The Printer's Devil Theatre triumvirate of Kip Fagan, Paul Willis, and Jennifer Creegan (co-artistic directors and managing director, respectively) are stepping down from their positions, leaving artistic leadership on the wiry shoulders of Stephen Hando. "I'm liberated!" declared Willis, adding, "But I want to make it clear that I've liberated myself from myself." The decision came at a time when Printer's Devil had been flowering artistically (its recent production of Hedda Gabler demonstrated the acting ensemble's synergy), but grappling with thorny administrative questions about budgets and office space.

"At one point Kip said, 'My dream is that somebody will step forward and take it on,'" said Hando. "At the time I said, 'Well, it's not going to be me! Good luck!' But then I sat with the idea, and I asked myself what sort of company would I be interested in taking forward? I bitch about the theater community, but what am I doing about it?" The result of Hando's musing (and the decision of the ensemble) will be a renewed focus on artistic collaborations and slimming the budgets.

The departing trio all intend to continue being part of Printer's Devil Theatre. Willis hopes to return and direct projects in the future. "In the meantime," he sighed contentedly, "I'm just going to stay home and listen to my new Merle Haggard record, over and over again." BRET FETZER

Clown Short Wins Prize

Having ignored every stage of his fundraising and production efforts, and after only one jokey reference to his flying off to the Slamdance Film Festival (alternate to the Sundance Film Festival), In Arts News now offers congratulations to Brian McDonald. McDonald's short film White Face, a mockumentary examining the prejudices hurled at a race of clowns, won the Audience Award for Best Short Film at Slamdance, which just wrapped up. Precisely the prize the comic-book writer and first-time director most desired ("I'm a big proponent of stories being for people, not critics or other directors," he says), McDonald hopes the recognition will aid in developing his upcoming horror project, Mrs. Baker, scheduled to start shooting in Seattle this spring. BRUCE REID

Barrage of Information

Barrage--the latest in the Riverdance/Stomp lineage of music-dance spectacle, this time with fiddles--is coming to town, and the producers feel it's important that you know the performers have recently been reading the following: Miles: An Autobiography, Great Sky River by Gregory Benford, The Celestine Prophecy, The Hobbit, The 3rd Best Hull: The Memoirs of Dennis Hull, Tom Clancy, Clive Barker's Galilee ("I really didn't like the subject matter very much as it tended towards sex and was much darker than what I care to read," reported the reader), "one of the Dean Koontz novels," and just about everyone on the tour has read or is reading the biography of Jaco Pastorius. We hope this enriches your experience of Barrage. BRET FETZER

To Emcee or Not to Emcee

The February 3 fundraiser for the Fuse Foundation, a new Seattle-based nonprofit dedicated to shelling out grants to individual artists, was a decidedly crowded event. (Over 1,000 folks showed during the course of the wild evening.) However, one guest was missing--the advertised emcee, Dan Savage. "Dan bailed," co-emcee and city council member Judy Nicastro complained.

Where was Savage? The Stranger columnist says he hadn't been told the fundraiser was also benefiting the Northwest AIDS Foundation and Chicken Soup Brigade, and he has philosophical disagreements with both AIDS care groups. When Savage--who says he supports Fuse's arts mission--found out about the evening's other beneficiaries, he called Fuse executive director Alex Steffen. "I told him I would have to spend the night making it clear I didn't support NWAF. Alex agreed that I shouldn't come."

Savage or no Savage, Fuse grossed $30,000 that night. NANCY DREW

We're lonely. artsnews@thestranger.com.