I'm not sure how great Saturday night's Moore Inside Out event was as installation/performance art, but it seemed like a fun (and free, if crowded) party. At a little after 9pm, there was a not terrible line to get in. As you entered onto the stage from the backstage door, a crowd gathered to watch a man in a white suit being hoisted up over the seated theater audience on wires; the man was giving a speech inaudible from on the stage while what looked like white confetti fell around him. On the other side of the stage, another crowd gathered waiting to walk Lead Pencil's ramp and scaffolding over the audience up to the first balcony in groups of two or three.

Down in the basement, it was just a crush of people, slow moving and sardined, bottlenecking at the entrances to various rooms. One room had some TVs playing, mic cords hanging from the ceiling, a dormant set of DJ tables, and walls covered in show posters. It looked like it had been hastily fashioned from items already lying around the backstage. Another room was too impossible to get in to and was skipped. Megan Mertaugh's 300 watermelons (pictured above) were long gone—you saw people here and there walking around with one in their arms—but her videos lingered, projected against the bathroom walls; in them, Mertaugh flopped around the bathroom in matching green and red, surrounded by a dozen or so melons, occasionally picking one up, moving it to the sink, or such.

In the bar, Scratchmaster Joe was tirelessly performing an intensive six-minute DJ routine on an endless loop, an experiment in endurance, a DJ set and an installation, and sneakily just great practice for his upcoming DMC competitions. Around the corner was an ultra-bright projection of a cartoon which the animator gleefully observed left a floating, green rectangular after-image on your eyes for minutes.

In the lobby, a chandelier was surrounded by a hollow tower of scaffolding, red rope, and broken up recreated bits of the theater's facade, pieced together out of order. (It should be noted that, whether de- and -reconstructed or just regular, the Moore is a fantastic old building to wander around.) Every once in a while, the pack of muses charged through the room, bumping past people in their game to reinstall the ninth of their number.

Up in the theater, Orkestar Zirconium was onstage, wearing all white, filling the place with slightly circus-y brass band vibes. A few couples in sort of piratey attire tangoed at the foot of the stage. Somehow walking the ramp wasn't as precarious feeling as I'd expected. The night ended with the band circling through the lobby and then proceeding out the front door.

photos by Victor Ng

Eight things you should know about Kate Whoriskey. (Not a comprehensive list.)

Discussed: research in the Congo, how regional theaters are like a sandcastle, and whether she thinks of Intiman as a theater for Seattle or a staging ground for world domination.

Her name is Kate Whoriskey. She directed and helped develop this year's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Ruined. And she seems every bit as bright, articulate, and feisty as her predecessor and forefather, the Tony Award magnet Bart Sher.

I went to Intiman yesterday to interview them both, and they were perfect foils, politely interrupting and disagreeing with each other as often as they complimented each other.

More to come—what Whoriskey thinks about Sher (loves), Seattle (cares more about art than geography), and the future of Intiman (weirder and more interesting than you expect).

And while it isn't polite to discuss a lady's age, in this case it's germane. When Intiman announced they'd found an exciting young artistic director, performer Mike Daisey wrote in Slog comments: "In the American theater, saying someone is an exciting young director is no guarantee that they're under 40."

True enough. In a limping, maimed industry with a graying audience, leaders falling into their dotage without heirs, and no small panic about where to find young blood and fresh ideas, it's worth noting that Whoriskey is 38.

Also worth noting: She directed at Intiman in Sher's first season—Ionesco's Chairs—before Sher had even directed at Intiman. A few years later at Intiman, she directed Blue/Orange—an play about two competitive, white psychiatrists trying to decide whether a poor black man really is the son of Idi Amin. It's a tight, burning little drama (about race, about psychiatry, about ambition and aggression) and one of my favorite Intiman productions ever.

Whoriskey is an intriguing and surprising choice. She's an artist, not an administrator. Seattle should be glad Intiman has made such a bold move. Exciting things are going to happen—for good or ill, none can say.

But exciting.

The Cedar Park Church in Bothell describes itself as a "cathedral" but is really a campus. It has its own school, parking lots, and a church that resembles the shell of an enormous, bleached horseshoe crab. Inside the sanctuary: a cafe, a giant gold Ark of the Covenant perched above the stage, and racks of brochures for a car-mechanics' ministry and Christian martial arts.

Last weekend, 1,500 people flocked to Cedar Park to watch Generations, an original musical by Daniel Perrin, an evangelical pastor and doctor of worship studies (directed by Karen Lund of Taproot Theatre). Perrin spent 19 years writing his magnum opus, taking two research trips to Israel and one to Poland. The conceit of Generations: Jesus comes back to Nazi-occupied Warsaw to save the Jews. (Their souls, anyway—He did not offer to save their bodies.)

The result of Dr. Perrin's labors is a work of deep conviction and deep befuddlement—bombastic, evangelical dreckcellence. The music, played by a capable 22-member orchestra, sounds like Andrew Lloyd Webber and Meat Loaf spiked with klezmer and squeezed through a fine mesh of Christian pop. The plot scans like a three-way between Godspell, Cabaret, and a performance of Life of Brian by people who don't realize it's a joke.

The plot is confusing, to put it charitably: Jesus is a friendly local rabbi who lightly aids the folks behind the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In act two, the characters jump back in time to first-century Galilee for a scrambled tour of the Gospel's greatest hits. Flash-forward back to Warsaw, where the Nazis shoot Jesus. (Overheard in the pews: "Don't worry, He'll be back.") Jesus resurrects Himself and tells the lead Warsaw character: "Without God, all you have is a ghetto." The Jew converts, the music soars, and the woman behind me mutters: "Yes, Jesus! Awesome!" Generations seems to argue that the Holocaust was primarily a convenient time for Jews to find Jesus. (Because when isn't?)

Special moments: a unified theory of anti-Semitism ("they blame us because they don't have enough jobs or they owe us money"), a poop joke ("at the beginning of his historic campaign, Napoleon put on a red shirt to hide the blood, should he be wounded. Likewise, Hitler put on a pair of brown pants!"), several marriage jokes ("what's hers is hers and what's yours is hers"), and a mournful chorus of "Aryan, Aryan, so barbarian." Perrin had written a third act, which takes place during the Inquisition, but he cut it because it "would've made it too confusing and too long." (Generations is currently two and a half hours.)

"I can see how some people might feel offended by the musical," Dr. Perrin said in an interview after the show. "But it comes from my sincere affection for the Jewish people and the Jewish faith." Perrin has not, to date, heard any complaints about the content. "But," he says, "most people who've seen the musical are the kinds of people who'd walk into a church."

UPDATE

I forgot to mention that, according to Dr. Perrin, this production of Generations cost around $30,000. (Not including the trips to Israel and Warsaw.)

Always be closing:

The Washington State University Department of Theater and Dance will not survive the budget ax by merging with the University of Idaho program in nearby Moscow.

WSU Provost and Executive Vice President Warwick Bayly said Tuesday the department, which has 105 students and was listed for elimination in a preliminary budget last month, will be cut.

Maybe what the world needs now is a long, detailed essay about the history of the drama department in Pullman—famous rivalries, famous parties, famous love affairs, an investigation into where its graduates ended up. Soap operas? Other drama departments? NASA?

Seen in the alley behind the 5th Avenue during last night's high school musical awards:

Schmader and I were there to hand out an award—best scenic designer: congratulations, Kamiak High School!—and founds these guys working on their Chicago routine.

Full list of nominees and recipients (the use of the word "winner" is discouraged at the high school musical awards) here.

Thanks to Slog photographer Jake.

There were lots of good performances at last weekend's Northwest New Works—gale-force dancing by Ellie Sandstrom's new company, Byron au Yong's solo operetta about a Chinese deliveryman stuck in an elevator, a gorgeous and sad little love dance by Umami Performance—but the weekend only delivered one real shock, by the queen of shock herself: Queen Shmooquan.

I thought I was immune to Shmooquan's shtick. (If you've seen one act wearing fake cock-and-balls while regurgitating Twinkies into rubber chickens, you've seen 'em all.)

I was prepared feel totally indifferent to the Queen—despite her dramatic debut—but she dragged me, kicking and screaming, into a new-found, grudging admiration.

The poultry and penises were in full effect, but the Queen revealed new depths of flagrant, pop-culture weirdness—she might be a long-lost heir to Dina Martina and Klaus Nomi. She stuffed her stuffed her crotch with... something and stuffed her performance with exquisitely surreal video (Mr. Rogers, cheesy hand-holding on the beach, kaleidoscopic underwear) and surrealer antics: She rode a bicycle, danced on roller skates, and smeared her face with lipstick before chewing off the tip and swallowing it. At one point, the audience applauded her for simply eating a Dorito.

Shmooquan's heart beats pure entertainment—glittery, gaudy, and shameless.

The Studio 360 podcast has recorded a nice, thoughtful segment about the Joe Turner controversy.

Among the didja knows: During his lifetime, August Wilson had several white directors stage his plays, including Joe Turner and his autobiographical solo show at the Seattle Rep—and that the Lincoln Center theater hasn't staged a play with an African-American director for the last 18 years.

Listen to the whole thing here:

So. Who wants to be the boss of American theater for the next two years? Because the NEA is hiring.

Remember 2005, back when the People's Republic of Komedy was shiny and new and people were still having conversations about what "alternative comedy" meant? And nobody came to any conclusions except local comedian Dartanion London, who simply said:

"The [traditional] clubs sometimes keep people away from comedy, for very good reason." He quit comedy for a while because too many comedians relied on cultural cheap shots at gays, women, and immigrants. "I can't even watch some of that shit anymore," he says. "It's like watching Borat, except Borat isn't there."

Since then, PROK has spread to New York and Los Angeles and its stronghold comedy night, Laff Hole, has squeezed great performers onto its stage from up and down the fame ladder: Owen Straw, Eugene Mirman, Daniel Carroll, David Cope, Aziza Diaz, that infamous night with Robin Williams, Solomon Georgio, Kevin Hyder, Emmett Montgomery, and other funny freaks.

Tomorrow night, Laff Hole turns four years old and the lineup is crackerjack:

Emmett Montgomery

Hari Kondabolu

Dartanion London

David Schmader and Stranger Gong Show winners Airpocalypse

And probably a few others.

It's at 9 pm. It costs $7. And give 'em a little extra—it's their birthday. And they still owe me for that profile I wrote of 'em three years ago.

The Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs has released their city art grants ($225,000 all told), and the list reads like a season preview for the city of Seattle. Certain individuals have been very grumpy in the past about how the city spent its public art dollars.

But, reading through the press-release-ese, some of these projects sound great, mostly because of the people involved.

Marya Sea Kaminski, theatre, Condomillennium: A Play About Fantasy and Real Estate. To develop and perform a full-length monologue play that investigates the inner-workings of people who have been affected by a major condominium project in their neighborhood. The play will combine real human stories with absurd fantasies to build a theatrical picture of the evolution of our urban landscape and our instinctual need for space and home.

Stefan Gruber, theatre, Psychic Portraiture. To create and perform a show in which the artist paints portraits of audience members with animated light on a stage arranged with a large-sized canvas. Symbols from the life of the model also materialize to decorate the portrait. In a banter with the model and audience, psychic details are intuited.

Dayna Hanson, theater, Great Great Great Great Grandchildren of the Revolution. To create and perform a dance-driven rock musical bringing the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere's legendary ride and other iconic moments of the Revolutionary War to life. The work blends dance, theater, music, design elements and testimonials to link revolutionary ideas to modern-day hopes and failures.

Keri Healey, theatre, Torso. To research, write and workshop a new play based on a recent real-life murder case in Minnesota, to which the playwright has a personal connection. "Torso" (working title) will explore new and darker territory for the writer: violence, revenge and broken family relations in America.

Derrick [Ryan?] Mitchell, theatre, Flinch Not and Give Not Back. To create active dramaturgical environments geared towards the idea of third-person narrative dialogue that addresses the non-narrative subtext of the often striking images performance group Implied Violence is known for.

Amy O'Neal, dance, too. To create a dance/video performance following the fragmented and dreamlike events of two dancers who encounter 50 other people duet style, but manage to miss each other while environ-ments and people constantly change. The duo meets people under varying circumstances and their inter-action with these strangers, friends and acquaintances creates a cut- and-paste dance of physical extremes.

John Osebold, music, THE WEST. To create a stage performance deconstructing, debunking and celebrating the myths of the Westward Expansion and American imperialism. This multidisciplinary show will explore Lewis and Clark's discovery of the Pacific Northwest, subsequent growth of regional industry, and social impacts on the modern and future world.

Amelia Reeber, dance, this is a forgery. To perform an evening-length solo dance incorporating the visual element of video. There will be a soundscore that consists of previously recorded songs and a thematic armature of original music by composer/musician Sam Mickens.

Jennifer Zeyl, theatre, Sonic Tales. To design and coordinate the execution of the scenic environment for the work, a series of contemporary fairy tales told through intricately woven dance theater and live music, set in Joseph Cornell-inspired and video-powered landscape. This project will put the idea of heroism under a magnifying glass - exploring the tiny, everyday variety - exploding them into a new mythology.

It's like a theater/dance all-star lineup. And that's just a few of them. See the whole list here.

Remember that post about Sher leaving Intiman, lo those many posts ago? No? Me neither.

(It's funny how, after years of people wringing their hands and speculating about when Sher would finally leave Intiman—years of people sending me gossipy emails saying they were sure Sher was already almost gone—the actual announcement has failed to inspire a strong reaction from Seattle. Maybe the city had become so used to the idea that people are finding it hard to get worked up. Or maybe it's just me.)

To refresh: Sher is leaving Intiman, but not before spending a significant chunk of time helping break in the new, chosen-but-unnamed artistic director. Also, Intiman is swapping out Sher's Othello for an Othello by NYC's Theater for a New Audience.

What I'd forgotten to mention: That local union people will probably be a little grumpy about the Othello swap. They're already edgy about losing work as regional theaters cut their budgets and bring in more pre-built, out-of-town productions to save on labor costs.

A certain union-booster-about-town (let's call him Bing) said he received this email after opening night of 1,000 Clowns at Intiman:

To: Bing
Subject: time to meet

Hi Bing -

I hope you enjoyed the show at Intiman last night. After you left, [XXXXXXX] told a long story about how she and her staff have been totally screwed by Bart bringing in the production of Othello from New York. Although that decision was evidently made a month ago, they neglected to tell the staff (and possibly the Seattle actors who had been "hired") that they were no longer needed and that they were all being laid off a month early. It sounds like a terrible situation and handled extremely poorly leaving lots of people scrambling.

See? Grumpiness.

UPDATE

In the comments, COMTE (as ever) reminds me of something else: That this is not the first big theater in Seattle to swap a local for an imported production this month. In early May, the Rep announced it would swap Hay Fever, directed by Warner Shook, for 39 Steps, which began at La Jolla Playhouse and moved to Broadway.