Tag: Pilar O’Connell

Family secrets ripple through time when three sisters in 2013 discover the truth about a young African-American woman in 1958 who realizes she can pass for white. What happens in-between is a frank and funny look at the shifting boundaries of tolerance and what identity really means.

“Thoughtful, crisp, and incredibly funny in the best tragicomic way… [Atkins’s] ability to find comedy through the entire piece is excellent. Her eye for characterization and her ear for immediate, intimate dialogue are faultless.” – Seattle Star

“Both funny and chilling… Black Like Us is a sharp slice into the racial history of an American city from an unusual perspective.” – The Stranger

“Candid, compassionate and engagingly humorous” – Seattle Times

“Unlike many good plays that leave you with much to discuss over coffee after you leave the theater, I suspect this play will leave me with internal discussions and conflicts that I’ll debate for the rest of my life. Once again, the tiny little Annex Theatre on Capitol Hill has brought us a bigger, more important show than any of the giant houses in Seattle.” – Seattle Actor

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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

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