Mike's adventures in art: 'Hairspray,' 'Pipeline,' and '110 in the Shade'

If you're looking for tips on how to experience art in the Seattle area, you're in the right place. In this weekly post, KUOW arts reporter Mike Davis has suggestions for what to do around Seattle over the weekend so you can have your own adventures in arts and culture.

THEATER:

"Hairspray," at The Paramount Theatre is my pick of the week. The energy in this performance, from both the actors on stage, and the rowdy audience that sang familiar tunes and cheered throughout, made this Tony award-winning Broadway production an amazing experience right here in Seattle.

If you follow my work, it is clear that I love local, homegrown productions. But this show accomplished so much in two hours. The staging was impressive. They used a lot of set pieces. The movement of these pieces, combined with the movement of actors in and out of spaces, the speed and grace in which set pieces were moved, often going unnoticed due to action of the actors, set this production apart from many shows I see.

The choreography in this production was captivating — the creative use of space, the use of props, the amount of actors in the scenes — all of these elements became a whirlwind of synchronicity, especially in the first act. Even when the actors were not dancing, they rarely seemed to be stationary.

I've said all of that without mentioning the plot, which follows a high school girl with dreams of being famous, who leverages her big break on a 1960s Baltimore television show to fight for integration. This musical-comedy has something for everyone and will only be here through the weekend.

"Hairspray" is showing at The Paramount Theatre Aril 4 - 9

"Pipeline," is showing at Acts on Stage. I saw this play on opening night and witnessed one of the most powerful performances by an actor on stage that I have seen all year. Rosa Nicole Booker, who played Nya, transported me from my seat and into her world. She played a mother fighting to keep her son out of the school-to-prison pipeline. As a public school teacher, she sent her son, Omari, to a private school in hopes he would get the best possible education. In a moment of rage, Omari makes a mistake that can not only lead to his expulsion from school, but also to criminal charges which would lead him into the criminal justice system.

Nya navigates working in an underfunded public school that has its own issues of violence, she struggles with her ex-husband as they attempt to co-parent Omari, and she fights to communicate with her teenage son, who is clearly very smart, but struggles to feel seen and heard by his parents.

Everything we see in this play is relatable. The public school system, complicated love-lives, teenage rebellion — but the performance from Booker stands out. She became that mother, and she successfully transferred her emotions to the audience. The mark of a good play is when you leave and you feel something. I saw this play with my mom, and leaving the theater, I hugged her. Tight.

The "school-to-prison pipeline" is a phrase that many of us are familiar with. This play takes that phrase and breaths life into it. We see the way parents struggle to give their kids the best chance at success. We see the failures in the public school system. We see the failures in expensive private institutions to create safe spaces for BIPOC youth. But most importantly, we see humanity. We see that good people make bad mistakes. And we learn that as adults, sometimes the best thing we can do for our kids, is to just listen them.

"Pipeline," is showing at Acts on Stage March 31 - April 9 .

110 in the Shade, is showing at Seattle Public Theater, presented by Reboot Theater Company. This production had ups and downs, but the story being told makes this show worth seeing. We meet Lizzie, a "plain" woman from a small town in the old West. Lizzie is intelligent and outspoken, qualities that we learn are not desirable for finding a husband in these times, and she faces pressure from her family and society to change into what they believe a woman should be.

Lizzie's journey to discover beauty and find love without sacrificing the qualities that make her unique, is aided by an unlikely companion, a traveling con-man who arrives in Lizzie's drought-stricken town with the promise of bringing rain.

The staging of this production was simple, which fits the town and characters we met, but limited the action we see on stage. The stage itself was a circular wooden platform, which did not allow for much action or movement from actors on stage. There was action around the stage. Characters who were not in a scene would provide sound effects, or they would closely watch the scene on stage creating a feeling of small-town gossip, or everyone knowing everything about each other. This worked as a device in those ways, but there were times characters sang while not facing the audience, which was hard to hear, and times where characters felt stagnant while being confined to a small space for a long period of time.

Even with the shortcomings from staging, the story told, the performances, and the music that included live instrumentation using the sounds of the old West, make this show successful.

"110 in the Shade," is showing at Seattle Public Theater March 16 - April 9