Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Mary Oliver is beloved as one of the great poets of the natural world. She found her place there early on, and throughout her life gave us messages in bottles about how we might find our place too. She admired the bird and the bear and the snake and the tree, pointing out that humans are the sole members of the natural world who have been blessed and cursed to ask questions like “Who am I?” and “Where do I belong?” Finding answers to these questions can seem like an impossible quest, but in Wild Geese, Mary Oliver gives us a place to start:
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
This season is about some humans, the softest animals, striving to let themselves and each other love, which, as Mary shows us, is the only path to belonging. We’ll explore the love of two friends in a regime where beauty is for the few and lives are expendable; in a friendship where artistic success is on the line; in a culture where the wrong kind of love must remain secret; in a female friendship where proving oneself is a necessity; and finally in the context of a passion which verges on mania.
Through it all, we’ll hold the hope that love will show us the path to belonging and allow us each to find our place in the family of things.
GUARDS AT THE TAJ
by Rajiv Joseph
A Co-Production with Pratidhwani
September 12 – October 6
In 1648 India, two Imperial Guards watch from their post as the sun rises for the first time on the newly-completed Taj Mahal—an event that shakes their respective worlds. When they are ordered to perform an unthinkable task, the aftermath forces them to question the concepts of friendship, beauty, and duty, and changes them forever. GUARDS AT THE TAJ is one of Pulitzer Prize Finalist Rajiv Joseph’s seminal works.
SNOWED IN (AGAIN)
by Corinne Park-Buffelen & Mathew Wright
November 21 – December 22
ArtsWest Audience Favorite!
Last year, a new holiday tradition was born as ArtsWest sent four of Seattle’s hottest musical theater stars on a cozy retreat to write the most perfect holiday show the world had ever seen. This year, four more stars scramble to remount last year’s holiday hit. With hindsight on their side, the process should be foolproof. What could possibly go wrong?
COVENANT
by York Walker
February 6 – March 2
NY Times Critic’s Pick!
When a struggling guitarist returns to his small Georgia town a blues star, rumors begin swirling that he may have made a deal with the devil to attain his musical genius. Before long, however, it becomes clear he’s not the only one with a secret. A mythic and suspenseful new play that delivers one devilish twist after another, York Walker’s Covenant explores the power of belief and the thin line between rumor and truth.
ATHENA
by Gracie Gardner
In Collaboration with Salle Auriol
April 10 – May 4
Mary Wallace and Athena are both seventeen-year-old fencers training for Nationals. Follow their journey from competitors to confidantes as they form a bond navigating the milestones of adolescence, training together only to learn the future is only certain for one of them.
THE EFFECT
by Lucy Prebble
June 19 – July 13
In this thrilling play by Lucy Prebble (HBO’s Succession), two young volunteers, Tristan and Connie, agree to take part in a clinical drug trial. Succumbing to the gravitational pull of attraction and love, however, Tristan and Connie manage to throw the trial off-course, much to the frustration of the clinicians involved. This funny, moving and perhaps surprisingly human play explores questions of sanity, neurology and the limits of medicine, alongside ideas of fate, loyalty and the inevitability of physical attraction.
