story over other dialogue, they met well before they got physically involved. So, what are we to believe?

The play combines fantasy with realism, so maybe the convoluted stories are part of the not-quite-true boundary breaking. Old Man is present in May's home, watching and sometimes commenting on their relationship. Old Man tries to make excuses for himself about how hard it was to avoid loving May's mother, even though he knew it was wrong. Clark does not help clarify why women would fall in love so obsessively with Old Man, nor demonstrate very well Old Man's narcissistic need to focus only on himself.

May has begun dating, tentatively, during Eddie's most recent absence, and Martin (Daniel Arreola) is the hapless "nice guy" that walks into the tumult. Actually, he dives in. He hears a scuffle inside the house as he arrives and bursts in to defend May. Unaccountably, though, he then turns completely cowardly when Eddie confronts him.

In the intimate environment of Stone Soup, actors Lareau and Bolang give intense and explosive performances. It's not a production for the faint of heart. Some of the darker aspects of human relationships are revealed. If you like your theater experience "gritty" then this is a good production to see.

The Fremocentrist

http://fremocentrist.com/archives/071_02-17-10.html

February 17, 2010

By Kirby Lindsay

A few weeks before February 19th, opening night of Fool For Love at Stone Soup Theatre (4029 Stone Way N), Charlotte Tiencken, the Director, along with Assistant Director Josh Aaseng and Stage Manager Chris Scofield, helped the cast run lines – filling in when an actor forgot or scrambled the exact words. For their part, the cast of four – Annie Lareau, Anders Bolang, John Clark and Daniel Arreola - appeared wrung out, as though they’d gone to some big bash the night before and not stumbled home ‘til the wee hours of the morning.
Actually, they had reached the last half hour in their rehearsal of a play in which the author, Sam Shepard, directed, “This play is to be performed relentlessly and without a break.” Even after a relentless run-thru, Tiencken asked the actors to practice “all the fights,” – all three of them.

Emotion Invested
“We can only rehearse this for so long,” Tiencken admitted. The actors, and the director, all appreciate Shepard’s writing - an amazing storyteller who loads his stories with subtext and complex characters. As written, the play is almost choreographed. “I pay attention to the stage directions,” Tiencken insisted. For works by Shepard, as well as Samuel Beckett, the performers, “have to pay attention to the stage directions,” Bolang, who plays ‘Eddie,’ explained, “or the play dies.”
“This is a play of inches,” Tiencken joked after she directed one actor to shift six inches to the right during a speech. Performing in the Downstage space of Stone Soup, a truly small theater, creates a true intimacy among the actors – and with their audience. “We are very excited to do the play in this space,” Tiencken reported, “everybody will be in the motel room.”

Lareau, who plays ‘May,’ described performing in the small space as “an adjustment, a lot like camera acting.” Bolang admitted, “I like the immediacy of small space. In a bigger house it takes time to get to the audience.” In a large auditorium, actors must project emotion, and sound, and expect to wait for it to reach to the seats.
Reward Reaped

Tiencken has directed at Stone Soup twice before – for Road To Mecca by Athol Fugard and The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler – and spoke of her pleasure at being given the chance to do this particular play in this particular space. Tiencken hand selected her cast or, as she described it, “I coerced them into doing this. I needed actors I could trust.”
Lareau denied having needed any convincing, “This is a part I’ve wanted to do since college,” she admitted. This intensity and emotion of this play demands the actors work closely together, especially May and Eddie. Lareau knew Bolang from their previous work on My Antonia at Book-It Repertory Theatre. As she explained, beyond him, “there might have been another handful of actors I’d have done this with.”

“I think it has been a while since Fool For Love has been performed in Seattle,” Tiencken mused, and she fully expects the show – scheduled to run February 19 to March 14 - to sell out. To purchase tickets, contact Stone Soup on-line, at 206/633-1883, or go to Brown Paper Tickets. Or feel like a fool for missing it!

A Child's Christmas in Wales

Seattle's Child Magazine

http://heraldnet.com/article/20091215/SCM0602/912159984

By Taryn Zier

The cast of A Child's Christmas in Wales.

I knew Stone Soup Theatre's production of A Child's Christmas in Wales had sunk in with my 5-year-old son, Nathan, when he exclaimed upon leaving that he was “super cold,” just like in the play when some of the characters were freezing and imagined themselves lost on a mountain. This was a minute detail from one of the stories, one that didn't stick with me, but did with him.

And that's the beauty of the show. Different people take different things with them because of their own interests and experiences. I wondered whether an hour-long play based on a poem, full of Christmas memories from Welsh writer Dylan Thomas' childhood in the early 1900s, would resonate with children born nearly 100 years later. But the rapt audience of all ages drew my curiosity to a close. It turns out we can all relate to Thomas' recollections.

Kids especially enjoy watching other kids perform. The cast is made up of four adults and 11 young people, ranging in age from 8 to 12 years old. At the start of the show, the youngest actors played and sang Christmas tunes and the audience tried to guess whether or not the carol was originally written as a Christmas song. Nathan said his favorite was Angela Blodgett, an 8-year-old girl who played an amazing Silent Night on the keyboard (and yes, this was originally a Christmas song, written by an Austrian priest in 1816).

From there we journeyed with the actors through Thomas' world – playtime in the snow, visits from eccentric aunts and uncles and a fire at a neighbor's house on Christmas Eve. He writes lyrically about the smells, sights and sounds of his holidays. Amusing moments such as Thomas making footprints in the snow with his friends – hoping someone would think a hippo had passed by – and pondering whether fish are able to see the snowfall, gave the production some levity.

Thomas' stories are interspersed with the actors' own holiday memories, Welsh music and carols. The two sets of stories were distinguished by a red plaid hat that signifies an actor is playing Thomas (most of the cast ended up with the hat at some point). This was lost on Nathan, but he enjoyed the production just the same. And having the modern stories involved, such as Starbucks saving the day after burnt Christmas cookies, helps us relate to the actors, who take pleasure in telling their tales.

The painted backdrop of a small Wales town and simple props serve the production well, yet Stone Soup's intimate 58-seat theatre is really what draws people into the play. It gives the feeling of an elaborate story time; a chance to cozy up and listen to narratives about the joys of the holiday season.

One of the benefits of live theatre is that it is a shared bonding experience that can open up discussion about our own lives. Sitting in the car after the play, enjoying breadsticks from Pagliacci Pizza a few doors down, Nathan and I got to chat about our thoughts. When asked what the show was about, Nathan promptly said "Christmas." And when asked what Christmas was about, he spoke of getting a tree and celebrating with people (not about presents, which I thought a probable response).

There are many wonderful ways to commemorate the holidays – with family, friends, food, reminiscing about Christmases past and thinking about how lucky we are today. As Director Kalon Thibodeaux reflects in the program notes, "Times may change, but each and every Christmas lives on as long as we each have memories to share."

Durang7

The Seattle Times

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thearts/2010263468_reviews13.html

November 13, 2009

By Misha Berson, Seattle Times Theatre Critic

Christopher Durang's quirky brand of humor ripples through his full-length plays ("Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You," "Beyond Therapy" et al).

But he's also a proud proponent of comic one-acts, a batch of which Stone Soup Theatre performs in "Durang 7," staged in a cozy storefront space of the rapidly expanding Wallingford company.

These quasi-absurd playlets reflect Durang's obsessions with theater, bullying authority figures and Catholic guilt.

The best-known, "An Actor's Nightmare," plunks a poor schmo into the middle of several conflicting plays he's supposedly starring in.

And "Desire, Desire, Desire" is a goofy sequel to "Streetcar Named Desire." (Cliff Notes may be needed.)

Staged by Maureen Hawkins, with very game actors, all these mini-works are amusing — though not equally so. One of the funniest is "Gym Teacher," with James Lyle as a brutal, macho, misogynist P.E. coach who makes you play dodge ball with bowling balls. Youch.

Seattle Gay News

http://www.sgn.org/sgnnews37_45/page25.cfm

November 6, 2009

By Miryam Gordon, SGN A&E Writer

Stone Soup Theatre, a theater devoted specifically to one-acts, has put together what they believe is the first amalgam of seven Christopher Durang one-acts. One of Durang's most memorable plays is the very funny Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, a parody of a Catholic nun teaching her view of the world. Durang likes to meld comedy with painful subjects. His plays are "absurdist comedy married to real feelings," he says.

This evening of seven plays is produced by an ensemble of six: Maureen Miko, James Lyle, Zachariah Robinson, Natalie Saxon, Rebecca Parker-O'Neil and Laurence Hughes. It's definitely a mix of comic situations with some poignant subjects.

... (Click here to read full article.)

The evening bounces along as director, Maureen Hawkins, pulls together a solid ensemble with a great, versatile set by Jenna Carino and really nice costuming by Savannah Baltazar, especially for a theater that typically has not had money to pour into such areas.

The seven plays do show a range of sentiment and humor, so Durang should be pleased that these seven can be performed in one evening. A good job on stage leads to good times in the audience.

The Seattle Weekly

http://www.seattleweekly.com/events/durang7-800009/

November 4, 2009

By Margaret Friedman

These seven eclectic short plays by satirical funster Christopher (Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You)Durang span themes of theatrical illusion, Catholicism, abusive authority, nightmare, improprieties, hypocrisy, and customer service. Director Maureen Hawkins and the game cast get the intersection of pomp, camp, and pathos just right. An understudy filling in for a lead actor must figure out what play he’s in. Blanche Dubois and Stanley Kowalski are visited by a census taker while waiting for “Stellaaa!!!” A jocular creep of a gym teacher tyrannizes his 7th graders. Some of the plays arc, while others unravel into absurd pandemonium. Durang layers in many theater-history inside jokes, but the pieces can also be enjoyed at surface value. In a couple of the plays, the characters’ cartoonish desire to entertain us feels a bit desperate, but it’s a small price to pay for this generally palatable and well-executed tasting menu.

The Fremocentrist

http://www.fremocentrist.com/archives/025_10-28-09.html

October 28, 2009

By Kirby Lindsay

The MainStage 2009-10 season for Stone Soup Theatre kicks off Friday, October 30, with Durang7. This collection of seven one-act plays written by Christopher Durang promises a fast-paced romp through pieces of social satire, absurdist comedy and lampoons of classic theater.

Stories to speak to the heart of a Fremont sensibility, yet the theater – which sits just east of the Center of the Universe at 4035 Stone Way North – has yet to fully engage within our community. “Our audiences are very wide,” Maureen Miko, the founder of the theater explained, yet “something tells me we haven’t tapped into the neighborhood.”

Click through to the Fremocentrist to read the rest of this article!

Eleemosynary

The Seattle Times

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thearts/2008780793_zart25stonesoup.html

February 24, 2009

By Tom Keogh

Lee Blessing's somewhat overlong, 1985 one-act play "Eleemosynary" is intensely focused on the architecture of emotional neglect and abuse crossing three generations of highly-intelligent women.

Seen from another angle, it is also the story of how ties that bind even the most estranged people are never sundered, though at times it is intentionally hard to tell in this drama if that is more tragic than a clean break.

...

Stone Soup Theatre and director Mari Geasair's production of "Eleemosynary," mounted in the company's intimate DownStage space, skillfully modulates the ups and downs of understated hopes and ill-concealed disappointment that go on for decades.

...

... Still, the cast is uniformly excellent, delivering sharply delineated characters whose thoughts, paradoxically, are far from the truth in their hearts or, in Echo's case, are desperately chimerical.

The Seattle P.I.

http://www.seattlepi.com/theater/401156_theater24.html

February 23, 2009

By Tim Appelo

Northwest-spawned playwright Lee Blessing (Reed College, '71) has a gift for dramatizing the emotional side of intellectual matters. ...

Three generations square off in the play. Dorothea (Stone Soup founding director Maureen Miko) married and became a mother way before she was ready, and rebelled by embracing a wacky persona. ...

But Artie holds Dorothea responsible for screwing up her life, so she becomes a hyper-rational high achiever. And when Artie gets pregnant, she abandons her daughter Echo (Kayti Barnett) with grandma Dorothea. ...

Echo gets along famously with granny Dorothea, but not with her AWOL mom. Dorothea pours her thwarted ambition into Echo, teaching her Greek at age 1. Echo grows up to be a spelling champion. What they all need to learn is the meaning of eleemosynary: charity, a giving and forgiving attitude.

... Barnett's Echo is radiantly cute, until we discover she's just as scary as her forebears. Miko plays Dorothea as a dazed, New Age Auntie Mame. Whitney's Artie is convincingly frosty, but too inert.

Seattle's Child Magazine

http://www.seattleschild.com/article/20090220/SCM06/902209987/-1/SCM

February 20, 2009

By Laura Spruce Wight

As director Mari Geasair points out, Lee Blessing’s Eleemosynary is above all else, a story of hope. This makes it a fitting play to see during these tough times. ...

On a simple stage with a crossword painted in the background hiding words such as forgive, worthy and home, the story of these women and a journey that embodies these three words unfolds. There’s something for everyone in Eleemosynary, but it would strike a particularly sentimental chord with mothers and daughters (young and old). ...

...

While Eleemosynary deals seriously with the heartache of strained relationships, there is plenty of laughter, mainly at lines that speak those universal truths that we can all relate to.

The title is the final word Echo spells in her bittersweet National Spelling Bee win. It means charitable. As the economy places stresses on families that can strain relationships, the word serves as a reminder that even in the most trying times, each of us holds this simple power.

A Stoppard Duo

The Seattle Times

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thearts/2008345581_zart03stoppard.html

November 3, 2008

By Nancy Worssam

After Magritte

...[After Magritte] offers hilarious proof that perception and memory are not always to be trusted....

...Director Mary Machala has masterfully paced this lunacy to reinforce the delight of each unexpected happening. Courtney Bohl and Matthew Middleton play the couple with spot-on British upper-class hauteur, making their bizarre circumstances even more humorous. Aaron Ousley as Inspector Foot is bumbling arrogance played to perfection. And it's all done on a set that's straight out of a Magritte surrealistic painting....

...The Fifteen Minute Hamlet, directed by Roger Tompkins, is to slapstick what Magritte is to absurdity. It's played by a group of zany clowns in cabaret costumes. Hamlet is a leggy blond bombshell (Kat Schroeder). Gertrude (Nick Mathews) is bearded and husky. The set change between the two plays is the most creative I've ever seen.

So keep your eye on Stone Soup. It has begun the season in fine form.

Seattle Weekly

http://www.seattleweekly.com/events/a-stoppard-duo-514302/

November 3, 2008

By Nancy Smith

After Magritte ... is one of the most quintessentially British things I've ever seen-a perfect example, it seems, of how the Brits pull off absurdist humor ...

SeattleActor.com

http://www.seattleactor.com/news/modules.php?name=SeattleReview&rop=showcontent&id=245

November 2, 2008

By Jerry Kraft

The 15 Minute Hamlet

"A Stoppard Duo" is the first production in Stone Soup Theatre's attractive, intimate new theater. This company is dedicated to the one-act play and they could hardly do better than to produce the dazzling wordplay and theatrical inventiveness of Tom Stoppard.

...this production understood that the script requires enormous restraint and self-containment to keep its diverse and ridiculous elements bonded. Director Mary Machala got that dead right....

I look forward to more good work from this company.


An Evening of Albee

QUEEN ANNE NEWS

http://www.pacificpublishingcompany.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=19315793&BRD=855&PAG=461&dept_id=517907&rfi=8

Happy birthday, Edward Albee

February 20, 2008

By Nancy Worssam

Alex Samuels and J.D. Lloyd in "Zoo Story"

Every once in a while you see a stage performance that is so riveting, so incredibly right on, that you are stunned by its power. There's one of those performances in Stone Soup Theatre's current production of two short plays by Edward Albee.

As Jerry in "The Zoo Story," Alex Samuels shuffles onto the small stage with a three-day beard, hair unkempt, shirt hanging out from unpressed trousers and dirty red Converse high tops on his feet. Stumbling into and past a garbage can, he stops before the well-groomed Peter (J.D. Lloyd), who sits on a park bench reading. Jerry begins a conversation that can't end well.

The scene is set near the zoo in Central Park. Peter is a cultured, solid member of the upper middle class, taking a break from his busy week. Jerry clearly is not of his class, nor of his sound mind.

Samuels has the right New York street accent, the right look and an increasingly frightening persona. His opening lines are, "I've been to the Zoo. You'll read about it tomorrow in the papers." Eventually we'll find out what that means; now it just seems part of his instability, hinting as it does at something untoward. "Mind if I ask you a few questions? Every once in a while, I like to talk."

And so he does. Jerry grills the fastidious Peter, who for his part seems riveted to his bench by politeness, or perhaps disbelief. Then Jerry launches into a stream-of-conscious outpouring-about cats eating birds, his attempt to kill his landlady's dog and class differences exemplified by descriptions of the people at the bottom of the social scale, the ones Peter would never know.

This is powerhouse theatre, beautifully directed by Mary Machala. As Peter, Lloyd provides a perfect foil for Samuels' deranged Jerry. He is dressed for his part in argyle socks and the casual business attire typically found in New York publishing houses in the 1950s, when the play was first produced. Lloyd effectively expresses the noblesse oblige so many in his character's social class exhibit toward the "less fortunate."

As with many Albee plays, this production explores issues of class in the United States. In "The Zoo Story," however, Albee is asking us to consider issues of alienation and loneliness as well.

"Finding the Sun" in February 2008

"Finding the Sun," the program's other one-act, is not as effective. Stone Soup's stage is quite small, and productions with small casts work best in such a space. But there are eight characters in "Finding the Sun," and when they are all on stage at the same time, it's just too crowded.

Another problem is the fact that the play is just not as compelling as "The Zoo Story," despite the fact that it was written a quarter century later. It's themes are familiar ones for Albee, addressing issues that have haunted his life and his work: love, aging, mortality and living with the choices we make in life

A Trilogy of Terror

SEATTLE WEEKLY

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2007-10-31/arts/opening-night-pericles-trilogy-of-terror.php

Opening Night: Pericles, Trilogy of Terror

October 31, 2007

By RICHARD MORIN

Stone Soup Theatre's tiny performance space [...] engenders an uncommon intimacy between watchers and watched that can be an actor's best friend.

Eric Reidman in "Trilogy of Terror" Fall 2007

Witness Eric Riedmann's performance as the mentally dislodged narrator of Edgar Allan Poe's classic horror story "The Tell-Tale Heart." [...] He perfectly captures the high-strung, erudite madness of Poe's writing; his words gush out in an avalanche of horrible self-delusion and acute suffering, and his body is coiled tightly, ready to spring forth at the slightest provocation. Director Julie Beckman uses minimalistic lighting and an offstage chorus of terrifying whispers to create a wonderfully tense atmosphere of foreboding that mirrors and exacerbates the narrator's inner turmoil.

Opening the trilogy is Lucille Fletcher's short study in alienation and murder, "Sorry, Wrong Number." [...] Stone Soup founder and artistic director Maureen Miko takes the lead role as the invalid Mrs. Stevenson, a nervous, neurotic kvetch whose only connection to the outside world is through her bedside telephone. Here the theater's diminutiveness works almost too well: Mrs. Stevenson, after accidentally overhearing a two-way phone conversation that may or may not reveal her hubby's plot to off her, spends most of the play caterwauling into the phone, and Miko plays her to the hilt, her voice pitched in a loud, high, warbling whine.