Plays

ArtsWest has sent four incredible artists on a cozy retreat to write the most perfect holiday show the world has ever seen.  But when a blizzard hits and tensions rise, the crumpled up notebook pages start to pile up even faster than the snow. Will they finish the show in time? Or will they have to rely on a sprinkle of holiday magic to pull the whole thing off?

Inspired by classic holiday TV specials and musicals about putting on a musical, witness the birth of a new Seattle theater tradition as four of the city’s most beloved musical theater stars take you on a journey of song, dance, friendship, family, and the true meaning of the holidays.

Winner of the 2021 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award

Finalist for the 2023 Steinberg-ATCA New Play Award

An aging authoritarian ruler, a violent police state and a restless, polarized people seething with paranoia: It’s a dangerous time for poets. Two of them — the great Christopher Marlowe and the up-and-comer William Shakespeare — meet in the back room of a pub to collaborate on a history play cycle, navigate the perils of art under a totalitarian regime and flirt like young men with everything to lose. One of them may well be the death of the other in this biting comedy about ambition, ego, and history.

“A ravishing production that can’t be missed!” – Broadway World

“Take my hand and merrily traipse with playwright Liz Duffy Adams back to Elizabethan England via quick-witted punk sensibility in her delicious fantasia.” – Houston Press

Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Drama

Co-Produced by Seda Iranian Theatre Ensemble

Two words set in motion award-winning playwright Sanaz Toossi’s intricate and profound New York debut: “English Only.” This is the mantra that rules one classroom in Iran, where four adult students are preparing for the TOEFL — the Test of English as a Foreign Language. Chasing fluency through a maze of word games, listening exercises, and show-and-tell sessions, they hope that one day, English will make them whole. But it might be splitting them each in half.

NY Times Critics Pick! “A rich new play! Both contemplative and comic.” – The New York Times

“One of the best plays in New York right now! Those plays that appear, shimmer, and conquer an audience so wholly you feel a delicious, building two-way crackle in the room as a performance progresses.  Book a ticket!” – The Daily Beast

2022 Tony Award® Nominated Best Play by

Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage (Sweat, Ruined)

Presented in Partnership with The Hansberry Project

“Feisty comedy is on the menu” (Washington Post) in two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage’s latest Broadway triumph.  Creating the perfect sandwich is the shared quest of the formerly incarcerated kitchen staff of Clyde’s, a truck stop cafe. Even as the shop’s mischievous owner tries to keep them under her thumb, the staffers are given purpose and permission to dream—finding that “sometimes a hero is more than a sandwich” (New York Times).

“Nottage’s delightful play dares to flip the paradigm. Though it’s still about dark things, including prison, drugs, homelessness and poverty, it somehow turns them into bright comedy.” – The New York Times

“A flavor-bomb of a comedy about survival, second chances, and digesting whatever life serves up.” – Variety