Recent Stories with tag julia cho

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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