The thing about writing about theater for Bumbershoot is that it’s
not fun. There’s promising stuff and discouraging stuff, but that’s why
God invented blurbs—stars for recommendations, descriptions for
your perusal, et cetera. No need for superfluous exposition.
More fun to write: Why Bumbershoot should tear down its goddamned
perimeter fence. Ahem:
It must feel pretty good behind that chain-link curtain, Mr.
Bumbershoot. After all, that’s how everybody else—Sasquatch!,
Coachella, Bonnaroo—shut themselves off from the world. That, and
a few dozen miles between each event and the nearest city. But that
dozen miles makes all the difference. See, you’re not like all the
other festivals, and you shouldn’t try to be. You’re a music festival
in the middle of a city—why not take advantage of it?
It’s time to think beyond the galvanized steel wire. It’s time to
crawl out of your overcrowded playpen.
Mr. Bumbershoot, tear down this wall!
You’re already stumbling toward a midlife crisis, pushing more cash
and attention toward the blander side of the dial—Fergie, Panic!
at the Disco—while your art, theater, and smaller-band
programming seems more and more like a series of afterthoughts. If you
really just want to be a big-shot, big-name festival, haul your ass out
to Marymoor and be done with it. The college kids and alterna-dads and
the sunscreen-and-bottled-water crowd will follow.
But if you’re serious about taking over a big chunk of the big city
to put on a surprising, great, omni-arts event, why not, you know,
take over?
Bumbershoot can remain Bumbershoot—bands, crappy craft fair,
adolescents looking for places to get stoned—and retain Seattle
Center, but its untapped potential could spill out into the rest of the
city. Imagine a big carnival running like a current through Seattle.
Maybe On the Boards could be persuaded to move its Northwest New Works
festival to coincide with Bumbershoot. Our art impresarios can organize
an art fair in Florida every goddamned December (Aqua Art for the Art
Basel Miami Beach festival). You think we could do the same thing a few
thousand miles closer? And, while we’re at it, let’s use the
infrastructure set up for Hempfest to host satellite political rallies
down in Myrtle Edwards Park.
Maybe small theaters on Capitol Hill could start sowing the seeds
for that fringe festival they’ve been meaning to resurrect. The
schedule fits the fringe circuit—when theater groups from around
the world travel from east to west across Canada, hopping from fringe
festival to fringe festival—which now terminates in Vancouver in
September. Let’s put Seattle on that itinerary. (Visas can be a problem
and the Vancouver Fringe actually starts after Bumbershoot, but if we
build an excellent festival on Labor Day weekend that you can’t bear
not attending, the world will work it out.)
Here’s what people at Bumbershoot—from producer Heather Smith
to PR agent Kate Jackson—say, in essence, when I ask about
tearing down the chain-link fence: But the perimeter fence is our
model. The people who pay get inside the fence; the people who don’t,
don’t. It’s what we do.
But isn’t that walking into the problem backward? Shouldn’t we try
to figure out how to make the good idea work instead of dismissing the
good idea because we can’t think of a way to make it work right
away?
We’d have to think of a way to pay for it—maybe a mishmash of
free and pay events? Maybe some variations on Bumbershoot’s
already-established wristband theme, with certain colors getting you
into certain venues? The city’s offices of film, music, arts, and
tourism should throw in some cash to help. Let’s exploit that
“world-class city” gong they keep banging and turn Seattle into a
weekend-long, world-class carnival.
But for now, this year’s theater:
For comedy, check out Blood Squad and Eugene Mirman and the People’s
Republic of Komedy.
For dance, the On the Boards spectacular will probably be weird and
good, with everything from austere Japanese epics (Maika Misumi,
premiered at Northwest New Works) to “boyslesque” with Waxie Moon (Marc
Kennison of Washington Ensemble Theatre who used to dance for Jose
Limón’s company in New York and knows his way around a
stage).
For theater, Get Your War On, by Rude Mechanicals from
Austin, looks vicious and lefty, if slightly smug. And the Cody Rivers
Show, from around here, is a smart, weird comedy duo with ridiculous
dance numbers. There’s You’re on the List, a new live game
show with superstar and Stranger Genius Sarah Rudinoff, cello
wunderkind Joshua Roman, The Stranger‘s own Christopher
Frizzelle, and other people of quality.
Which is pretty much what it says in the blurbs. 
