Tag: Daniel Christensen

Something monstrous is bubbling up at the new waterpark. Something icky is making Tina, misunderstood girl genius, uneasy—her little sister Winnie has a piece of tentacle in a jar that hisses, her mom Denise is taking too many pills, and the local Sheriff can’t bake enough crumb cakes to make himself feel better about the body parts washing up on the shore. And just what does the fry cook at Salty’s Sea Palace have in his pants? Welcome to the world of The Underneath, the latest play from the writer of Kittens in a Cage and Hearts Are Monsters. Featuring Daniel Christensen, Meaghan Halverson, Tracy Leigh, John McKenna, Pilar O’Connell, Mandy Price, and James Weidman.

“A show about the evil ocean … begins with humping and gore, which is a good precursor to the rest… Playwright Kelleen Conway Blanchard is drawn to pulp material, injecting it with funny grotesquery and ear-catching details… These moments, where actors have the freedom to just let loose with strings of Blanchard’s perfectly deranged rambling, make the show worth checking out.” —The Stranger

“Through the ingenuity of set designers Bret Fetzer and Susannah Anderson, there’s also clever and almost instantaneous transformation of the small stage into five separate sets… Meaghan Mary Halverson provides a really good portrayal of youth and innocence as sweet Winnie, the nice little girl who is abducted by the slithering monsters. Pilar O’Connell, as her brilliant but emotionally wounded and therefore nasty sister, is equally powerful. She’s cruel, angry and rebellious, yet you can’t help rooting for her. The dread, menace and humor underpinning ‘The Underneath’ work really well.” – Seattle Times

CREW

Star Crossed, and other tales from a devious universe is an evening of tasty, bite-sized science fiction and fantasy from the playwright of Duel of the Linguist Mages and A Mouse Who Knows Me. The plays include:

STAR CROSSED
Directed by Scotto Moore
Featuring: LaChrista Borgers, Daniel Christensen, Melissa Fenwick, Erin Ison, Mark Rud, Gina Marie Russell, Stephen R. Scheide, Jake Ynzunza
A collection of four interlocking short plays about an immortal astronaut crossing time and space to reunite with the woman she loves.

SENDING A MESSAGE
Directed by Catherine Blake Smith
Featuring: Daniel Christensen, Sascha Streckel
A man builds a time machine to go back in time and murder Judy Garland before she can sing “Over The Rainbow.”

LEAVING THE NEST
Directed by Jen Moon
Featuring: Katie Driscoll, Gina Marie Russell, Stephen R. Scheide, Jake Ynzunza
When teenage demon Lilith falls in love with an angel, her parents Satan and Ashtaroth are faced with a parenting challenge.

THAT DOESN’T SOUND RIGHT AT ALL
Directed by Ian Johnston
Featuring: Daniel Christensen, Gina Marie Russell, Sascha Streckel
Elvis wins 15 minutes back on Earth in a poker game in Hell, and spends his limited time trying to connect with the love of his life.

COMING TO A CONCLUSION
Directed by Katherine Karaus
Featuring: Katie Driscoll, Melissa Fenwick, Mark Rud, Stephen R. Scheide, Jake Ynzunza
A group of neighbors is caught off guard when one of them orders a machine off the internet that produces instant and continuous orgasms.

PRODUCTION TEAM

Kittens in a Cage tells Junie’s story, a good girl gone bad, sent to the pen by a buncha rats. From the knife fights in the showers to riots in the prison mess hall, Junie has to toughen up fast. Lucky for Junie, she’s got Vickie. A tough love story about bad broads that can’t get no breaks.

Junie, a juvenile delinquent with a heart of gold, gets thrown into a prison cell with hardened arsonist Vickie.  But as they team up against the predations of prison queen bee Jeanine and her cannibalistic sidekick Barbara, not to mention the deranged scientific schemes of the Prison Matron, Junie finds her heart swelling up over Vickie.  Does Vickie feel the same?  Will Jeanine take vengeance in the shower?  What’s up with those rumors of strange furry babies in the Matron’s secret laboratory?

Kittens in a Cage features an all female cast of Annex favorites, original songs by Rick Miller performed on the ukulele by Francesca Mondelli, and Kelleen Conway Blanchard’s unique voice. Kittens in a Cage is a love story, a story of breaks both good and bad, a story of survival, and an agonizingly funny portrayal of women behind bars.

Kittens in a Cage is directed by Bret Fetzer. Blanchard and Fetzer previously teamed up on Small Town (produced by Annex Theatre in 2007) and Hearts are Monsters (produced by Macha Monkey Productions in 2010).

“‘Kittens in a Cage’ is a f***ing riot. ‘Kittens’ takes on women’s-prison B movies and pulp novels with biting wit—no worries about offending anyone—and a gorgeous splatter of comically short prison uniforms (top buttons undone), smeared red lipstick, bright blue eye shadow, bouffant hairdos, and crazy accents…. This wicked, uproarious show features an all-female cast—not impossibly rare, but not common enough. Bosoms heave, brains leak out of heads, and women make out. Blanchard seems fully aware and in control while she wades into the muck of exploitation entertainment, with a wink and a nod (and a shiv) to its complicated history of empowerment.” –The Stranger

“In a nutshell: Kittens in a Cage is a funny, witty, naughty romp through chicks in prison films, with a spicy dash of horror and all overlaid with a delicious lesbionic sauce of camp and heaving bosoms.” –Seattle Gay Scene

“So what’s not to love about a play starring 7 local powerhouse actresses and written by an equally strong local, female playwright?! Given the dearth of substantive roles for women in theatre and film, it is great to see a show like ‘Kittens in a Cage’ infused with so much estrogen and feminine prowess…. The entire cast does a great job, and it is obvious that they are having a lot of fun in their respective roles; and when I saw the show on opening night, it was obvious that the audience had just as much fun watching them.” — Drama in the Hood

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PRESS

Kelleen Conway Blanchard was the subject of a recent SLOG post.

Reviews of past Bret Fetzer / Kelleen Conway Blanchard collaborations:

Hearts are Monsters
“Hearts Are Monsters, a loose riff on Hamlet, fills the small stage at
Rendezvous with the gallows humor and elegant garishness of a 1970s
exploitation film…Monsters has a style that hovers somewhere between
John Waters, Daniel Waters (Heathers), and Jack Hill (Switchblade
Sisters, Foxy Brown), but Kelleen Conway Blanchard’s world-premiere
script bristles with dense, dirty intelligence, and the jokes come
thick and fast…The cast, directed by Bret Fetzer, never plays the
script for camp, but delivers the craziest lines with a dead-ahead
seriousness that makes the comedy that much sharper.” – The Stranger

Small Town
“[Small Town] is snappy and quick-paced; Fetzer, who has an obvious
knack for comedy, keeps things flowing nicely, and he seems to work
well with actors, drawing from each a solid performance. The staging
is exceptional, especially considering the tight space of CHAC’s
downstairs venue; for instance, by virtue of a ratty couch that flips
back on hinges, Stu Lionel’s underground abattoir is revealed. It’s a
nice touch, as is the split-second conversion of that same couch into
a mammoth dining table. Also noteworthy are the wonderful musical
interludes that punctuate the action: Bud’s uproariously heartfelt
crooning of the Scorpions’ “No One Like You,” or the final number, an
astonishing bluegrass version of Outkast’s hit “Hey Now,” with the
whole cast chanting the chorus in a flat-footed monotone. These
moments stand out not only for their expert execution but also for
their refreshing sense of levity—of good-hearted fun and comic warmth,
for lack of better terms.” –The Seattle Weekly

End times are near in the final episode of Scot Augustsonʼs black-and-white comedy Penguins! The conflict of priests vs. nuns comes to a head, along with exorcisms, conspiracies, lesbian love, historical secrets revealed, and more of the caustic comedy thatʼs brought this late night serial acclaim and dismay! Directed by Bret Fetzer.

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Jan 28-Feb 18, 2011 | Fri-Sat at 11 pm
$10 gen / $5 TPS/senior/student
Industry Night (PWYC) Mon Feb 14, 8 pm
Pay What You Can Feb 11/12

The scandals that rocked the Catholic Church finally come to roost at St. Benedict’s: The diocese has its very own pedophile. Someone’s got to take the fall. As reporters dig into the past, the ever-greedy Father Jones and tyrannical Sister Bernadette fight to control the present—including missing relics, rebellious underlings, incriminating videotape, and a lonely Mormon missionary. Sister Candy and elderly Connie Sullivan face unexpected pregnancies; Sisters Jenny Memphis and Mimi Coco wrestle with inappropriate desires; and young Adam learns some unwelcome news about his parentage. Mix in a couple of dance numbers and some surprising guest stars and you have the latest episode of Annex’s late-night serial comedy, Penguins!

Written by Scot Augustson and directed by Bret Fetzer.

Featuring Daniel Christensen, Chris Dietz, Katie Driscoll, Karen Heaven, Sophie Lowenstein, Jenny Schmidt, Jillian Vashro, Lisa Viertel, and Clayton Weller

“Augustson’s late-night serial comedy Penguins is a breath of fresh, filthy air…its balls-out devotion to depravity is executed by a talented, canny cast.” – The Stranger

“The cast is nearly faultless. Bret Fetzer’s direction is excellent. … I had seen two of the prior installments in the series, so it wasn’t a shock to see a nun acting sinfully, but I still laughed and I wasn’t alone.” – Seattlest

Check out a very different late night mass this summer and enjoy communion libations in our fully stocked bar. You can always confess about it later!