With new civic theaters up and running in many outlying communities, and dozens of companies mounting full seasons, the Puget Sound area saw more shows on the boards per square mile in 1999 than ever - despite the shuttering of some beloved older playhouses, notably Green Lake's Bathhouse Theatre.
There was also the continuation of a wave of upbeat new artistic leadership, with Sharon Ott at Seattle Repertory Theatre's helm, Gordon Edelstein reviving the fortunes of A Contemporary Theatre, Pat Patton injecting pep into Tacoma Actors Guild and Bartlett Sher poised to commandeer the Intiman Theatre.
Also on the horizon: A new director will soon be chosen for the 5th Avenue Musical Theatre Company, which is due for an artistic makeover.
Despite all the talent, abundance, polish and a level of theater attendance that still ranks us high in arts patronage nationally, Seattle is still losing middle-tier and fringe companies that can't keep up with escalating local rents or the fierce scramble for audiences and funding.
And, partly because of the evermore-rigorous competition, our mainstage culture continues to suffer from a marked artistic timidity - a reliance on the proven, the familiar, the presumably bankable, at the expense of thoughtful, invigorating leaps of artistic faith.
As we've come to expect, in 1999 the area's larger companies were snappy at snatching up new works anointed elsewhere: We had solid mountings of Broadway's "The Beauty Queen of Leenane," "Titanic," "Last Night of Ballyhoo," "Side Man" and "Wit."
Classics came on strong, too: Many of the best 1999 shows were creative takes on older masterworks (a trend that should expand, once the classics-loving Sher arrives).
But at this time last year, I regretted the paucity of intriguing new works premiered on our local mainstages. And little has changed on that score.
Seattle still is importing many more contemporary plays and musicals than it exports, resulting in a striking artistic trade imbalance.
The few original scripts to debut in our larger playhouses last year were mediocre - or worse.
Seattle's dedicated (and underhoused) fringe troupes took more chances with fresh material. Their results were spotty, too - but one can at least applaud their willingness to experiment with the new.
To be fair, there's less fresh cream rising to the top nationwide, too. In 1999, Broadway shut out almost everything but revivals and London transfer hits. And many regional companies are so focused on staying solvent, they're mounting only shows with road-tested mass appeal.
Even so, there were still more new plays of interest unveiled in Chicago and San Francisco in 1999 than in Seattle. And positing live drama as a dynamic alternative to rampant techno-infotainment in the 21st century will require real vision and big risks.
Meanwhile, gifted Seattle-area theater artists do keep concocting inspired moments of pleasure we can be grateful for. Here are some of the points of light in the local stage firmament of 1999, and a smattering of the disappointments:
Best Local Drama Productions: "Side Man" (A Contemporary Theatre); "Skylight" (Intiman Theatre); "The Game of Love and Chance" (Seattle Repertory Theatre); "The Crucible" (ACT); "The Importance of Being Earnest" (Tacoma Actors Guild); "Dealer's Choice" (Empty Space Theatre)
Best Local Musicals: "Babes in Arms" (Village Theatre); "The Secret Garden" (5th Avenue Theatre); "Boogie Oogie Fever" (Cabaret de Paris)
Best Literary Adaptations: "Cowboys Are My Weakness" and "Raymond Carver Stories" (both Book-It Theatre); "Lily's Purple Plastic Purse" (Seattle Children's Theatre)
Best of the Fringe: "Happy?" by The Compound; "Strindberg in Paris" by theater simple; "Terra Nova" (Taproot Theatre); "Minotaur" by One World Theatre, "Deflowered in the Attic" (Re-Bar)
Bravura Acting (Drama): Frank Corrado and Gina Nagy in "Skylight" (Intiman); John Procaccino and Marianne Owen in "Side Man" (ACT); Lori Larsen and Will Marchetti in "The Psychic Life of Savages" (Empty Space); Zouanne LeRoy in "Beauty Queen of Leenane" (Seattle Rep);
Mikel MacDonald in "Dealer's Choice" (Empty Space); Sherryl Ray and Jason Cottle in "Jane Eyre" (Book-It); Laurence Ballard and Barbara Dirickson in "The Last Night of Ballyhoo" (Intiman); Anthony Curry and William Hall Jr. in "I'm Not Rappaport" (Langston Hughes Cultural Arts Center); Kim Miyori in "Golden Child" (Seattle Rep), Dan Donohue in "The Game of Love and Chance" (Seattle Rep)
Great Performances (Musicals): Patti Cohenour in"Secret Garden"(5th Avenue); Jimi Ray Malary in "King of Cool" and Lisa Estridge-Gray in "Boogie Oogie Fever" (both at Cabaret de Paris); Maggie Stenson in "Eleanor;" Jason Collins and Taryn Darr in "Babes in Arms;" Rebecca Castelli in "Pirates of Penzance" (all at Village Theatre)
Best Touring Musical: "Titanic" (5th Avenue Theatre)
Esteemed visitors: Sandra Bernhard in "I'm Still Here . . . Damn It!" (Moore Theatre); Culture Clash in "Radio Mambo" (Seattle Rep); Dael Orlandersmith in "The Gimmick," Pamela Gien in "The Syringa Tree," Joseph Chaikin in "Texts for Nothing" (ACT); Spalding Gray in "Morning, Noon and Night" (OTB), Huang Yi Que in "Strings of Wonder" (Northwest Puppet Center)
Best Local Shakespeare: "Much Ado About Nothing" (Seattle Shakespeare Festival), "Cymbeline" (Wooden O Theatre)
Design Achievements: Loy Arcenas (sets), Lydia Tanji (costumes) and Kent Dorsey (lighting), "Golden Child" (Seattle Rep); Thomas Lynch (sets) and Martin Pakledinaz (costumes), "Game of Love and Chance" (Seattle Rep); Narelle Sissons (sets), Peter West (lights) and Paul Tazewell (costumes), "Side Man" (ACT); Scott Weldin (sets) and Jim Ragland (sound), "Lily's Purple Plastic Purse" (Seattle Children's Theatre); Carey Wong (sets), Susan Tsu (costumes) and Amarante Lucero (lights), "Time Again in Oz" (SCT)
Director of the Year: Stephen Wadsworth, for "Game of Love and Chance" and "Design for Living" (Seattle Rep)
Best Theater Comeback: ACT
Best Street Theater: The World Trade Organization protests
Best Improv: A transsexual construction worker's topless protest dance on a power pole above I-5
Guys in High Heels Award: Dina Martina, aka Grady West
Budget Trend of the Year: Sketch comedy
Weakest Comic Brew: "Triple Espresso"
When Bad Ideas Happen to Good People: UMO's "Millennium Circus" (at Sand Point)
Can That Spotlight, CB: Miscast Petula Clark, in a scaled-down tour of "Sunset Boulevard"
Lamest Musical Revival: "Camelot" (5th Avenue Theatre)
Wake Me When It's Over: "Communicating Doors" (ACT); "Empress of Eden" (Empty Space); "The Mask of Moriarty" (Village Theatre); and "Mars is a Star That Defies Observation" (Annex Theatre)
Performance Art Hell: Dante's "Inferno" (On the Boards)
Reservation Hell: Ticketmaster
Enough Already: Teenybop pop musicals based on old movies (i.e., "Footloose," "Fame," "Saturday Night Fever")
Local Treasure: Northwest Puppet Center
A Fond Farewell To: Bathhouse Theatre, Belltown Theatre Center, outgoing Intiman artistic honcho Warner Shook, Teatro Zinzanni
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