Recent Stories with tag intiman theatre

Kate Whoriskey

Kate Whoriskey is younger than me, and that--if you're lucky--is all I'm going to say about that. The new artistic director of the Intiman Theatre, new Seattle resident, and new-ish mom (21 months) met me in her office for a "getting to know you" chat, which is the kind of thing she's doing besides starting up rehearsals for Lynn Nottage's Ruined (runs July 9-August 8) and discovering what the view is like from the captain's chair that Bart Sher recently vacated.

She's brainy (NYU, Harvard), brown-haired, Massachusetts-Irish, and prone to gales of laughter and sotto voce confidences, which is a little perplexing in the middle of an interview. She has a lot of goals. You may know her husband Daniel Breaker from either Broadway (Shrek's Donkey) or Spike Lee's film of Passing Strange. Her first Intiman staging was Ionesco's The Chairs (2000), then Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea and Joe Penhall's Blue/Orange.

She wanted to "do the Seattle thing" and go out for a latté, but I demurred, as there's little novelty left for me in trying to transcribe what someone said while a steam wand was blasting milk in the background. (Yes, she's new to town, and I should have followed her suggestion. Rude. Also, I would have enjoyed a cookie. Foolish.)

Anyway: INT. OFFICE.

The very next thing I noticed was choreographer Olivier Wevers' card on her table, which turned out to foreshadow the rest of our conversation--largely about the sense of tantalizing connections and collaborations that Whoriskey's arrival in town has set in motion, like a seed crystal dropped into solution. 

From left: Managing Director Brian Colburn, Artistic Director Bart Sher, Kate Whoriskey and Board President Kim A. Anderson. Photo: Team Photogenic.

"Where Bart and I meet are the classics--I want to continue doing classics and contemporary work," Whoriskey told me, in response to my "Whither Intiman" opening gambit. "I'd love to continue the American Cycle...and then in terms of things that might feel a little differently [...] I would love to work on an International Cycle, which would go along with the American Cycle."

Intiman's Ruined (which will go to co-producer the Geffen Playhouse this fall, then travel on to South Africa, to the Market Theatre) marks the official launch of the International Cycle, which Whoriskey hopes will add substantial diversity to the theatrical voices you can hear in Seattle theatre. It also continues her string of plays (Intimate Apparel, Fabulation) by Terry Teachout-fave Lynn Nottage. (Julia Cho is another young American dramatist who figures large in Whoriskey's directorial history, so be ready to hear more about her.)...

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The SunBreak's arts desk has been unusually busy this week and not keeping up on what's going on around town. So here's my attempt at catch-up:

Photo of the P-I globe by SunBreak Flickr pool contributor Great Beyond.

First off, a note from the Intiman popped into the inbox on Tuesday: "I’m writing to let you know that Sheila [Daniels] has decided to leave Intiman in order to make her life as a fulltime artist and activist, rather than an artist/activist who has a concurrent fulltime job as an administrator. We’re all very sad about it, but it’s a decision everyone at Intiman supports. Kate [Whoriskey, the incoming artistic director] was really hoping that Sheila would be able to direct next year and had offered her our American Cycle play, but Sheila had to turn it down, unfortunately, for a variety of reasons."

Daniels, who directed the current production of Abe Lincoln in Illinois, has been a leading light in Seattle theatre since 1994. She did a lot of work with Theater Schmeater over the years, and in 2007, she produced the much-loved 90-minute, three-actor version of Crime and Punishment at the Capitol Hill Arts Center, which she brought to the Intiman earlier this year. Back in 2007, Daniels took a full-time position as assistant artistic director at Intiman, and her departure comes as Bartlett Sher is still transitioning the artistic director helm to Kate Whoriskey.

Second, Ballard's Live Girls! Theatre is apparently becoming homeless, and it's at least partly by choice. TPS Online reported on Monday that artistic director Meghan Arnette had decided not to renew the company's lease on their downstairs space on Market St. and would instead seek to produce their work at different venues around town.

"Having our own venue has been an amazing asset and we have used it to gain a national reputation for supporting women in theater," Arnette wrote in her press release, "while presenting a wide variety of exciting and challenging new works."

Moving around town may just be the tonic Live Girls! needs. I rarely get out to catch their shows in Ballard, where there's not much theatre, which is unfortunate because Live Girls! typically does an excellent job, as evidenced by their current production of Bone Portraits. Going mobile, though, should help the company expand their mission to create meaningful opportunities for women in theatre, and Arnette apparently mentioned a potential collaboration with the Seattle Girls' School.

And third, there's an interesting show organized by local playwright Paul Mullin up at North Seattle Community College. Mullin and five other playwrights--Dawson Nichols, Scot Augustson, Kelleen Conway Blanchard, Pam Carter, Bryan Willis--collaborated to create a "living newspaper," a form of agitprop theatre that started during the Bolshevik Revolution, called It's not in the P-I: A Living Newspaper About a Dying Newspaper (7:30 p.m., tickets $10).

The idea behind living newspaper theatre was to perform the news for audiences as a way of urging social action. In this case, the show is about the death of the Seattle P-I and the state of media. It's supposed to be quite good, and this weekend, after Friday and Saturday's shows, the producers have cobbled together an impressive panel of media folks old and new to discuss the issues raised, including The Stranger's Paul Constant and the Seattle Times's cartoonist Dave Horsey.

Interestingly, the Times's theatre critic Misha Berson has apparently backed out of her advertised appearance on the panel.

I like wine. I do. While I'm not one of those people who suddenly starts hugging you and telling you you're my best friend after two glasses of wine, I am one of those people who is more inclined to investigate an event if there is the promise of some good (read: not three-buck Chuck) wine.

You can imagine my glee when I discovered that Intiman Theatre hosts a Wine Wednesday event with every production. A play and some vino? Wine not?! The current play Joan Didion's adaptation of her best-selling book The Year of Magical Thinking.

The pre-show wine tasting starts at 6:30 p.m., and is presented by Maryhill Winery, 2009 Washington Winery of the Year. The wines: Gewts, Sangiovese, Reserve Cab Franc, Reserve Malbec. Not only that, they're serving light hors d'oeuvres from Center House Bistro in the courtyard. 

The way it works: Buy a ticket for the show (or call 206-269-1900) and tell them you want to add Wine Wednesday to it. That'll add $15 to your bill, and a tasty buzz to your evening.