2017-2018: I Am

Two productions in rotating repertory: Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill and Hedwig and the Angry Inch Lanie Robertson’s Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill paints a stirring portrait of jazz legend Billie Holiday as she performs one of her last solo concerts, four months before her death. The off-Broadway smash-hit Hedwig and the Angry Inch tells the electrifying story of Hedwig, a German emigrant who suffered a botched sex-change operation, as she travels the country in hopeless romantic pursuit of her former lover.

  In 1859, the handsome George arrives as heir apparent to Terrabonne, his late uncle’s slave plantation. There he quickly falls in love with Zoe, a beautiful “octoroon” – someone who is one-eighth Black – but the evil overseer M’Closky has other plans for both Terrebonne and Zoe. Nothing is sacred in this genre-bending work: race, identity and time are bent by the whims of AN OCTOROON’s audacious storytelling. Racial stereotypes both past and present are shattered in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ bold, imaginative re-envisioning of a 19th century antebellum drama as an urgent message for today.

Somewhere in the suburbs, Isaac has returned from the wars to help take care of his disabled father, only to enter a different warzone: a household in revolt. His mother, liberated from an abusive marriage – with Isaac’s newly out transgender sibling as her ally – is on a crusade to dismantle the patriarchy. But in Taylor Mac’s sly, subversive comedy HIR, annihilating the past doesn’t always free you from it.

  Asian-American twin sisters M and L will do whatever it takes to win the one coveted affirmative action spot at “The College.” But when the thick acceptance envelope falls into the hands of D, a white male colleague who is 1/16th Native American, the sisters will stop at nothing to take back what is rightfully theirs – and eliminate anyone who stands in their way. Jiehae Park’s clever and incisive adaptation of Macbeth explores how the drive to succeed can become an all-consuming – and deadly – obsession.

Ring in the holidays with a dazzling night of merriment, song, and a heaping dash of the unexpected. At the Holiday Cast Party, celebrated Seattle performers take the stage one by one to wow the crowd, each with their unique brand of unplanned, unscripted and wildly talented merriment. With each night brimming with a wealth of surprises, you might just want to come back for a second helping.

Set in the beating heart of the naughty, raucous world of 1930s burlesque, THE NANCE brings to life an American era when it was easy to play gay and dangerous to be gay. Chauncey Miles performs as a “nance”, a popular comedy act packed with double entendre and camp parodies of gay men. While most “nance” actors are straight, Chauncey is not, and – at a time when gay communities were subject to police raids and moral outrage – Chauncey is left with no choice but to hide his identity while he mocks it onstage.

Brilliant Pakistani-American writer Zarina is focused on finishing her novel about women and Islam when she meets Eli, a young convert who bridges the gulf between her modern life and her traditional heritage. But when her conservative father and sister discover her controversial manuscript, they are all forced to confront the beliefs that define them. From Ayad Akhtar, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of Disgraced, THE WHO AND THE WHAT is a thrillingly fierce and funny new play about identity, religion and the contradictions that make us who we are.