It’s summer in the world of the dramatic arts, which means it’s time for companies to look to the future, try to move subscriptions, and let you know what’s in store—and, more importantly, onstage.
Here are the upcoming 2023-2024 seasons for six Seattle-area theatre companies.
The 5th Avenue Theatre
📍1308 5th Ave, Seattle
📞 (206) 625-1900
Seattle’s all-musicals house is back for another round of tuners that’ll get stuck in your head for, probably, the rest of your life. September goes under the sea with The Little Mermaid (September 8th – October 8th), Disney’s stage adaptation of their game-changing classic film. A few blocks away at ACT Theatre is a co-production of Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band (September 29th – November 5th). Read more about it in my ACT Theatre roundup below.
Then it’s Christmastime courtesy of Irvin Berlin’s White Christmas (November 25th – December 27th), a breezy and family-friendly affair based on the Danny Kaye/Bing Crosby mainstay. Come 2024, it’s a revival of the 1970s murder mystery musical Something’s Afoot (March 1st – 24th, 2024), which spoofs the likes of Agatha Christie. And just as the weather heats up, it’s the rock musical Spring Awakening (June 7th – 30th) Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s adaptation of a banned 19th-century German play about teen sexuality. (Season add-ons include tours of the ART/Roundabout Theatre Company’s female/non-binary/trans revival of 1776 and a stage version of Clue.)
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Village Theatre (Issaquah and Everett)
📍303 Front St N, Issaquah
📞 (425) 392-2202
📍2710 Wetmore Ave, Everett
📞 (425) 392-2202
The area’s other big musical (and musical-adjacent) house has a new leadership team in artistic director Adam Immerwahr and managing director Laura Lee, and their first season together has been dubbed “New Day, New Season, New Adventures.”
This fall brings the comic swashbuckler Sherwood: The Adventures of Robin Hood (Issaquah: September 13th – October 15th | Everett: October 21st – November 12th), written by Ken Ludwig (the Tony-winning Lend Me a Tenor). Then feel the Earth move from November to January with Beautiful (Issaquah: November 15th – December 17th | Everett: January 6th – 28th, 2024), the biomusical about the early career of Carole King that ran on Broadway for six years.
2024 kicks off with Naomi Jacobson in Becoming Dr. Ruth (Issaquah: January 17th – February 18th, 2024 | Everett: February 24th – March 17th, 2024), a one-woman show about Holocaust survivor-turned-sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Then spring brings true love with Tom Jones/Harvey Schmidt’s The Fantasticks (Issaquah: March 13th – April 14th | Everett: April 27th – May 19th), whose off-Broadway production still holds the record as the longest-running musical in history. And Village saves the best for last with their summer show Once On This Island (Issaquah: May 15th – June 16th | Everett: June 22nd – July 14th), the genuinely wonderful 1990 Caribbean fairy tale by Flaherty & Ahrens (Ragtime) that recently won the Best Revival Tony Award.
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ArtsWest
📍4711 California Ave SW, Seattle
📞 (206) 938-0963
Charging forward into the new season is West Seattle’s finest, presenting a series titled “Sometimes I Dream” with five shows that “subvert expectations at every turn as we dream, dance, laugh, cry—and keep moving into the future.”
The season begins with Matt & Ben (September 7th – October 1st), by Brenda Withers and Emmy-winning writer/producer/actor Mindy Kaling, a speculative comedy about how Matt Damon and Ben Affleck came to write Good Will Hunting (hint: angels are involved). For the holiday season comes Snowed In (November 30th – December 23rd), a brand-new piece created by artistic director Mathew Wright and associate artist Corinne Park-Buffelen. Third up is Born With Teeth (February 1st – 25th, 2024) by Liz Duffy Adams, “a biting comedy about ambition, ego, and history” as Shakespeare and Marlowe collaborate on a history play cycle.
Then spring hits big with two from Pulitzer Prize winners: Sanaz Toossi’s English (April 4th – 28th) co-produced by Seda Iranian Theatre Ensemble), a play about immigration and language, and the Tony-nominated Clyde’s (June 6th – 30th) by Lynn Nottage (presented in partnership with the Hansberry Project), about a highway-side sandwich shop staffed by ex-cons.
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More Theatre Companies to Check Out in 2023/24
Seattle Public Theater
📍7312 West Green Lake Dr N, Seattle
📞 (206) 524-1300
Under the tutelage of incoming artistic director Amy Poisson, SPT has expanded its 34th season to eight shows. Though the overarching theme is “Upending Fate,” the number of co-productions indicates that the long-running Green Lake organization wants to be a place for local theatre companies to feel at home.
Among these are:
🎭 A restaging of The Forgotten History of Mastaneh (September 22nd – 24th), co-produced with Seda Iranian Theatre Ensemble
🎭 Rosie Narasaki’s Unrivaled (May 10th – June 2nd, 2024), co-produced with SIS Productions
🎭 Macbeth: The Rock Musical (October 13th – November 5th) plus a new home for the Distillery Festival of New Works, both co-pros with Macha Theatre Works
🎭 And the return of audience favorites Titanish (August 9th – September 17th) and A Very Die Hard Christmas (November 22nd – December 23rd), both co-pros with Marxiano Productions and The Habit
Meanwhile, there’s the Victorian-set dark comedy The Moors (March 22nd – April 14th, 2024) by the award-winning Jen Silverman and directed by former SPT AD Annie Lareau, and then the world premiere of local playwright Maggie Lee’s time-traveling sci-fi romance Once More, Just For You (February 2nd – 25th, 2024).
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Seattle Repertory Theatre
📍155 Mercer St, Seattle
📞 (206) 443-2222
By its very design, Seattle Rep has so many shows going over one season that we barely have space to mention them all.
In their smaller Leo K. space, there’s a two-hander live-looping show about Scottish folk tales called Islander (October 20th – November 19th), the start of the show’s North American tour, and Sanctuary City (March 1st – 31st, 2024), a 2001-set drama about undocumented teens written by Martyna Majok (Cost of Living) and directed by Desdemona Chiang.
Then in the Bagley Wright space comes [takes a deep breath] the Seattle Public Works’ adaptation of The Tempest (August 25th – 27th); an acrobatic extravaganza from contemporary physical theater troupe The 7 Fingers called Passengers (September 22nd – October 15th); Kate Hamill’s fresh and modern adaptation of Little Women (November 10th – December 17th, 2023); Octavio Solis’ border town version of Don Quixote called Quixote Nuevo (January 19th – February 11th, 2024); James Ijames’ Pulitzer-winning and Tony-nominated Fat Ham (April 12th – May 12th), a queer send-up of Hamlet set at a Black family’s barbecue; and the return of Jinkx Monsoon and Major Scales in the vaudevillian Jinkx Monsoon & Major Scales: Together Again, Again (May 31st – June 23rd)!
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ACT Theatre
📍700 Union St, Seattle
📞 (206) 292-7676
ACT Theatre downtown is all about the intimate epics, and they have four shows ready-set for your head, your heart, and whatever else pumps through you.
Their year starts off with a huge bang with Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band (September 29th – November 5th), the company’s annual co-pro with the 5th Avenue Theatre). It’s an astonishing and time-hopping historical drama about the ripples of the Khmer Rouge, all backed up with a rock and roll sound with songs by Dengue Fever. Up next is one from the PNW’s own playwright Samuel D. Hunter (best known for penning The Whale) with A Case for the Existence of God (February 2nd – 18th, 2024), about two Idaho fathers working at a small loan brokerage.
Third up is Stew (March 15th – 31st) by Pulitzer finalist Zora Howard (who also made the lovely 2019 indie film Premature), about three generations of Black women in what the theatre bills as a “hilarious, haunting drama.” And bringing up the rear is Stefano Massini’s The Lehman Trilogy (April 26th – May 12th), winner of the 2022 Tony Award for Best New Play, a three-hander, three-hour behemoth about the rise and fall of the Lehman Brothers.
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