Seattle Spotlight: September 2007

Musicals are busting out all over the Seattle area this month, a town already giddy by the presence of Young Frankenstein. Meanwhile, another Broadway-bound tuner, Lone Star Love (September 8-30) arrives at the 5th Avenue Theatre. This adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, transplanted to Texas just after the Civil War, features great music by the Red Clay Ramblers and stars Randy Quaid, Robert Cuccioli, Lauren Kennedy, and Dee Hoty.

Seattle Children’s Theatre is ringing the school bell for Disney’s High School Musical (September 14-November 24). In case you haven’t heard — Troy’s a jock and Gabriella’s a brain, and both try out for the school musical. But wannabe star Sharpay and her brother connive to schedule the play’s callbacks for the same time as Troy’s big game and Gabriella’s scholastic decathlon.

Village Theatre is premiering a new musical, Million Dollar Quartet (September 19-November 18), which purports to tell the true story of December 4, 1956 when a twist of fate brought Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash together for one night of music that made history.

Musical classics opening in town include The Sound of Music, which is mounted by The Attic Theatre (September 7-23), Godspell, which is blessing Bellevue’s Civic Theatre (September 7-22), Fiddler on the Roof, which is opening the season for what is now called “Seattle Musical Theatre presented by Civic Light Opera” (September 14-30), and Brigadoon, Lerner and Loewe’s story of a Scottish village that appears for only one day every 100 years, presented by Lyric Light Opera of the Northwest (September 7-16).

For those who like their theater without a musical chaser, big productions are brewing as well. Seattle Repertory Theatre brings us Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (September 13-October 20), directed by David Esjbornson. The Intiman Theatre continues its American Cycle with To Kill a Mockingbird, adapted from the Harper Lee novel by Christopher Sergel (September 14-October 28).

Book-It Repertory debuts its adaptation of David Guterson’s best-seller Snow Falling on Cedars (September 20-October 14), in which an American-Japanese fisherman living in Washington is accused of murder amid mixed feelings from neighbors who watched their Japanese neighbors removed from their homes. Another world premiere, The Summer Before the Summer of Love, by Scot Augustson, shines at Theater Schmeater (September 7-October 6). Local playwright Steven Dietz is showcased at Seattle Public Theater, which is presenting his Halcyon Days (September 28-October 21). The play covers 1983 and the U.S. invasion of Grenada, skewering politics, morality, and spin-doctoring.

Elsewhere around town, Agatha Christie’s beloved sluethfest, Witness for the Prosecution (September 7-23) comes to The Driftwood Players. Oscar Wilde’s clever-as-can-be The Importance of Being Earnest is at Taproot (September 26-October 27. Miss Polly’s Institute for Criminally Damaged Young Ladies Puts on a Show(September 16-24) is about juvenile delinquents who wage mutiny against the politically incorrect drama teacher’s production of Hamlet.

Lastly, SecondStory Repertory mounts a production of Stephen King’s Misery (September 14-October 6), in which a famous author is rescued by his number one fan after a car wreck — but after she finds out he’s killed off her favorite character, her feelings change.