Evasions

After just two months on the job, ACT's new managing director, Jolanne Stanton, is leaving. Or she's being left. It's hard to tell. There's a lot of evading going on. Sometimes it sounds like she was fired, like when ACT board president Brad Fowler says the theater is looking for "someone with theatrical management experience." Notice—not more experience, just experience. Stanton (formerly a consultant to nonprofits, who replaced longtime managing director Susan Trapnell) came to the job from ACT's board of directors, which she joined in 2005. Last week, shortly after the announcement that she is leaving, Stanton said she doesn't know when her last day will be, whether she'll return to ACT's board, or whether she'll look for a new job. "This is new news," she said.

Sometimes it sounds like she quit, like when the board president suggests Stanton wrote her own exit. "She was brought in to look at short-term and long-term goals for ACT and one of her recommendations was to continue the search for a managing director." So she quit? "I wouldn't characterize it that way," Fowler said. Why not? Because, Fowler explained, Stanton was actually appointed interim managing director, but the board didn't mention the interim part to anyone, including the theater's staff, until last week. Why not? "It was a decision that was made."

Sounds like something you might hear in ACT's next play: Stuff Happens, by David Hare, about Rumsfeld, the Bush White House, and the decision to invade Iraq. (Opens June 28.)

Debts

According to financial documents from Seattle Center, Intiman Theatre is $150,823.60 behind on its rent and utilities. Intiman wins third place in the Center's tenant-delinquency race: The Children's Museum owes $255,434.50 and the Fun Forest is $763,890.41 in arrears. Intiman and the Children's Museum, like Seattle Pride (debt: $100,000), have submitted payment plans to the Center. According to Seattle Center's deputy director, David Heurtel, the Fun Forest is doomed.

Out with Mime

On July 1, Velocity Dance Center will take over the Chamber Theater, the 49-seat black box on the fourth floor of the Oddfellows Hall. The acquisition will double their theatrical holdings (they have a brighter, blond-wood stage on the second floor). Velocity director Kara O'Toole said they will produce in and rent out the Chamber, which, for the last 24 years, has been run by Seattle Mime Theater. (Who knew?)

The Chamber is smaller, darker, and less delicate than Velocity's main stage, allowing the dance center to program more work for longer runs. "It will also be less dusty," O'Toole said. "We're going to sic our scholarship work-study students on it."

Rick Davidson, of Seattle Mime Theater, said their company didn't use the space enough to justify keeping it. Their last show, two years ago, was Whatever Happened to Milky-White?, concerning the cow in "Jack and the Beanstalk" who was traded for magic beans. "It was sort of an animal-rights piece," Davidson said. "The cow met his obvious demise."