The Performing Arts In Seattle

Whether you live in Seattle or are just visiting, you definitely ought to consider experiencing some theater. Seattle, Washington has a thriving Broadway scene and offers plays and musicals for just about everyone. Seattle is located between Puget Sound, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and Lake Washington and is home to two of the best coffee companies in the United States - Starbucks and Seattle's Best Coffee. Under that mild, cloudy climate has grown a wonderful community of performing artists that is extremely popular, and is a well-known stop for national Broadway plays and musicals. Seattle has around twenty live theater venues, a number of them being associated with fringe theatre, but many that host national Broadway tours.

The glorious 5th Avenue Theater has been around since the roaring 20s, captivating their audiences with vaudeville shows featuring top performers. It went from vaudeville to showingmovies until it fell on hard times in the late 1970s. Fortunately, the theater recovered and following a $2.6 million renovation, re-opened in 1980. Today it hosts top quality musical revivals, Broadway shows and touring Broadway musicals. It also puts forward a number of education and outreach programs.

The 5th Avenue Theater currently hosts approximately 150 musical performances on stage each year. The 2007-2008 schedules include a wonderful listing of top shows including: the hugely popular musical Jersey Boys, Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, Whistle Down The Wind and The Four Seasons.

Operated by the Seattle Theatre Group, a not-for-profit performing arts organization, the Paramount & Moore Theatres present vibrant programming and maintains an extensive Education and Community program.

The Paramount & Moore Theatres is currently hosting Young Frankenstein, the inspired re-imaging of the Mary Shelley classic created by comic genius Mel Brooks, It is about the journey of Frederick Frankenstein, who in present day is an esteemed New York brain surgeon and professor. He inherits the dreaded Frankenstein castle and laboratory and faces a life changing dilemma". Does he remain a respected professor in New York or does he stay in Transylvania and carry on his grandfather, Victor Frankenstein's insane experiments? This story is told as comedy and as a result presents a brilliant and entertaining show that has remained a classic since its inception. It features music and lyrics by the three-time Tony Award winner Mel Brooks and is directed and choreographed by five-time Tony Award winner Susan Stroman. Even if you didn't care for the original Frankenstein, if you've never seen the Mel Brooks version, you won't want to miss it. It’s hilarious and creative. Expect an evening of laughs and amazement if you se this show.

Taproot Theatre celebrated its 30th Anniversary in 2006. Its mission statement has remained simple: it exists to create theater that explores the beauty and questions of life while providing hope to our search for meaning.

With that said, Taproot presents a number of wonderful shows like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, The Importance of Being Earnest, an Oscar Wilde classic, and the Farndale classic retelling of A Christmas Carol. The Farndale Dramatic Society is known for lots of theatrical antics that will leave you guessing.
Part of the Seattle Center Foundation, McCaw Hall, is Seattle's new, premier performance hall. It opened in June of 2003 and boasts a 2900-seat auditorium, 400-seat Lecture Hall. It was sponsored by Starbucks Coffee, the official coffee at McCaw, and has a luminous five-story serpentine glass Grand Lobby, a 17,800-square-foot public plaza called the Kreielsheimer Promenade that serves as an entry into McCaw Hall and the Seattle Center Campus. It is home to Pacific Northwest Ballet and the Seattle Opera. It also hosts community festivals and guest performers from around the world.

Founded under trying conditions during World War II, Seattle Center Foundation George M. Ross had a vision to bring performance arts and spiritual renewal through music to the Washington area, and the realization of that goal became the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra which was started in August of 1944.

The 2007-2008 seasons begins in October with the Bernard Herman Symphony, an outreach concert for the family featuring Mozart, Rachmaninoff, with a Piano Concerto No. 2 in C with Denice Grant, as well as the music of Hermann. It will be held at the Meany Theatre on October 21st. Hermann is best know for his musical scores for all of the Alfred Hitchcock's films as well as for other movies including Cape Fear, Taxi Driver and Citizen Kane.

Another must-see live performance is the holiday favorite, The Nutcracker Ballet. There is an Evening of Opera featuring singers from the prestigious Seattle's Opera Young Artists singing arias from Mozart, and later in the season, Vivaldi, and Schurmann's Six Studies of Francis Bacon and more. If you love fine music, this is a must stop on your tour of Seattle.

Another hilarious musical showing in Seattle is Spamalot. Directed by none other than Mike Nichols, Monty Python's Spamalot features a new score with lyrics and music by Idle and composed by Jon Du Prez who also composed "A fish Called Wanda". If you loved Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Spamalot is a loving ripped-off musical version of that classic movie. Following the legendary tale of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, this comic classic once again "raises silliness to an art form", recreating their no-holds-barred movie on stage in what's guaranteed to be a smash hit.

If you are going to Seattle or live there, you are privy to a thriving and vibrant theater community that offers diverse, entertaining fair that suits just about everybody. Whether you are tourist or resident, you owe it to yourself to cheak out the performing arts offerings. Seattle is often regarded as the birthplace of grunge music, and has a reputation for heavy coffee consumption and constant rain. It is becoming known for its theater, arts and performances.

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