"When Brooke Wyeth, played by Marya Sea Kaminski, arrives at her parents’ Palm Springs mansion on Christmas Eve with a frighteningly revealing memoir in hand, she threatens to tear apart the powerful and prestigious Republican image the family has been carefully constructing for decades. Victor Pappas directs this Northwest premiere, featuring Pamela Reed (Parks and Recreation) as a snarlingly cruel and intelligent matriarch and Kevin Tighe (LOST) as a more bumbling but more humane patriarch. The text, with its reversals of fortune all played out in the family's immaculate living room, is good. But the performances, which hang tight through multiple hairpin turns and disturbing revelations, are great." (Brendan Kiley) $35-$60.
"The Can Can Castaways, as we've often said in The Stranger, are like a gateway drug for modern dance. People show up at the subterranean, red-lit bar, order a few drinks, expect to see some hardbodies dancing—and they get that. But what they also get is the expert choreographer by Rainbow Fletcher and her team of dancers and designers (often the dancers are the designers) who create dreamscapes from the Moulin Rouge to a bondage club in Tokyo. Fletcher and her team have also performed at On the Boards and other, more august venues, and their marriage of artistry and sensuality is excellent." (Brendan Kiley) $10-$45.
$6-$20.
"The two-weekend SIDF, produced by Khambatta Dance Company, melds professional dance culture—including an Inter|National series with performers from Israel, Guinea, and Ghana—with an easygoing summer atmosphere. The mysterious 'Sanity Café,' a cabaret of new pieces based on themes picked by SIDF audiences, will wrap up the nine-day festival with a late-night event in a secret location." (Melody Datz) $15-$50.
Myra Platt adapts Jess Walters's novel about a man who "wakes up from his American dream (writing a financial advice column in blank verse)" and finds himself ass-deep in financial and familial trouble. He figures a life of crime might get him out of that jam. $25-$45.
Competing duos perform comedy and improv, tournament-style.
A sonic and visual experiment from Tommy Smith and Reggie Watts that combines text, music, and visuals without any live performers onstage and is described as a "hallucinatory sonic experience about loneliness, depravity, and the intrinsic failure of all human contact." Featuring the voices of Neil Gaiman, Mary Jane Gibson, and others. $15.