By Alec Clayton The Midnight Sun, one of Olympia’s most venerable alternative performance spaces, is feeling the pinch of the economic downturn and is facing the threat of possible closure. But they’re fighting back in the only way a performance venue can: by putting on a series of benefit performances, starting with the “Save the [...]
By Laurie O’Brien This weekend more than 80 Olympia School District (OSD) employees and family members will take to the stage in Suessical the Musical, a show that ties together Horton Hears a Who and other classic Dr. Suess stories. Shows run Thursday February 23 through Sunday, February 26 at the Olympia High School Performing [...]
By Alec Clayton The painter Tom Anderson makes his paintings with hammers and big metal sheers and industrial materials and other unconventional tools, plus the usual tools of brushes and paint. He says he’s more likely to get his materials at Home Depot or a machine shop than at an art supply store. (But when [...]
By Mary Ellen Psaltis What’s the recipe for the best pie ever? Here it is: Imagine your favorite mouth-watering pie Bake 2 pies that are identical Bring them down to the Olympia Center on Saturday (Feb 18th) in the morning One will be judged Both will be eaten The sale of both pies will [...]
By Mary Ellen Psaltis There is a lot of good to say for eating out. Someone else did the meal planning, grocery shopping, prep work, cooking, and even set the table. Your job as a diner is to sit back and say, “I’ll take the panko crusted tilapia lightly broiled in the tequila-lime reduction.” While [...]
By: Alec Clayton A bunch of kids get together and decide they want to put on a play. They pick a story, maybe they write it themselves, and they decide who is going to play what parts. One of the kids probably takes control as a director. Maybe they borrow clothes for costumes and maybe [...]
By: Alec Clayton The musical “Hair,” now playing at Capital Playhouse in Olympia, debuted Off-Broadway in 1967 and quickly became a world-wide phenomenon and an icon of the ’60s. It was the first rock musical and the first musical with a fully integrated cast. Called a tribal rock musical, it encapsulated the spirit and the [...]
Very few artists are as serious as Ron Hinson. Very few have devoted so much of their lives to studying art history and art criticism and philosophy. He takes his art seriously, but there is playfulness to it as well, and a lot of sly humor. Over the past quarter century Hinson has worked on [...]
By: Doris Faltys Just inside Stephanie Holttum’s main entry, in what was once a formal living room, is her art studio. Her work ranges from sculpture to abstract acrylic paintings. At a recent show she sold two paintings to people she had never met. It means a great deal to her that this purchase was [...]
By: Alec Clayton In the mid-’90s Steve Schalchlin was dying of AIDS. He was in and out of the hospital and taking piles of pills. So what did he do? He wrote a musical. Now, thanks to new drugs, he is still alive and hard at work writing and performing. He has written the lyrics [...]
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