Have you noticed there hasn’t been much talk in the broader world about the coming end of the first decade of 21st Century? Ten years ago we were anxious about the approaching century. Here in Seattle my wife was racking up overtime hours (Remember those? Remember employment?) dealing with Y2K issues, while shopkeepers and DUI ‘s serving public service sentences were sweeping up glass after the WTO. Unacknowledged as a prescient moment, Seattle Mayor Paul Schell cancelled the Space Needle’s New Year’s Eve celebration over concerns fostered by the capture of a terrorist coming into the US over the BC/Washington border. As always, Seattle led the way!
After the last decade one would think we would be a little more relieved to see the passing of the “oughts”.
The New Year brings a new season to The Schmee. Believing that often laughter is the best medicine, the staff here has tried to offer up a season that relieves some of the current stress of 21st Century life by looking it square in the face. Yussef El-Guindi’s Jihad Jones and the Kalashnikov Babes takes a hilarious look at how Hollywood can repackage the most basic reactionary knee-jerk impulses into sure fire box office magic. The farcical Pageant Play, by Matthew Wilkas & Mark Setlock, takes a jaundiced satirical view of the world of pre teen beauty pageants and the parental desperation that motivates them. Vestal Virgins suggests that middle aged Punk boomer redemption is still possible so long as you rock till you drop. (Hint to long time Seattle audience members—Eat Your F*****g Cornflakes!) The Schmee is absolutely tickled to be able to stage local playwright Marcy Rodenborn’s play!
For those of you who anticipate the new decade with nostalgic pining for the past, we offer another edition of The Twilight Zone:Live! Directed by long time Schmee alum, and ever popular Rod portrayer, Tim Moore, you will be able to wallow in dystopic scientific paranoia and mid-century Cold War angst. Comfort food theater for the mind!
An Adult Evening with Shel Silverstein provides us with a number of witty, urbane peeks into the frustrations and tempered joys of modern life, filtered through the famed cartoonist’s often surreal vision. Unexpected juxtapositions will render laughs of recognition for anyone who has had a relationship more serious than the normal relationship one has with one’s blender. (If you read that sentence twice it should make sense.)
So you might as well join us for the new season and get some laughs while you can. Depending on who is right, by the end of this new decade, either Queen Anne will be a tropical island, or the glaciers will have reached Lynnwood. Barbecued walrus, anyone?
paddysticlair aka D.Staley