Seattle Gay News
Issue 11, Volume 44, March 11, 2016
Arts & Entertainment
Violet ascends with a joyful noise
Robbie Turner survives 100th episode of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”
The cast of ArtsWest’s Violet – Photo by Michael Brunk
by Paul Torres SGN A&E Writer VIOLET ARTSWEST Through April 3 When we first meet Violet, the title character in ArtsWest’s new musical Violet, she is a meek woman with a disfigured face seeking a miracle cure. She boards a Greyhound bus for a trip from her home in Spruce Pine, North Carolina to Tulsa in 1964 to try and meet a TV evangelist she believes will heal the facial scar she received from an ax blade incident when she
was a child. Violet is a spellbinding tale of hope, faith, and healing. Brenna Wagner is positively brilliant as the tough yet vulnerable Violet. As Violet travels, she interacts with two soldiers. She also interacts with her younger self, Young Vi (Eliza Ludlum), which brings out the pluck and vigor of her bygone youth, and her late father (a splendid Brian Simmons), who serves as her guide and mentor. His assistance to her during a high-spirited poker game with the two soldiers Monty (wonderfully performed by Casey Raiha) and Flick (an outstanding Jesse Smith) is an entersee violet page 4
Malick’s Cups an esoteric jolt of pure cinematic imagination
Robbie Turner – Photo by Divulgação
by Albert Rodriguez SGN A&E Writer By a hair – a wig of hair, actually – Seattle’s own Robbie Turner advanced to the second week of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” Season 8 of the reality competition series premiered on March 7, featuring twelve new contestants vying for the ultimate drag crown. It was the Logo TV show’s milestone 100th episode that also included
appearances by its previous titleholders, which meant another Seattle queen, Jinkx Monsoon, was in the house. The “dirty dozen,” as Ru called them, introduced themselves to audiences at home, and to each other, at the start of the episode, by making their grand entrances individually. First up was Naomi Smalls (21, Redlands), who described herself as see robbie turner page 7
Assassins – Dead On!
(l-r) Leon Czolgolsz (Brandon ONeill), the Proprietor (Nick DeSantis) and John Hinckley (Frederick Hagreen) in Assassins, a co-production presented at ACT – A Contemporary Theatre – Photo by Mark Kitaoka
by Eric Andrews-Katz SGN A&E Writer Cate Blanchett and Christian Bale in Knight of Cups – bbook.com
by Sara Michelle Fetters SGN A&E Writer KNIGHT OF CUPS Now playing Knight of Cups is writer/director Terrence Malick at his most lyrically eso-
teric. If his last film, the atmospheric, if claustrophobically nondescript saga of love and woe, To the Wonder, was the acclaimed filmmaker’s attempt to pick away at cinematic convention, it is with Knight of Cups that he abandons traditional narrative constructs entirely. He has officially see knight of cups page 8
ASSASSINS ACT/5TH AVENUE CO-PRODUCTION ACT THEATRE Through May 8 Assassins is a musical by the great impresario Stephen Sondheim. The highly acclaimed “God of Musical Theater” composed the music and lyrics (with a book by John Weidman) with a nod to some darker chapters in American history: the assas-
sinations (or attempted assassinations) of American Presidents. An unlikely subject for a musical but it is the show that Sondheim himself has called, “the most perfect show” he’s ever written. The opening is a carnival shooting gallery where those that will attempt “Presicide” (there is no official word for the killing of a President) gather to take their shot and get a prize. One-by-one the infamous figures of history – John Wilkes Booth, Leon Czolgosz, Lynette Fromme, John Hinckley… – appear seduced by the chance of their “shot at fame.” They come forth to see assassins page 6