Tag: Ben Laurance

Audrey & Nelson starts with two hapless twentysomethings waking up in bed together with only the vaguest memories of how they got there. But Audrey and Nelson decide to explore the possibilities! What follows is a rueful comic musical about sex, traffic lights, bad language, singing penises, and broken hearts. All characters, including their talking genitalia, are portrayed by puppets. Book and lyrics by Bret Fetzer (writer of Planet Janet, Passport, and Blind Spot [co-written with Juliet Waller Pruzan]), music by Peter Richards (of the local band Dude York). Directed by Bret Fetzer.

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“Big, stupid fun done smartly and with tremendous intimacy… Anyone who loves theatre should see this show. Anyone who makes theatre should go learn something from it.” –The Sunbreak

“Cheeky and dark…delightfully self-conscious comedy.” –Seattle Times

“It’s definitely a night to enjoy, and you can puzzle out the deeper meanings later.” –Seattle Gay News

“The real treat of the evening was the main villain, ‘Chaos Theory’, superbly played with great comic timing by Rachel Jackson who also…enacts Chaos Theory’s Scottish Puppet Henchman/Lover ‘Randy’. Ms Jackson’s love scene between her own felt covered hand, and herself, was pretty damn brilliant.” –Seattle Gay Scene

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Gallery of Press Photos

COMTE’S 2ND ANNUAL 49TH BIRTHDAY BASH!

Sunday, Nov 14, 2010 – 5pm
$12 advance/$15 at the door

Annex Theatre Facilities Coordinator and 22 year company member Chris Comte is dragging himself kicking and screaming into his 50’s. And what better way to celebrate the reluctant leaving behind of youth, the imminent transition into middle-age, and inevitable slide into geriatric decline than by throwing THE BIGGEST PART OF THE YEAR – and you’re invited!

And the best part is that 100% of the proceeds will benefit Seattle’s oldest continuously producing fringe theatre company!

There’ll be food! There’ll be drink! There’ll be entertainment:

* Music by “Awesome” and Jose Bold!
* Seductive Tribal Dance by Hands Of Kali!
* Something from Annex’s Spin The Bottle regulars Gude-Laurance (probably involving candy)!
* Puppet This!
* Plus a bevy of surprise Special Guests

ABOUT ANNEX THEATRE:

Annex Theatre is a democratic collective of theatre artists dedicated to creating bold new work in an environment of improbability, resourcefulness and risk.

Having earned the distinction of being the longest continuously operating fringe theater in Seattle, Annex Theatre produces twelve productions a year along with frequent co-productions and curated rental productions. In addition to new plays, Annex produces radical re- interpretations of classic scripts, geek-tastic sci-fi adventures, space-defying stunts, ensemble- generated performances and non-linear wild-ass spectacles. Also kicking off the first Friday of every month is our late-night variety show Spin the Bottle, curated by former Annex Artistic Director Bret Fetzer and currently celebrating its 12th year!

Now in its new Capitol Hill venue, Annex originally opened its doors in 1987 in a former dance studio on 4th Avenue in downtown Seattle. Since then the theater has produced hundreds of world and Northwest premieres, including new plays by Stranger Genius Award winners Chris Jeffries and Paul Mullin; dozens of local playwrights, including Jeff Resta, Kelleen Conway Blanchard, Keri Healey, Scot Augustson, John Kaufmann, Elizabeth Heffron, Heidi Heimarck, and Suzanne Maynard; and nationally recognized playwrights such as Erik Ehn, Naomi Iizuka, Glen Berger, Anne Washburn, Jeffrey Jones, and Nicky Silver.

Former Annex company members alumni can be found throughout the Seattle arts community including Seattle Children’s Theatre Teaching Artist and former Annex Artistic Director Gillian Jorgensen, former Artistic Director of the Empty Space Allison Narver, Executive Director of Town Hall Weir Harman, Development Director of ACT Josef Krebs and Education Director of Seattle Repertory Theatre Andrea Allen as well as in the local and national film industry such as directors SJ Chiro, Garrett Bennett, Mike Shapiro and actors Jillian Armenante and Paul Giamatti.

written by Scotto Moore | directed by Kristina Sutherland
Apr 23 – May 22, 2010 | Fri-Sat at 8 pm
Industry Night: May 10 at 8pm
$15 gen | $5 stu

“When I Come To My Senses, I’m Alive!” is a near-future sci-fi story about a technological provocateur who invents a method for capturing emotions as digital information, as part of a project to “chart the emotional genome.” She develops a cult following of fans who download her very addictive “emoticlips” – each delivered with cryptic, poetic file names like “the surprise of an unfamiliar memory” – and play them back in hobby-built receiver helmets. The experience is not full blown virtual reality; instead, emotional responses & sensations are triggered, and each fan experiences something unique. A seedy television executive tries to coopt her technology to syndicate the emotions of TV stars, hiring an elite P.I. to figure out what her weaknesses are when she refuses to sell out… but in the meantime, publishing digital versions of her emotions to the internet has unexpected consequences amongst the botnets of the world.

SeattleActor.com review:

Scotto Moore‘s new play, “When I Come to My Senses, I’m Alive!” is the best kind of science fiction, the kind where speculation about the future feels like something you could wake up to tomorrow morning. In this World Premiere production, director Kristina Sutherland has kept the ideas fresh and intriguing and the performances finely finished and compelling. The acting is brisk and, at least for the enthusiastic opening night audience, it’s premise and articulation is easily embraced by a generation for whom the globalization of information, media and personal experience meld into our shared online identities…. [The play] is a lot of fun, at least in part because it is so confident and thoroughly considered in its ideas and equally finished in its theatrical savvy for putting them on stage.

Seattle Times review:

It’s not hard to be captivated by Moore’s provocative premise about a leap in information technology that makes human emotions a downloadable, vicarious experience. The story’s late turn toward suspense — with the spectral rise of freethinking, artificial intelligence on the Internet — certainly ups the ante in unexpected, spooky ways…. Director Kristina Sutherland keeps the action brisk and crisp, and knows how to nudge the audience’s imagination.

The Stranger review:

One wants to see more plays like this in Seattle—smart science fiction about the amazing world we have found ourselves heading toward.

Seattle Gay News review:

Fun, fascinating, thoughtful and delightful.

[Note: omnipotent self-aware botnets click here]

Jade Justad in When I Come to My Senses, I'm Alive!

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written by Paul Gude & Ben Laurance | directed by Bret Fetzer
May 16-31, 2008 | Fri-Sat 11pm

Two hack comedians, wandering in the desert, find a briefcase labeled NAKED LADIES – but they live in a world that’s never known naked ladies, so what could possibly be inside? And why does that coyote want so badly to steal it? Every presentation of NAKED LADIES features an opening extravaganza by six-year-old performance artist Kitty Poole!

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