Where to See College Theatre This Winter in Seattle
Let's get dramatic đ
February 1, 2023

Whether you’re a student who has emerged from winter break ready to put your imagination to good use or an ostensible adult (college students are adults, but you know what I mean) champing at the bit for something, anything, that can take your mind off the drudgery of your nine-to-five life in this gray zone of a season, the Seattle area’s universities and colleges have four entire months of the dramatic arts to make you stand up and go YEAH! (Or however you personally like to show your appreciation at a play.)Â
Here’s just a snippet of what our arts-obsessed corner of the world has in store this winter and spring.
đž: Courtesy Seattle Pacific University
University of Washington
The Oresteia (2/23 - 3/5) + The Wolves (5/25 - 6/4) + More
To paraphrase a theatre tweet I like, âWhat if we did Glengarry Glen Ross, but instead of conniving salesmen itâs about high school girls, and theyâre playing soccer, and itâs great, and itâs Sarah DeLappeâs The Wolves.â DeLappeâs Pulitzer finalist is one of seven shows hitting UW stages over the next few months, and itâs an emotionally open, hilarious, and ultimately crushing choice, perfect for emerging actresses ready to do some real work on a solid script. Also in the mainstage mix are the MFA thesis project The Oresteia (Ellen McLaughlinâs adaptation of Aeschylusâ bloody trilogy about the doomed House of Atreus) and UWâs annual Producing Artists Lab, courtesy of graduate directing students Kate Drummond and Nick OâLeary.Â
Meanwhile, the UW Undergraduate Theatre Society will split their time between preexisting and new works. In the former camp, itâs Lauren Yeeâs Hookman, a darkly humorous âexistential slasher comedyâ about a college freshman investigating the death of a high school friend, and Savage in Limbo, John Patrick Shanleyâs 1984 play about sad sack classmates reuniting as adults at a Bronx bar. In the world of the new, thereâs Dejuan Jamesâ Break a Leg, a parody of some of the worldâs most well-known plays (Othello, Antigone, Of Mice and Men), while the second show has yet to be announced as of publication date.Â
Cornish College of the Arts
New Works Festival (3/8 - 3/10) + More
Cornish College of the Arts has four separate shows for you to be in awe of, as the cityâs main arts conservatory shows off their future stars of stage and screen.Â
Up first in March is a 10-Minute Play Festival, which is a great way for writers, performers, and the creative team to cut their teeth with brand-new works.Â
 In April, two shows playing in rep cover the play/musical dichotomy that all theatre schools must contend with. (âYou get your singinâ away from my monologuinâ!â and so forth.) In the world of âstraight drama,â enter Pericles by George Wilkins and some dude named Willy Shakespeare. This wild play is a decades-spanning tale about the Prince of Tyreâs perilous adventures (âŠperilous PericlesâŠ) of riddles, shipwrecks, princesses, and assassins.Â
The musical half is represented by Head Over Heels, one of the more popular recent musicals for regional, community, and school theatre. Based on Philip Sidneyâs 16th-century play The Countess of Pembrokeâs Astoria (stay with me on this), itâs a bright, glittery, queer retelling from Jeff Whitty (Avenue Q) and James Magruder (Triumph of Love) that features the music of the Go-Goâs. The show achieved landmark status by featuring the first transgender woman to originate a role on Broadway (Peppermint from Drag Race season 9) and boasts many opportunities for trans and non-binary performers.Â
Finally, the end of April sees the return of Cornishâs LORE Project, a chance for first-year students to devise a play based on lore from around the world. This year, the theme is âPart-Time Hero.âÂ
Seattle Pacific University
The 39 Steps (2/2 - 2/11) + More
Over at Seattle Pacific University, three shows are on deck for the remainder of the school year.
Top of February has The 39 Steps, a popular choice for regional and college theatres alike. The 2005 Patrick Barlow play, adapted from both John Buchanâs 1915 novel and Alfred Hitchcockâs 1935 film version, is both a parody of and homage to suspense thrillers, and it reshapes the tale for laughs and an intentionally small cast; for this all-female production, five actresses portray the cavalcade of characters (and even objects), making this a great show for them to show off the skills theyâve learned in their character development classes.Â
Up next in March is a one-week limited run called An Evening of One-Acts: Queer Stories, featuring short plays by Scott C. Sickles (who also wrote last fallâs Nonsense and Beauty at Theatre22), Grace Everett, and Alison Cummins, and directed by SPU Theatre students.Â
In May, the department goes all-in on Everybody, the 2018 Pulitzer finalist by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (An Octoroon). An adaptation of the 1510 play Everyman, it concerns one performer, âEverybody,â confronted with allegorical characters such as Friendship, Kinship, Evil, and Love as death approaches. Jacobs-Jenkinsâ biggest invention is a top-of-show lottery drawing, and the actors donât know who they will be playing until right as the play starts. Local company Strawberry Theatre Workshop did a version in 2019 that blew the roof off 12th Avenue Arts, and I expect SPU to do the same.Â
Shoreline Community College
A Kitchen in the World (3/3 - 3/12)
After killing it last fall with The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, the Shoreline Community College Theater presents A Kitchen in the World. Directed by Duygu Monson, this is a fascinating-sounding new work about kitchens around the world. According to the synopsis, the play âexplores the differences in how people eat, drink, talk, fight, make peace, get married, work, miss each other, and how they come together,â and that even if weâre on literal opposite sides of the globe, weâre not as different as weâd like to believe. Â
