And so we close out February with what seems like a relatively rave weekend when compared with a typical week’s offering. Upon closer inspection, however, there are a couple of notable events in the offing…
COMEDY
This is the final weekend of the Pocket Theater’s residency at West of Lenin before they head over to Ballard to take over the Seattle Creative Arts Center for a month. This weekend, along with improv with Carskee and Quiz Show, plus sketch comedy with Ubiquitous They, Pocket is also offering a pair of unique events: A chance to see Tom Spangenberg’s new solo piece, The Chase; also performing this weekend is Slam Up, in which the duo of Cali Bulmash and Emily Lowinger combine to deliver a combination of slam poetry, stand up comedy and music. The latter two shows fit into Pocket Theater’s mission to provide an affordable performing space to Seattle’s smaller comedically minded companies.
While we’re in Fremont, let’s talk about the exciting return of a legendary performing venue! When the Empty Space moved from Fremont, they left behind a fairly enviable performing space for whoever took over the space — while there have been new tenants, none of them used it for its intended purpose. Until now.
The current tenants, Atlas Clothing, has teamed up with the folks at ComedySportz, who
are set to start producing evenings of improv in the newly remodeled space. Tonight, local improv team Interrobang, in conjunction with short fiction publication, the Smokelong Quarterly are putting on the latest A Bang and a Smoke at the newly rechristened Atlas Space. The evening combines the brevity of micro-fiction storytelling, with the anything goes vibe of improv, the results have been entertaining.
THEATER
There are a handful of shows closing this weekend, but if you’re looking for something that’s opening, then you’ll have to go to the U-District, where the UW’s professional acting program is producing Mary Zimmerman’s The Arabian Nights. An engaging adaptation of the classic story, Zimmerman’s work is supposed to be told with a physically dynamic staging, something that the UW program can excel at.
MUSIC
It’s surprising that we have gone this long without mentioning the work being done at the Vera Project, where this Sunday The Roots will take to the stage in order to directly feed its politically subversive hip hop to the people that need to hear it: future generations. You don’t need to be a kid to attend, thankfully, but be prepared to be jealous of the kids’ easy access to this material.
OTHER
Let’s end this week’s entry with something meant to be both off-putting and titillating at the same time: the outré cabaret offering That’s Fucked Up at Re-bar. Having billed itself as an event where burlesque, drag, comedy and more are taken “way too far, we certainly hope that the company is able to deliver some truly disturbing material for its final incarnation.
Have an event you’d like to have included in the Star calendar? Send an email to events@seattlestar.net
