Almost 10 years ago, Seattle’s fringe festival imploded and left a smoking crater. This year, a group of theater artists—from On the Boards, Annex, and beyond—have reinvented and revived it. There will be 21 acts, local and national, which were selected by lottery. Things to watch for: the solo existential-sketch comedy of Becky Poole, a satirical police procedural by Ghost Light Theatricals, and short plays about power by Beckett, Glaspell, et al. by A Theater Under the Influence. (Times and venues vary, www.seattlefringefestival.org, $10 per show, Sept 19-23)
Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua.... More by Brendan Kiley