Reviews

Native Gardens poster art – choices

[This post is edited to include the reply to BAT’s comment on FaceBook.]

BAT is on FaceBook. Come and say, “Hi” sometime.

FaceBook is one of the places BAT gets feedback. Some is postive, and some not so much. Here is one coment, and BAT’s response.

From FaceBook:

Seriously? This is the image you chose for the show? Here is an important play about Latinx identity and conflict, written by an important Latinx playwright, and you put the white male as your poster image.

I wish you would think harder about the choices you make. Why do this play in the first place? Was it to show the issues inherent in the play, or simply to capitalize from the current popularity of the playwright and Latinx themes in general?

BAT’s response:

Thanks for your input.

You are right. A talented Latinx playwright wrote Native Gardens. It is a beautiful script, one that deserves to be on many stages. It is a comedy, but it looks at human relationships with amazing insight.

If you think BAT selected this play to “simply capitalize [on] the current popularity of the playwright and Latinx themes,” you are mistaken. Native Gardens is about much more than Latinx issues. It is also about the relationships between women; the relationships between men; differences in class; how couples work out their differences; how neighbors get along or don’t; how race and privilege may be an issue in all of those relationships; and how we are all much more alike than we are different.

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Thanks for 2017-18

The close of HERE // HEAR – REVIEW HERE – on June 24th ended BAT’s 2017-18 season. By all accounts, the season was a success. However, that is only because of BAT’s donors, patrons, volunteers, creative team, and Trustees. Each of which helped make better live theater possible. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

BAT is a 94-seat live theater that has thrived in Burien since 1980. As times have changed, BAT has changed. Through community support, this small theater has proved itself to be mighty.

Photo by Michael Brunk / nwlens.com

BAT started its 2017-18 season with Ben ButlerREVIEW HERE. Ben Butler earned repeated standing ovations. It was an amazing historical play about the events that lead to the end of slavery. It set the pace for the year.

Next up at BAT was The Christmas Carol RagREVIEW HERE. This was the first time BAT had produced a musical for the Holidays. The retelling of the classic Holiday tale was very successful with repeated sellout crowds.

In the Winter it was Rapture, Blister, BurnREVIEW HERE. Some called this a “chick-

Surely you can do better than this selfie!

show.” Not so, the look into the lives and four women was spellbinding, but there was more than enough storyline for everyone to enjoy. Again, the audience both men and women were on their feet at the end of many performances.

Finally, on the main stage, it was Church & StateREVIEW HERE. This is a tale that the author hopes will lose its relevance, but that does not look like it will happen anytime soon. Senator Witmore’s campaign speech where he goes off script and talks about the need for reasonable gun control made standing ovations inevitable, and most nights the crowd was on their feet.

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