Stage

Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute Teen Summer Musical and Academy TEEN SUMMER MUSICAL AND ACADEMY: 13-18 YEARS (19 IF STILL ENROLLED IN HS)

Youth ages 13-18 years (19 if still enrolled in HS) will embark on an intensive eight week journey which will include an intensive Academy curriculum introducing youth to the fundamentals of Acting (anatomy, voice, improvisation, writing, and ensemble work), Movement (African, hip hop, break dancing, jazz, modern and ballet) and Voice (song). Students will be introduced to simple costuming and set design while highlighting the history of great African American artists.

Summer Musical dates: June 24 to August 17 (8 weeks).

Tuesday-Friday, 9:30 A.M. – 4:30 P.M. Fee: $165

Auditions for the Teen Summer Musical at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute begin June 12.

Audition dates include:

* Thursday, June 12: 3:30 – 7 P.M. * Friday, June 13: 3:30 – 7 P.M.

* Saturday, June 14: 9:30 A.M. – 2:30 P.M.

For more information, registration, and audition reservation, please contact Kristi Matsuda at kristi.matsuda@seattle.gov or (206) 684-5741. Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, 104 17th Ave S

Seattle, WA 98144 $165 Ongoing through Sunday, August 17, 2014, 6pm

Durational Arts Festival A performance that lasts at least an hour, but not longer than two days-these are the only real criteria for this collection of time-based art works. The rest is up to a rotating cast (including Gender Tender, Mark Haim, Babette Pendleton McGeady, and Molly Sides) that will come and go for almost a month. Alice Gosti directs. SK Seattle University Hedreen Gallery, 901 12th Ave (12th and Marion), Seattle, Washington 98122 Free Ongoing through Saturday, August 2, 2014

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Monday, July 28, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Monday, July 28, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Monday, July 28, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Monday, July 28, 2014

Pink Door Cabaret Trapeze performances (6:15-8:45 p.m.) by Bridget Gunning (Sun.) and Tanya Brno (Mon.). Saturdays, go “Behind the Pink Door” (11 p.m.,). See website for full details.   The Pink Door, 1919 Post Alley, Seattle $20 cover Monday, July 28, 2014

• 

Wooden O Again Seattle Shakespeare Co. is committed to outdoor productions of the Bard, and this summer’s offerings are The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar. The former, obviously, is a little more family friendly, with Jason Marr and Conner Neddersen, respectively, as BFFs Proteus and Valentine, whose parting triggers a series of love notes, saucy servants, disapproving fathers, misplaced affections, inpudant servants, mistaken identites, loveable brigands, premature announcements-of-death, and cross-dressing. David Quicksall directs. As for the Roman tragedy Julius Caesar, directed by Vanessa Miller, this will be an all-female production, with Therese Diekhans as the doomed overreaching tyrant, Suzanne Bouchard as Brutus, and Amy Thone as Cassius. (See seattleshakespeare.org for park locations and schedule.) BRIAN MILLER Free Monday, July 28, 2014

• 

An Evening of One Acts Summer is the dead season for theater. It’s sunny outside, so who wants to be indoors? And with so many activities scheduled, it can be hard to concentrate on, say, four hours of Tony Kushner. For that reason, ACT is staging three short works by boldface names, all directed by R. Hamilton Wright. From 1995, Steve Martin’s Patter for the Floating Lady has a lovelorn magician (David Foubert) try to win back his former assisstant (Jessica Skerritt) by levitating her (kind of a gentler form of hostage-taking). How they’ll work this stage trick remains to be seen. Woody Allen’s Riverside Drive is one of those appropriations of a prior text of which the Woodman has grown too fond in recent years (recall Blue Jasmine/A Streetcar Named Desire). In this 2003 work, he paraphrases Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, with a nut case (Eric Ray Anderson) accosting a meek screenwriter (Chris Ensweiler) seated on a park bench and accusing him of having stolen his ideas. (Of course the two have never met.) Last is an early work by a true playwright: Sam Shepard. His 1969 The Unseen Hand is a somewhat uncategorizable sci-fi parable, with three outlaw brothers from the Old West reunited in modern times by an alien overlord. There’s talk of revolution and robbing trains, only there are no more trains left to rob. The sibling dynamics and lament for better, prior times will likely remind you of True West and other, later Shepard dramas. (Previews begin July 18, opens July 25. Runs Tues.-Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 17.) BRIAN MILLER ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $44 and up ($20 every Tues.) Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Comedy Womb This “female-focused but not female-exclusive” show includes a headliner and an open-mike segment, in the Grotto underneath the Rendezvous. JewelBox Theater at the Rendezvous, 2322 Second Ave., Seattle, WA 98121 $5 Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Tuesday, July 29, 2014

• 

The Book of Mormon Tickets went fast when this show toured through town in January of last year, and you’ll have to be quick on the mouse to book a seat for this return engagement. Things this hit show’s creators-Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez-hate: received wisdom, Disney plasticity, Johnnie Cochran, and condescension from anyone anywhere on the politico-religious spectrum. Things they love: production numbers. Their Tony-winning musical follows two fresh-faced Mormons, dorky, porky Elder Cunningham and square-jawed, self-adoring Elder Price, on their first mission to Uganda. Discovering that his confabulated Mormon myths draw converts even more effectively than the ones in his titular Book, Cunningham wreaks havoc in the village. For most of the evening, the combination of perky tunes (by Lopez), jazz hands, and verbal atrocities keeps the show bouncing along expertly. Then Book takes off to a new, exhilarating, hilariously profane dimension when the Ugandans reinterpret, in a show-within-a-show, all that Cunningham has taught them. Credit goes to Parker, Lopez, and Stone for creating a big, glitzy fun-fest that will be absolutely untouchable by any high-school drama department. Oh, and if the shows are already sold out or the tickets too dear, take heart that a movie adaptation is supposedly in the works. (Runs Tues.-Sun.; see stgpresents.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 10.) GAVIN BORCHERT The Paramount, 911 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98101 $45 and up Tuesday, July 29, 2014

• 

Wooden O Again Seattle Shakespeare Co. is committed to outdoor productions of the Bard, and this summer’s offerings are The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar. The former, obviously, is a little more family friendly, with Jason Marr and Conner Neddersen, respectively, as BFFs Proteus and Valentine, whose parting triggers a series of love notes, saucy servants, disapproving fathers, misplaced affections, inpudant servants, mistaken identites, loveable brigands, premature announcements-of-death, and cross-dressing. David Quicksall directs. As for the Roman tragedy Julius Caesar, directed by Vanessa Miller, this will be an all-female production, with Therese Diekhans as the doomed overreaching tyrant, Suzanne Bouchard as Brutus, and Amy Thone as Cassius. (See seattleshakespeare.org for park locations and schedule.) BRIAN MILLER Free Tuesday, July 29, 2014

An Evening of One-Acts This periodic series presents works by Steve Martin, Sam Shepard, and Woody Allen. R. Hamilton Wright directs them all, with proven stage talent you’ve seen during the prior season. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $15-$51 Tuesday, July 29, 2014, 7:30pm

• 

An Evening of One Acts Summer is the dead season for theater. It’s sunny outside, so who wants to be indoors? And with so many activities scheduled, it can be hard to concentrate on, say, four hours of Tony Kushner. For that reason, ACT is staging three short works by boldface names, all directed by R. Hamilton Wright. From 1995, Steve Martin’s Patter for the Floating Lady has a lovelorn magician (David Foubert) try to win back his former assisstant (Jessica Skerritt) by levitating her (kind of a gentler form of hostage-taking). How they’ll work this stage trick remains to be seen. Woody Allen’s Riverside Drive is one of those appropriations of a prior text of which the Woodman has grown too fond in recent years (recall Blue Jasmine/A Streetcar Named Desire). In this 2003 work, he paraphrases Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, with a nut case (Eric Ray Anderson) accosting a meek screenwriter (Chris Ensweiler) seated on a park bench and accusing him of having stolen his ideas. (Of course the two have never met.) Last is an early work by a true playwright: Sam Shepard. His 1969 The Unseen Hand is a somewhat uncategorizable sci-fi parable, with three outlaw brothers from the Old West reunited in modern times by an alien overlord. There’s talk of revolution and robbing trains, only there are no more trains left to rob. The sibling dynamics and lament for better, prior times will likely remind you of True West and other, later Shepard dramas. (Previews begin July 18, opens July 25. Runs Tues.-Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 17.) BRIAN MILLER ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $44 and up ($20 every Tues.) Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Comedy Womb This “female-focused but not female-exclusive” show includes a headliner and an open-mike segment, in the Grotto underneath the Rendezvous. JewelBox Theater at the Rendezvous, 2322 Second Ave., Seattle, WA 98121 $5 Wednesday, July 30, 2014

• 

Funny Girl In the starring role of this revival, directed by Steve Tomkins, Sarah Rose Davis has to be exhaustively gawked up and geeked out by her costumers to match the song “If a Girl Isn’t Pretty.” But by the time the show reaches “I’m the Greatest Star,” Davis owns the part of the legendary stage performer Fanny Brice (1891-1951), whose talent famously surpassed her looks. Davis bounces from pushy to pleading to soulful to catty, bratty, soulful, and back again. The first-time lead, raised in Bellevue, demonstrates a remarkable agility of performance and comic timing. Good, because Funny Girl is a show that lives and dies on its Brice. Even the primary plot points of the vaudevillian’s fictionalized biography are mere vehicles to truck the audience toward the next song-and-dance spectacular. And of those there are many in this three-hour show (with intermission), with Davis wonderfully supported by the large ensemble. However, the one dull spot in this practically Technicolor production is the central romance between Brice and the hit-and-miss gambler Nick Arnstein (Logan Benedict). Davis and Benedict have talent but no chemistry-perhaps because they and everyone else are so busy rushing from one number to the next. But if it’s romance you want, you can always rent the movie with Barbra Streisand and Omar Sharif. (Runs Wed.-Sun.; see website for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 3. DANIEL NASH [See Daniel’s full <a href=”http://www.seattleweekly.com/arts/952755-129/opening-nights-funny-girl” target=”_blank”>review</a>.] Everett Performing Arts Center, 2710 Wetmore Ave, Everett $30-$65 Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Wednesday, July 30, 2014

• 

Jane Eyre Musical theater has had some success with neglected orphans (Annie or Oliver!, anyone?), so an adaptation of Jane Eyre was probably inevitable. Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel is, after all, one of the earliest female coming-of-age tales ever told, set decades prior during the Georgian period. The show premiered on Broadway 14 years ago, and it might sound like a slog. Quite the opposite. Directed by Karen Lund, this production moves quickly and seamlessly through Jane’s early tale of woe. The show ((created by Paul Gordon and John Caird) focuses on our heroine’s middle period, after Jane is hired to work as a governess at the pleasure of apparent bachelor Edward Fairfax Rochester. Art Anderson’s Rochester is a manifold pleasure to behold. He sings well, commands the stage, and mugs for the audience with assurance. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Jessica Spencer, who turns in an uneven performance as the grown Jane. (Abi Brittle plays defiant 10-year-old Jane.) Too often her Jane seems bewildered and lost in her moral and spiritual upheaval; it’s difficult to see the spark that draws Rochester near. Even so, during the song “Painting Her Portrait,” Spencer gives a jaw-dropping performance, the seeds sown during Jane’s abusive childhood coming to fruition. It is a moving and frightening episode of self-doubt. (7:30 p.m. Wed.-Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 16.) MARK BAUMGARTEN Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., Seattle $15-$40 Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Teatro ZinZanni: When Sparks Fly Maestro Voronin headlines this mad-scientist-themed show. Opens June 6. Runs Thurs.-Sun. plus some Wed.; see zinzanni.com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends Sept. 21. Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., Seattle $99 and up Wednesday, July 30, 2014

• 

The Book of Mormon Tickets went fast when this show toured through town in January of last year, and you’ll have to be quick on the mouse to book a seat for this return engagement. Things this hit show’s creators-Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez-hate: received wisdom, Disney plasticity, Johnnie Cochran, and condescension from anyone anywhere on the politico-religious spectrum. Things they love: production numbers. Their Tony-winning musical follows two fresh-faced Mormons, dorky, porky Elder Cunningham and square-jawed, self-adoring Elder Price, on their first mission to Uganda. Discovering that his confabulated Mormon myths draw converts even more effectively than the ones in his titular Book, Cunningham wreaks havoc in the village. For most of the evening, the combination of perky tunes (by Lopez), jazz hands, and verbal atrocities keeps the show bouncing along expertly. Then Book takes off to a new, exhilarating, hilariously profane dimension when the Ugandans reinterpret, in a show-within-a-show, all that Cunningham has taught them. Credit goes to Parker, Lopez, and Stone for creating a big, glitzy fun-fest that will be absolutely untouchable by any high-school drama department. Oh, and if the shows are already sold out or the tickets too dear, take heart that a movie adaptation is supposedly in the works. (Runs Tues.-Sun.; see stgpresents.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 10.) GAVIN BORCHERT The Paramount, 911 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98101 $45 and up Wednesday, July 30, 2014

• 

Wooden O Again Seattle Shakespeare Co. is committed to outdoor productions of the Bard, and this summer’s offerings are The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar. The former, obviously, is a little more family friendly, with Jason Marr and Conner Neddersen, respectively, as BFFs Proteus and Valentine, whose parting triggers a series of love notes, saucy servants, disapproving fathers, misplaced affections, inpudant servants, mistaken identites, loveable brigands, premature announcements-of-death, and cross-dressing. David Quicksall directs. As for the Roman tragedy Julius Caesar, directed by Vanessa Miller, this will be an all-female production, with Therese Diekhans as the doomed overreaching tyrant, Suzanne Bouchard as Brutus, and Amy Thone as Cassius. (See seattleshakespeare.org for park locations and schedule.) BRIAN MILLER Free Wednesday, July 30, 2014

An Evening of One-Acts This periodic series presents works by Steve Martin, Sam Shepard, and Woody Allen. R. Hamilton Wright directs them all, with proven stage talent you’ve seen during the prior season. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $15-$51 Wednesday, July 30, 2014, 7:30pm

Jay Hollingsworth’s True Story Hollingsworth asks visiting and local comics to actually explain the stories behind their supposedly true stories. 7:30 p.m., last Wednesday of every month.  The Parlor Collection, 700 Bellevue Way N.E., Bellevue see website Wednesday, July 30, 2014, 7:30pm

Flipside Comedy Show Stand-up every Wednesday at this bastion of old-school Seattle charm. 13 Coins, 125 Boren Ave. N., Seattle See website Wednesday, July 30, 2014, 8pm

Duos Comedy Showcase Unexpected Productions presents comedians two at a time. Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $5 Wednesday, July 30, 2014, 8:30pm

• 

An Evening of One Acts Summer is the dead season for theater. It’s sunny outside, so who wants to be indoors? And with so many activities scheduled, it can be hard to concentrate on, say, four hours of Tony Kushner. For that reason, ACT is staging three short works by boldface names, all directed by R. Hamilton Wright. From 1995, Steve Martin’s Patter for the Floating Lady has a lovelorn magician (David Foubert) try to win back his former assisstant (Jessica Skerritt) by levitating her (kind of a gentler form of hostage-taking). How they’ll work this stage trick remains to be seen. Woody Allen’s Riverside Drive is one of those appropriations of a prior text of which the Woodman has grown too fond in recent years (recall Blue Jasmine/A Streetcar Named Desire). In this 2003 work, he paraphrases Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, with a nut case (Eric Ray Anderson) accosting a meek screenwriter (Chris Ensweiler) seated on a park bench and accusing him of having stolen his ideas. (Of course the two have never met.) Last is an early work by a true playwright: Sam Shepard. His 1969 The Unseen Hand is a somewhat uncategorizable sci-fi parable, with three outlaw brothers from the Old West reunited in modern times by an alien overlord. There’s talk of revolution and robbing trains, only there are no more trains left to rob. The sibling dynamics and lament for better, prior times will likely remind you of True West and other, later Shepard dramas. (Previews begin July 18, opens July 25. Runs Tues.-Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 17.) BRIAN MILLER ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $44 and up ($20 every Tues.) Thursday, July 31, 2014

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Thursday, July 31, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Thursday, July 31, 2014

• 

Funny Girl In the starring role of this revival, directed by Steve Tomkins, Sarah Rose Davis has to be exhaustively gawked up and geeked out by her costumers to match the song “If a Girl Isn’t Pretty.” But by the time the show reaches “I’m the Greatest Star,” Davis owns the part of the legendary stage performer Fanny Brice (1891-1951), whose talent famously surpassed her looks. Davis bounces from pushy to pleading to soulful to catty, bratty, soulful, and back again. The first-time lead, raised in Bellevue, demonstrates a remarkable agility of performance and comic timing. Good, because Funny Girl is a show that lives and dies on its Brice. Even the primary plot points of the vaudevillian’s fictionalized biography are mere vehicles to truck the audience toward the next song-and-dance spectacular. And of those there are many in this three-hour show (with intermission), with Davis wonderfully supported by the large ensemble. However, the one dull spot in this practically Technicolor production is the central romance between Brice and the hit-and-miss gambler Nick Arnstein (Logan Benedict). Davis and Benedict have talent but no chemistry-perhaps because they and everyone else are so busy rushing from one number to the next. But if it’s romance you want, you can always rent the movie with Barbra Streisand and Omar Sharif. (Runs Wed.-Sun.; see website for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 3. DANIEL NASH [See Daniel’s full <a href=”http://www.seattleweekly.com/arts/952755-129/opening-nights-funny-girl” target=”_blank”>review</a>.] Everett Performing Arts Center, 2710 Wetmore Ave, Everett $30-$65 Thursday, July 31, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Thursday, July 31, 2014

• 

Jane Eyre Musical theater has had some success with neglected orphans (Annie or Oliver!, anyone?), so an adaptation of Jane Eyre was probably inevitable. Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel is, after all, one of the earliest female coming-of-age tales ever told, set decades prior during the Georgian period. The show premiered on Broadway 14 years ago, and it might sound like a slog. Quite the opposite. Directed by Karen Lund, this production moves quickly and seamlessly through Jane’s early tale of woe. The show ((created by Paul Gordon and John Caird) focuses on our heroine’s middle period, after Jane is hired to work as a governess at the pleasure of apparent bachelor Edward Fairfax Rochester. Art Anderson’s Rochester is a manifold pleasure to behold. He sings well, commands the stage, and mugs for the audience with assurance. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Jessica Spencer, who turns in an uneven performance as the grown Jane. (Abi Brittle plays defiant 10-year-old Jane.) Too often her Jane seems bewildered and lost in her moral and spiritual upheaval; it’s difficult to see the spark that draws Rochester near. Even so, during the song “Painting Her Portrait,” Spencer gives a jaw-dropping performance, the seeds sown during Jane’s abusive childhood coming to fruition. It is a moving and frightening episode of self-doubt. (7:30 p.m. Wed.-Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 16.) MARK BAUMGARTEN Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., Seattle $15-$40 Thursday, July 31, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Thursday, July 31, 2014

Parlor Live Comedy Club See website for schedule. The Parlor Collection, 700 Bellevue Way N.E., Bellevue $15-$30 Thursday, July 31, 2014

Teatro ZinZanni: When Sparks Fly Maestro Voronin headlines this mad-scientist-themed show. Opens June 6. Runs Thurs.-Sun. plus some Wed.; see zinzanni.com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends Sept. 21. Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., Seattle $99 and up Thursday, July 31, 2014

The Amish Project Jessica Dickey’s stage retelling of the 2006 Nickel Mines Amish schoolhouse shooting. Opens July 24. 7:30 p.m. Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 9. Isaac Studio Theatre, 208 N. 85th St. $15-$25 Thursday, July 31, 2014

• 

The Book of Mormon Tickets went fast when this show toured through town in January of last year, and you’ll have to be quick on the mouse to book a seat for this return engagement. Things this hit show’s creators-Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez-hate: received wisdom, Disney plasticity, Johnnie Cochran, and condescension from anyone anywhere on the politico-religious spectrum. Things they love: production numbers. Their Tony-winning musical follows two fresh-faced Mormons, dorky, porky Elder Cunningham and square-jawed, self-adoring Elder Price, on their first mission to Uganda. Discovering that his confabulated Mormon myths draw converts even more effectively than the ones in his titular Book, Cunningham wreaks havoc in the village. For most of the evening, the combination of perky tunes (by Lopez), jazz hands, and verbal atrocities keeps the show bouncing along expertly. Then Book takes off to a new, exhilarating, hilariously profane dimension when the Ugandans reinterpret, in a show-within-a-show, all that Cunningham has taught them. Credit goes to Parker, Lopez, and Stone for creating a big, glitzy fun-fest that will be absolutely untouchable by any high-school drama department. Oh, and if the shows are already sold out or the tickets too dear, take heart that a movie adaptation is supposedly in the works. (Runs Tues.-Sun.; see stgpresents.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 10.) GAVIN BORCHERT The Paramount, 911 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98101 $45 and up Thursday, July 31, 2014

• 

Wooden O Again Seattle Shakespeare Co. is committed to outdoor productions of the Bard, and this summer’s offerings are The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar. The former, obviously, is a little more family friendly, with Jason Marr and Conner Neddersen, respectively, as BFFs Proteus and Valentine, whose parting triggers a series of love notes, saucy servants, disapproving fathers, misplaced affections, inpudant servants, mistaken identites, loveable brigands, premature announcements-of-death, and cross-dressing. David Quicksall directs. As for the Roman tragedy Julius Caesar, directed by Vanessa Miller, this will be an all-female production, with Therese Diekhans as the doomed overreaching tyrant, Suzanne Bouchard as Brutus, and Amy Thone as Cassius. (See seattleshakespeare.org for park locations and schedule.) BRIAN MILLER Free Thursday, July 31, 2014

An Evening of One-Acts This periodic series presents works by Steve Martin, Sam Shepard, and Woody Allen. R. Hamilton Wright directs them all, with proven stage talent you’ve seen during the prior season. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $15-$51 Thursday, July 31, 2014, 7:30pm

Hold These Truths UW student Gordon Hirabayashi was illegally interned during World War II. Joel de la Fuente plays him in this one-man dramatization. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $35 Thursday, July 31, 2014, 7:30 – 9pm

Attack of the Killer Murder of . . . Death “Agatha Christie meets Roger Corman” in this mystery sendup, set on a movie set in 1958. Opens July 18. 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. Ends Aug. 16. Theater Schmeater, 2125 Third Ave. $18-$25 Thursday, July 31, 2014, 8pm

Wise Guys Jet City Improv’s salute to mob movies. Opens July 10. 8 p.m. Thurs.-Fri. Ends Aug. 22. Historic University Theater, 5510 University Way N.E. $12-$15 Thursday, July 31, 2014, 8pm

Improv Anonymous: The Harold A narrative improv format created by legendary improv teacher Del Close.  Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $7 Thursday, July 31, 2014, 8:30pm

• 

An Evening of One Acts Summer is the dead season for theater. It’s sunny outside, so who wants to be indoors? And with so many activities scheduled, it can be hard to concentrate on, say, four hours of Tony Kushner. For that reason, ACT is staging three short works by boldface names, all directed by R. Hamilton Wright. From 1995, Steve Martin’s Patter for the Floating Lady has a lovelorn magician (David Foubert) try to win back his former assisstant (Jessica Skerritt) by levitating her (kind of a gentler form of hostage-taking). How they’ll work this stage trick remains to be seen. Woody Allen’s Riverside Drive is one of those appropriations of a prior text of which the Woodman has grown too fond in recent years (recall Blue Jasmine/A Streetcar Named Desire). In this 2003 work, he paraphrases Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, with a nut case (Eric Ray Anderson) accosting a meek screenwriter (Chris Ensweiler) seated on a park bench and accusing him of having stolen his ideas. (Of course the two have never met.) Last is an early work by a true playwright: Sam Shepard. His 1969 The Unseen Hand is a somewhat uncategorizable sci-fi parable, with three outlaw brothers from the Old West reunited in modern times by an alien overlord. There’s talk of revolution and robbing trains, only there are no more trains left to rob. The sibling dynamics and lament for better, prior times will likely remind you of True West and other, later Shepard dramas. (Previews begin July 18, opens July 25. Runs Tues.-Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 17.) BRIAN MILLER ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $44 and up ($20 every Tues.) Friday, August 1, 2014

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Friday, August 1, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Friday, August 1, 2014

ComedySportz Seattle Comedy Group moves their improv show to the former Empty Space. 8 & 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Atlas Theater, 3509 Fremont Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98103 $14 Friday, August 1, 2014

• 

Funny Girl In the starring role of this revival, directed by Steve Tomkins, Sarah Rose Davis has to be exhaustively gawked up and geeked out by her costumers to match the song “If a Girl Isn’t Pretty.” But by the time the show reaches “I’m the Greatest Star,” Davis owns the part of the legendary stage performer Fanny Brice (1891-1951), whose talent famously surpassed her looks. Davis bounces from pushy to pleading to soulful to catty, bratty, soulful, and back again. The first-time lead, raised in Bellevue, demonstrates a remarkable agility of performance and comic timing. Good, because Funny Girl is a show that lives and dies on its Brice. Even the primary plot points of the vaudevillian’s fictionalized biography are mere vehicles to truck the audience toward the next song-and-dance spectacular. And of those there are many in this three-hour show (with intermission), with Davis wonderfully supported by the large ensemble. However, the one dull spot in this practically Technicolor production is the central romance between Brice and the hit-and-miss gambler Nick Arnstein (Logan Benedict). Davis and Benedict have talent but no chemistry-perhaps because they and everyone else are so busy rushing from one number to the next. But if it’s romance you want, you can always rent the movie with Barbra Streisand and Omar Sharif. (Runs Wed.-Sun.; see website for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 3. DANIEL NASH [See Daniel’s full <a href=”http://www.seattleweekly.com/arts/952755-129/opening-nights-funny-girl” target=”_blank”>review</a>.] Everett Performing Arts Center, 2710 Wetmore Ave, Everett $30-$65 Friday, August 1, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Friday, August 1, 2014

• 

Jane Eyre Musical theater has had some success with neglected orphans (Annie or Oliver!, anyone?), so an adaptation of Jane Eyre was probably inevitable. Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel is, after all, one of the earliest female coming-of-age tales ever told, set decades prior during the Georgian period. The show premiered on Broadway 14 years ago, and it might sound like a slog. Quite the opposite. Directed by Karen Lund, this production moves quickly and seamlessly through Jane’s early tale of woe. The show ((created by Paul Gordon and John Caird) focuses on our heroine’s middle period, after Jane is hired to work as a governess at the pleasure of apparent bachelor Edward Fairfax Rochester. Art Anderson’s Rochester is a manifold pleasure to behold. He sings well, commands the stage, and mugs for the audience with assurance. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Jessica Spencer, who turns in an uneven performance as the grown Jane. (Abi Brittle plays defiant 10-year-old Jane.) Too often her Jane seems bewildered and lost in her moral and spiritual upheaval; it’s difficult to see the spark that draws Rochester near. Even so, during the song “Painting Her Portrait,” Spencer gives a jaw-dropping performance, the seeds sown during Jane’s abusive childhood coming to fruition. It is a moving and frightening episode of self-doubt. (7:30 p.m. Wed.-Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 16.) MARK BAUMGARTEN Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., Seattle $15-$40 Friday, August 1, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Friday, August 1, 2014

Parlor Live Comedy Club See website for schedule. The Parlor Collection, 700 Bellevue Way N.E., Bellevue $15-$30 Friday, August 1, 2014

Teatro ZinZanni: When Sparks Fly Maestro Voronin headlines this mad-scientist-themed show. Opens June 6. Runs Thurs.-Sun. plus some Wed.; see zinzanni.com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends Sept. 21. Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., Seattle $99 and up Friday, August 1, 2014

The Amish Project Jessica Dickey’s stage retelling of the 2006 Nickel Mines Amish schoolhouse shooting. Opens July 24. 7:30 p.m. Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 9. Isaac Studio Theatre, 208 N. 85th St. $15-$25 Friday, August 1, 2014

• 

The Book of Mormon Tickets went fast when this show toured through town in January of last year, and you’ll have to be quick on the mouse to book a seat for this return engagement. Things this hit show’s creators-Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez-hate: received wisdom, Disney plasticity, Johnnie Cochran, and condescension from anyone anywhere on the politico-religious spectrum. Things they love: production numbers. Their Tony-winning musical follows two fresh-faced Mormons, dorky, porky Elder Cunningham and square-jawed, self-adoring Elder Price, on their first mission to Uganda. Discovering that his confabulated Mormon myths draw converts even more effectively than the ones in his titular Book, Cunningham wreaks havoc in the village. For most of the evening, the combination of perky tunes (by Lopez), jazz hands, and verbal atrocities keeps the show bouncing along expertly. Then Book takes off to a new, exhilarating, hilariously profane dimension when the Ugandans reinterpret, in a show-within-a-show, all that Cunningham has taught them. Credit goes to Parker, Lopez, and Stone for creating a big, glitzy fun-fest that will be absolutely untouchable by any high-school drama department. Oh, and if the shows are already sold out or the tickets too dear, take heart that a movie adaptation is supposedly in the works. (Runs Tues.-Sun.; see stgpresents.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 10.) GAVIN BORCHERT The Paramount, 911 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98101 $45 and up Friday, August 1, 2014

• 

Wooden O Again Seattle Shakespeare Co. is committed to outdoor productions of the Bard, and this summer’s offerings are The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar. The former, obviously, is a little more family friendly, with Jason Marr and Conner Neddersen, respectively, as BFFs Proteus and Valentine, whose parting triggers a series of love notes, saucy servants, disapproving fathers, misplaced affections, inpudant servants, mistaken identites, loveable brigands, premature announcements-of-death, and cross-dressing. David Quicksall directs. As for the Roman tragedy Julius Caesar, directed by Vanessa Miller, this will be an all-female production, with Therese Diekhans as the doomed overreaching tyrant, Suzanne Bouchard as Brutus, and Amy Thone as Cassius. (See seattleshakespeare.org for park locations and schedule.) BRIAN MILLER Free Friday, August 1, 2014

PROK Open Mike Sign up for this generally zany and enjoyable evening, when professionals are also known to drop by.  The People’s Republic Kafe, 1718 12th Ave., Seattle Free Friday, August 1, 2014, 6:30pm

Hold These Truths UW student Gordon Hirabayashi was illegally interned during World War II. Joel de la Fuente plays him in this one-man dramatization. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $35 Friday, August 1, 2014, 7:30 – 9pm

An Evening of One-Acts This periodic series presents works by Steve Martin, Sam Shepard, and Woody Allen. R. Hamilton Wright directs them all, with proven stage talent you’ve seen during the prior season. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $15-$51 Friday, August 1, 2014, 8pm

Attack of the Killer Murder of . . . Death “Agatha Christie meets Roger Corman” in this mystery sendup, set on a movie set in 1958. Opens July 18. 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. Ends Aug. 16. Theater Schmeater, 2125 Third Ave. $18-$25 Friday, August 1, 2014, 8pm

Barn Show Creepy farm tales, invented by Blood Ensemble and staged in an actual Marysville barn. (They’ll bus you there; see bloodensemble.org for details.) $30-$35 Friday, August 1, 2014, 8pm

Wise Guys Jet City Improv’s salute to mob movies. Opens July 10. 8 p.m. Thurs.-Fri. Ends Aug. 22. Historic University Theater, 5510 University Way N.E. $12-$15 Friday, August 1, 2014, 8pm

Searching for the Super Scene Fast-paced improv from Unexpected Productions. 8:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $12-$15 Friday, August 1, 2014, 8:30pm

TheatreSports Unexpected Productions’ long-running (since 1983!) improv comedy show, pitting two teams against each other in front of a panel of judges. 10:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $15 Friday, August 1, 2014, 10:30pm

Spin the Bottle The June edition of Annex Theatre’s late-night variety show includes “futuristic noir theatre,” “acoustic Queen covers,” and much more.  Annex Theatre, 1110 Pike St., Seattle, WA 98122 $5-$10 Friday, August 1, 2014, 11pm

• 

An Evening of One Acts Summer is the dead season for theater. It’s sunny outside, so who wants to be indoors? And with so many activities scheduled, it can be hard to concentrate on, say, four hours of Tony Kushner. For that reason, ACT is staging three short works by boldface names, all directed by R. Hamilton Wright. From 1995, Steve Martin’s Patter for the Floating Lady has a lovelorn magician (David Foubert) try to win back his former assisstant (Jessica Skerritt) by levitating her (kind of a gentler form of hostage-taking). How they’ll work this stage trick remains to be seen. Woody Allen’s Riverside Drive is one of those appropriations of a prior text of which the Woodman has grown too fond in recent years (recall Blue Jasmine/A Streetcar Named Desire). In this 2003 work, he paraphrases Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, with a nut case (Eric Ray Anderson) accosting a meek screenwriter (Chris Ensweiler) seated on a park bench and accusing him of having stolen his ideas. (Of course the two have never met.) Last is an early work by a true playwright: Sam Shepard. His 1969 The Unseen Hand is a somewhat uncategorizable sci-fi parable, with three outlaw brothers from the Old West reunited in modern times by an alien overlord. There’s talk of revolution and robbing trains, only there are no more trains left to rob. The sibling dynamics and lament for better, prior times will likely remind you of True West and other, later Shepard dramas. (Previews begin July 18, opens July 25. Runs Tues.-Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 17.) BRIAN MILLER ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $44 and up ($20 every Tues.) Saturday, August 2, 2014

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Saturday, August 2, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Saturday, August 2, 2014

ComedySportz Seattle Comedy Group moves their improv show to the former Empty Space. 8 & 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Atlas Theater, 3509 Fremont Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98103 $14 Saturday, August 2, 2014

• 

Funny Girl In the starring role of this revival, directed by Steve Tomkins, Sarah Rose Davis has to be exhaustively gawked up and geeked out by her costumers to match the song “If a Girl Isn’t Pretty.” But by the time the show reaches “I’m the Greatest Star,” Davis owns the part of the legendary stage performer Fanny Brice (1891-1951), whose talent famously surpassed her looks. Davis bounces from pushy to pleading to soulful to catty, bratty, soulful, and back again. The first-time lead, raised in Bellevue, demonstrates a remarkable agility of performance and comic timing. Good, because Funny Girl is a show that lives and dies on its Brice. Even the primary plot points of the vaudevillian’s fictionalized biography are mere vehicles to truck the audience toward the next song-and-dance spectacular. And of those there are many in this three-hour show (with intermission), with Davis wonderfully supported by the large ensemble. However, the one dull spot in this practically Technicolor production is the central romance between Brice and the hit-and-miss gambler Nick Arnstein (Logan Benedict). Davis and Benedict have talent but no chemistry-perhaps because they and everyone else are so busy rushing from one number to the next. But if it’s romance you want, you can always rent the movie with Barbra Streisand and Omar Sharif. (Runs Wed.-Sun.; see website for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 3. DANIEL NASH [See Daniel’s full <a href=”http://www.seattleweekly.com/arts/952755-129/opening-nights-funny-girl” target=”_blank”>review</a>.] Everett Performing Arts Center, 2710 Wetmore Ave, Everett $30-$65 Saturday, August 2, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Saturday, August 2, 2014

• 

Jane Eyre Musical theater has had some success with neglected orphans (Annie or Oliver!, anyone?), so an adaptation of Jane Eyre was probably inevitable. Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel is, after all, one of the earliest female coming-of-age tales ever told, set decades prior during the Georgian period. The show premiered on Broadway 14 years ago, and it might sound like a slog. Quite the opposite. Directed by Karen Lund, this production moves quickly and seamlessly through Jane’s early tale of woe. The show ((created by Paul Gordon and John Caird) focuses on our heroine’s middle period, after Jane is hired to work as a governess at the pleasure of apparent bachelor Edward Fairfax Rochester. Art Anderson’s Rochester is a manifold pleasure to behold. He sings well, commands the stage, and mugs for the audience with assurance. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Jessica Spencer, who turns in an uneven performance as the grown Jane. (Abi Brittle plays defiant 10-year-old Jane.) Too often her Jane seems bewildered and lost in her moral and spiritual upheaval; it’s difficult to see the spark that draws Rochester near. Even so, during the song “Painting Her Portrait,” Spencer gives a jaw-dropping performance, the seeds sown during Jane’s abusive childhood coming to fruition. It is a moving and frightening episode of self-doubt. (7:30 p.m. Wed.-Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 16.) MARK BAUMGARTEN Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., Seattle $15-$40 Saturday, August 2, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Saturday, August 2, 2014

Parlor Live Comedy Club See website for schedule. The Parlor Collection, 700 Bellevue Way N.E., Bellevue $15-$30 Saturday, August 2, 2014

Pink Door Cabaret Trapeze performances (6:15-8:45 p.m.) by Bridget Gunning (Sun.) and Tanya Brno (Mon.). Saturdays, go “Behind the Pink Door” (11 p.m.,). See website for full details.   The Pink Door, 1919 Post Alley, Seattle $20 cover Saturday, August 2, 2014

Teatro ZinZanni: When Sparks Fly Maestro Voronin headlines this mad-scientist-themed show. Opens June 6. Runs Thurs.-Sun. plus some Wed.; see zinzanni.com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends Sept. 21. Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., Seattle $99 and up Saturday, August 2, 2014

The Amish Project Jessica Dickey’s stage retelling of the 2006 Nickel Mines Amish schoolhouse shooting. Opens July 24. 7:30 p.m. Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 9. Isaac Studio Theatre, 208 N. 85th St. $15-$25 Saturday, August 2, 2014

• 

The Book of Mormon Tickets went fast when this show toured through town in January of last year, and you’ll have to be quick on the mouse to book a seat for this return engagement. Things this hit show’s creators-Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez-hate: received wisdom, Disney plasticity, Johnnie Cochran, and condescension from anyone anywhere on the politico-religious spectrum. Things they love: production numbers. Their Tony-winning musical follows two fresh-faced Mormons, dorky, porky Elder Cunningham and square-jawed, self-adoring Elder Price, on their first mission to Uganda. Discovering that his confabulated Mormon myths draw converts even more effectively than the ones in his titular Book, Cunningham wreaks havoc in the village. For most of the evening, the combination of perky tunes (by Lopez), jazz hands, and verbal atrocities keeps the show bouncing along expertly. Then Book takes off to a new, exhilarating, hilariously profane dimension when the Ugandans reinterpret, in a show-within-a-show, all that Cunningham has taught them. Credit goes to Parker, Lopez, and Stone for creating a big, glitzy fun-fest that will be absolutely untouchable by any high-school drama department. Oh, and if the shows are already sold out or the tickets too dear, take heart that a movie adaptation is supposedly in the works. (Runs Tues.-Sun.; see stgpresents.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 10.) GAVIN BORCHERT The Paramount, 911 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98101 $45 and up Saturday, August 2, 2014

• 

Wooden O Again Seattle Shakespeare Co. is committed to outdoor productions of the Bard, and this summer’s offerings are The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar. The former, obviously, is a little more family friendly, with Jason Marr and Conner Neddersen, respectively, as BFFs Proteus and Valentine, whose parting triggers a series of love notes, saucy servants, disapproving fathers, misplaced affections, inpudant servants, mistaken identites, loveable brigands, premature announcements-of-death, and cross-dressing. David Quicksall directs. As for the Roman tragedy Julius Caesar, directed by Vanessa Miller, this will be an all-female production, with Therese Diekhans as the doomed overreaching tyrant, Suzanne Bouchard as Brutus, and Amy Thone as Cassius. (See seattleshakespeare.org for park locations and schedule.) BRIAN MILLER Free Saturday, August 2, 2014

Hold These Truths UW student Gordon Hirabayashi was illegally interned during World War II. Joel de la Fuente plays him in this one-man dramatization. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $35 Saturday, August 2, 2014, 7:30 – 9pm

The Edge Bainbridge Island’s own improv troupe.  Bainbridge Performing Arts, 200 Madison Ave. N., Bainbridge Island, WA 98110 $12-$16 Saturday, August 2, 2014, 7:30pm

An Evening of One-Acts This periodic series presents works by Steve Martin, Sam Shepard, and Woody Allen. R. Hamilton Wright directs them all, with proven stage talent you’ve seen during the prior season. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $15-$51 Saturday, August 2, 2014, 8pm

Attack of the Killer Murder of . . . Death “Agatha Christie meets Roger Corman” in this mystery sendup, set on a movie set in 1958. Opens July 18. 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. Ends Aug. 16. Theater Schmeater, 2125 Third Ave. $18-$25 Saturday, August 2, 2014, 8pm

Barn Show Creepy farm tales, invented by Blood Ensemble and staged in an actual Marysville barn. (They’ll bus you there; see bloodensemble.org for details.) $30-$35 Saturday, August 2, 2014, 8pm

Searching for the Super Scene Fast-paced improv from Unexpected Productions. 8:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $12-$15 Saturday, August 2, 2014, 8:30pm

TheatreSports Unexpected Productions’ long-running (since 1983!) improv comedy show, pitting two teams against each other in front of a panel of judges. 10:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $15 Saturday, August 2, 2014, 10:30pm

• 

An Evening of One Acts Summer is the dead season for theater. It’s sunny outside, so who wants to be indoors? And with so many activities scheduled, it can be hard to concentrate on, say, four hours of Tony Kushner. For that reason, ACT is staging three short works by boldface names, all directed by R. Hamilton Wright. From 1995, Steve Martin’s Patter for the Floating Lady has a lovelorn magician (David Foubert) try to win back his former assisstant (Jessica Skerritt) by levitating her (kind of a gentler form of hostage-taking). How they’ll work this stage trick remains to be seen. Woody Allen’s Riverside Drive is one of those appropriations of a prior text of which the Woodman has grown too fond in recent years (recall Blue Jasmine/A Streetcar Named Desire). In this 2003 work, he paraphrases Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, with a nut case (Eric Ray Anderson) accosting a meek screenwriter (Chris Ensweiler) seated on a park bench and accusing him of having stolen his ideas. (Of course the two have never met.) Last is an early work by a true playwright: Sam Shepard. His 1969 The Unseen Hand is a somewhat uncategorizable sci-fi parable, with three outlaw brothers from the Old West reunited in modern times by an alien overlord. There’s talk of revolution and robbing trains, only there are no more trains left to rob. The sibling dynamics and lament for better, prior times will likely remind you of True West and other, later Shepard dramas. (Previews begin July 18, opens July 25. Runs Tues.-Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 17.) BRIAN MILLER ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $44 and up ($20 every Tues.) Sunday, August 3, 2014

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Sunday, August 3, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Sunday, August 3, 2014

• 

Funny Girl In the starring role of this revival, directed by Steve Tomkins, Sarah Rose Davis has to be exhaustively gawked up and geeked out by her costumers to match the song “If a Girl Isn’t Pretty.” But by the time the show reaches “I’m the Greatest Star,” Davis owns the part of the legendary stage performer Fanny Brice (1891-1951), whose talent famously surpassed her looks. Davis bounces from pushy to pleading to soulful to catty, bratty, soulful, and back again. The first-time lead, raised in Bellevue, demonstrates a remarkable agility of performance and comic timing. Good, because Funny Girl is a show that lives and dies on its Brice. Even the primary plot points of the vaudevillian’s fictionalized biography are mere vehicles to truck the audience toward the next song-and-dance spectacular. And of those there are many in this three-hour show (with intermission), with Davis wonderfully supported by the large ensemble. However, the one dull spot in this practically Technicolor production is the central romance between Brice and the hit-and-miss gambler Nick Arnstein (Logan Benedict). Davis and Benedict have talent but no chemistry-perhaps because they and everyone else are so busy rushing from one number to the next. But if it’s romance you want, you can always rent the movie with Barbra Streisand and Omar Sharif. (Runs Wed.-Sun.; see website for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 3. DANIEL NASH [See Daniel’s full <a href=”http://www.seattleweekly.com/arts/952755-129/opening-nights-funny-girl” target=”_blank”>review</a>.] Everett Performing Arts Center, 2710 Wetmore Ave, Everett $30-$65 Sunday, August 3, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Sunday, August 3, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Sunday, August 3, 2014

Parlor Live Comedy Club See website for schedule. The Parlor Collection, 700 Bellevue Way N.E., Bellevue $15-$30 Sunday, August 3, 2014

Pink Door Cabaret Trapeze performances (6:15-8:45 p.m.) by Bridget Gunning (Sun.) and Tanya Brno (Mon.). Saturdays, go “Behind the Pink Door” (11 p.m.,). See website for full details.   The Pink Door, 1919 Post Alley, Seattle $20 cover Sunday, August 3, 2014

Teatro ZinZanni: When Sparks Fly Maestro Voronin headlines this mad-scientist-themed show. Opens June 6. Runs Thurs.-Sun. plus some Wed.; see zinzanni.com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends Sept. 21. Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., Seattle $99 and up Sunday, August 3, 2014

• 

The Book of Mormon Tickets went fast when this show toured through town in January of last year, and you’ll have to be quick on the mouse to book a seat for this return engagement. Things this hit show’s creators-Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez-hate: received wisdom, Disney plasticity, Johnnie Cochran, and condescension from anyone anywhere on the politico-religious spectrum. Things they love: production numbers. Their Tony-winning musical follows two fresh-faced Mormons, dorky, porky Elder Cunningham and square-jawed, self-adoring Elder Price, on their first mission to Uganda. Discovering that his confabulated Mormon myths draw converts even more effectively than the ones in his titular Book, Cunningham wreaks havoc in the village. For most of the evening, the combination of perky tunes (by Lopez), jazz hands, and verbal atrocities keeps the show bouncing along expertly. Then Book takes off to a new, exhilarating, hilariously profane dimension when the Ugandans reinterpret, in a show-within-a-show, all that Cunningham has taught them. Credit goes to Parker, Lopez, and Stone for creating a big, glitzy fun-fest that will be absolutely untouchable by any high-school drama department. Oh, and if the shows are already sold out or the tickets too dear, take heart that a movie adaptation is supposedly in the works. (Runs Tues.-Sun.; see stgpresents.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 10.) GAVIN BORCHERT The Paramount, 911 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98101 $45 and up Sunday, August 3, 2014

• 

Wooden O Again Seattle Shakespeare Co. is committed to outdoor productions of the Bard, and this summer’s offerings are The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar. The former, obviously, is a little more family friendly, with Jason Marr and Conner Neddersen, respectively, as BFFs Proteus and Valentine, whose parting triggers a series of love notes, saucy servants, disapproving fathers, misplaced affections, inpudant servants, mistaken identites, loveable brigands, premature announcements-of-death, and cross-dressing. David Quicksall directs. As for the Roman tragedy Julius Caesar, directed by Vanessa Miller, this will be an all-female production, with Therese Diekhans as the doomed overreaching tyrant, Suzanne Bouchard as Brutus, and Amy Thone as Cassius. (See seattleshakespeare.org for park locations and schedule.) BRIAN MILLER Free Sunday, August 3, 2014

Wicked Wiz of Oz A 45-minute mashup of your favorite Oz musicals, part of the “Mimosas With Mama” drag brunch. Narwhal, 1118 E. Pike St., Seattle $15-$20 Sunday, August 3, 2014, 1:30pm

An Evening of One-Acts This periodic series presents works by Steve Martin, Sam Shepard, and Woody Allen. R. Hamilton Wright directs them all, with proven stage talent you’ve seen during the prior season. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $15-$51 Sunday, August 3, 2014, 2pm

Hold These Truths UW student Gordon Hirabayashi was illegally interned during World War II. Joel de la Fuente plays him in this one-man dramatization. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $35 Sunday, August 3, 2014, 2 – 3:30pm

Weird and Awesome With Emmett Montgomery “A monthly parade [every first Sunday] of wonder and awkward sharing hosted and curated by mustache wizard Emmett Montgomery. 7:30 p.m. first Sunday of every month. Annex Theatre, 1110 Pike St., Seattle, WA 98122 $5-$10 Sunday, August 3, 2014, 7:30pm

Piggyback Stand-up and improv unite. 8:30 p.m. Sun.  Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $10 Sunday, August 3, 2014, 8:30pm

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Monday, August 4, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Monday, August 4, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Monday, August 4, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Monday, August 4, 2014

Pink Door Cabaret Trapeze performances (6:15-8:45 p.m.) by Bridget Gunning (Sun.) and Tanya Brno (Mon.). Saturdays, go “Behind the Pink Door” (11 p.m.,). See website for full details.   The Pink Door, 1919 Post Alley, Seattle $20 cover Monday, August 4, 2014

• 

Wooden O Again Seattle Shakespeare Co. is committed to outdoor productions of the Bard, and this summer’s offerings are The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar. The former, obviously, is a little more family friendly, with Jason Marr and Conner Neddersen, respectively, as BFFs Proteus and Valentine, whose parting triggers a series of love notes, saucy servants, disapproving fathers, misplaced affections, inpudant servants, mistaken identites, loveable brigands, premature announcements-of-death, and cross-dressing. David Quicksall directs. As for the Roman tragedy Julius Caesar, directed by Vanessa Miller, this will be an all-female production, with Therese Diekhans as the doomed overreaching tyrant, Suzanne Bouchard as Brutus, and Amy Thone as Cassius. (See seattleshakespeare.org for park locations and schedule.) BRIAN MILLER Free Monday, August 4, 2014

Pagliacci Comedy Night Local and national comics, every first Monday. Beer and wine will be available with ID. 8 p.m., first Monday of every month. Pagliacci Pizza, 426 Broadway Ave. E., Seattle, WA 98102 Free Monday, August 4, 2014, 8pm

• 

An Evening of One Acts Summer is the dead season for theater. It’s sunny outside, so who wants to be indoors? And with so many activities scheduled, it can be hard to concentrate on, say, four hours of Tony Kushner. For that reason, ACT is staging three short works by boldface names, all directed by R. Hamilton Wright. From 1995, Steve Martin’s Patter for the Floating Lady has a lovelorn magician (David Foubert) try to win back his former assisstant (Jessica Skerritt) by levitating her (kind of a gentler form of hostage-taking). How they’ll work this stage trick remains to be seen. Woody Allen’s Riverside Drive is one of those appropriations of a prior text of which the Woodman has grown too fond in recent years (recall Blue Jasmine/A Streetcar Named Desire). In this 2003 work, he paraphrases Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, with a nut case (Eric Ray Anderson) accosting a meek screenwriter (Chris Ensweiler) seated on a park bench and accusing him of having stolen his ideas. (Of course the two have never met.) Last is an early work by a true playwright: Sam Shepard. His 1969 The Unseen Hand is a somewhat uncategorizable sci-fi parable, with three outlaw brothers from the Old West reunited in modern times by an alien overlord. There’s talk of revolution and robbing trains, only there are no more trains left to rob. The sibling dynamics and lament for better, prior times will likely remind you of True West and other, later Shepard dramas. (Previews begin July 18, opens July 25. Runs Tues.-Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 17.) BRIAN MILLER ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $44 and up ($20 every Tues.) Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Comedy Womb This “female-focused but not female-exclusive” show includes a headliner and an open-mike segment, in the Grotto underneath the Rendezvous. JewelBox Theater at the Rendezvous, 2322 Second Ave., Seattle, WA 98121 $5 Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Tuesday, August 5, 2014

• 

The Book of Mormon Tickets went fast when this show toured through town in January of last year, and you’ll have to be quick on the mouse to book a seat for this return engagement. Things this hit show’s creators-Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez-hate: received wisdom, Disney plasticity, Johnnie Cochran, and condescension from anyone anywhere on the politico-religious spectrum. Things they love: production numbers. Their Tony-winning musical follows two fresh-faced Mormons, dorky, porky Elder Cunningham and square-jawed, self-adoring Elder Price, on their first mission to Uganda. Discovering that his confabulated Mormon myths draw converts even more effectively than the ones in his titular Book, Cunningham wreaks havoc in the village. For most of the evening, the combination of perky tunes (by Lopez), jazz hands, and verbal atrocities keeps the show bouncing along expertly. Then Book takes off to a new, exhilarating, hilariously profane dimension when the Ugandans reinterpret, in a show-within-a-show, all that Cunningham has taught them. Credit goes to Parker, Lopez, and Stone for creating a big, glitzy fun-fest that will be absolutely untouchable by any high-school drama department. Oh, and if the shows are already sold out or the tickets too dear, take heart that a movie adaptation is supposedly in the works. (Runs Tues.-Sun.; see stgpresents.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 10.) GAVIN BORCHERT The Paramount, 911 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98101 $45 and up Tuesday, August 5, 2014

• 

Wooden O Again Seattle Shakespeare Co. is committed to outdoor productions of the Bard, and this summer’s offerings are The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar. The former, obviously, is a little more family friendly, with Jason Marr and Conner Neddersen, respectively, as BFFs Proteus and Valentine, whose parting triggers a series of love notes, saucy servants, disapproving fathers, misplaced affections, inpudant servants, mistaken identites, loveable brigands, premature announcements-of-death, and cross-dressing. David Quicksall directs. As for the Roman tragedy Julius Caesar, directed by Vanessa Miller, this will be an all-female production, with Therese Diekhans as the doomed overreaching tyrant, Suzanne Bouchard as Brutus, and Amy Thone as Cassius. (See seattleshakespeare.org for park locations and schedule.) BRIAN MILLER Free Tuesday, August 5, 2014

An Evening of One-Acts This periodic series presents works by Steve Martin, Sam Shepard, and Woody Allen. R. Hamilton Wright directs them all, with proven stage talent you’ve seen during the prior season. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $15-$51 Tuesday, August 5, 2014, 7:30pm

• 

An Evening of One Acts Summer is the dead season for theater. It’s sunny outside, so who wants to be indoors? And with so many activities scheduled, it can be hard to concentrate on, say, four hours of Tony Kushner. For that reason, ACT is staging three short works by boldface names, all directed by R. Hamilton Wright. From 1995, Steve Martin’s Patter for the Floating Lady has a lovelorn magician (David Foubert) try to win back his former assisstant (Jessica Skerritt) by levitating her (kind of a gentler form of hostage-taking). How they’ll work this stage trick remains to be seen. Woody Allen’s Riverside Drive is one of those appropriations of a prior text of which the Woodman has grown too fond in recent years (recall Blue Jasmine/A Streetcar Named Desire). In this 2003 work, he paraphrases Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, with a nut case (Eric Ray Anderson) accosting a meek screenwriter (Chris Ensweiler) seated on a park bench and accusing him of having stolen his ideas. (Of course the two have never met.) Last is an early work by a true playwright: Sam Shepard. His 1969 The Unseen Hand is a somewhat uncategorizable sci-fi parable, with three outlaw brothers from the Old West reunited in modern times by an alien overlord. There’s talk of revolution and robbing trains, only there are no more trains left to rob. The sibling dynamics and lament for better, prior times will likely remind you of True West and other, later Shepard dramas. (Previews begin July 18, opens July 25. Runs Tues.-Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 17.) BRIAN MILLER ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $44 and up ($20 every Tues.) Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Comedy Womb This “female-focused but not female-exclusive” show includes a headliner and an open-mike segment, in the Grotto underneath the Rendezvous. JewelBox Theater at the Rendezvous, 2322 Second Ave., Seattle, WA 98121 $5 Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Wednesday, August 6, 2014

• 

Jane Eyre Musical theater has had some success with neglected orphans (Annie or Oliver!, anyone?), so an adaptation of Jane Eyre was probably inevitable. Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel is, after all, one of the earliest female coming-of-age tales ever told, set decades prior during the Georgian period. The show premiered on Broadway 14 years ago, and it might sound like a slog. Quite the opposite. Directed by Karen Lund, this production moves quickly and seamlessly through Jane’s early tale of woe. The show ((created by Paul Gordon and John Caird) focuses on our heroine’s middle period, after Jane is hired to work as a governess at the pleasure of apparent bachelor Edward Fairfax Rochester. Art Anderson’s Rochester is a manifold pleasure to behold. He sings well, commands the stage, and mugs for the audience with assurance. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Jessica Spencer, who turns in an uneven performance as the grown Jane. (Abi Brittle plays defiant 10-year-old Jane.) Too often her Jane seems bewildered and lost in her moral and spiritual upheaval; it’s difficult to see the spark that draws Rochester near. Even so, during the song “Painting Her Portrait,” Spencer gives a jaw-dropping performance, the seeds sown during Jane’s abusive childhood coming to fruition. It is a moving and frightening episode of self-doubt. (7:30 p.m. Wed.-Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 16.) MARK BAUMGARTEN Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., Seattle $15-$40 Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Teatro ZinZanni: When Sparks Fly Maestro Voronin headlines this mad-scientist-themed show. Opens June 6. Runs Thurs.-Sun. plus some Wed.; see zinzanni.com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends Sept. 21. Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., Seattle $99 and up Wednesday, August 6, 2014

• 

The Book of Mormon Tickets went fast when this show toured through town in January of last year, and you’ll have to be quick on the mouse to book a seat for this return engagement. Things this hit show’s creators-Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez-hate: received wisdom, Disney plasticity, Johnnie Cochran, and condescension from anyone anywhere on the politico-religious spectrum. Things they love: production numbers. Their Tony-winning musical follows two fresh-faced Mormons, dorky, porky Elder Cunningham and square-jawed, self-adoring Elder Price, on their first mission to Uganda. Discovering that his confabulated Mormon myths draw converts even more effectively than the ones in his titular Book, Cunningham wreaks havoc in the village. For most of the evening, the combination of perky tunes (by Lopez), jazz hands, and verbal atrocities keeps the show bouncing along expertly. Then Book takes off to a new, exhilarating, hilariously profane dimension when the Ugandans reinterpret, in a show-within-a-show, all that Cunningham has taught them. Credit goes to Parker, Lopez, and Stone for creating a big, glitzy fun-fest that will be absolutely untouchable by any high-school drama department. Oh, and if the shows are already sold out or the tickets too dear, take heart that a movie adaptation is supposedly in the works. (Runs Tues.-Sun.; see stgpresents.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 10.) GAVIN BORCHERT The Paramount, 911 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98101 $45 and up Wednesday, August 6, 2014

• 

Wooden O Again Seattle Shakespeare Co. is committed to outdoor productions of the Bard, and this summer’s offerings are The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar. The former, obviously, is a little more family friendly, with Jason Marr and Conner Neddersen, respectively, as BFFs Proteus and Valentine, whose parting triggers a series of love notes, saucy servants, disapproving fathers, misplaced affections, inpudant servants, mistaken identites, loveable brigands, premature announcements-of-death, and cross-dressing. David Quicksall directs. As for the Roman tragedy Julius Caesar, directed by Vanessa Miller, this will be an all-female production, with Therese Diekhans as the doomed overreaching tyrant, Suzanne Bouchard as Brutus, and Amy Thone as Cassius. (See seattleshakespeare.org for park locations and schedule.) BRIAN MILLER Free Wednesday, August 6, 2014

An Evening of One-Acts This periodic series presents works by Steve Martin, Sam Shepard, and Woody Allen. R. Hamilton Wright directs them all, with proven stage talent you’ve seen during the prior season. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $15-$51 Wednesday, August 6, 2014, 7:30pm

Flipside Comedy Show Stand-up every Wednesday at this bastion of old-school Seattle charm. 13 Coins, 125 Boren Ave. N., Seattle See website Wednesday, August 6, 2014, 8pm

Duos Comedy Showcase Unexpected Productions presents comedians two at a time. Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $5 Wednesday, August 6, 2014, 8:30pm

• 

An Evening of One Acts Summer is the dead season for theater. It’s sunny outside, so who wants to be indoors? And with so many activities scheduled, it can be hard to concentrate on, say, four hours of Tony Kushner. For that reason, ACT is staging three short works by boldface names, all directed by R. Hamilton Wright. From 1995, Steve Martin’s Patter for the Floating Lady has a lovelorn magician (David Foubert) try to win back his former assisstant (Jessica Skerritt) by levitating her (kind of a gentler form of hostage-taking). How they’ll work this stage trick remains to be seen. Woody Allen’s Riverside Drive is one of those appropriations of a prior text of which the Woodman has grown too fond in recent years (recall Blue Jasmine/A Streetcar Named Desire). In this 2003 work, he paraphrases Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, with a nut case (Eric Ray Anderson) accosting a meek screenwriter (Chris Ensweiler) seated on a park bench and accusing him of having stolen his ideas. (Of course the two have never met.) Last is an early work by a true playwright: Sam Shepard. His 1969 The Unseen Hand is a somewhat uncategorizable sci-fi parable, with three outlaw brothers from the Old West reunited in modern times by an alien overlord. There’s talk of revolution and robbing trains, only there are no more trains left to rob. The sibling dynamics and lament for better, prior times will likely remind you of True West and other, later Shepard dramas. (Previews begin July 18, opens July 25. Runs Tues.-Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 17.) BRIAN MILLER ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $44 and up ($20 every Tues.) Thursday, August 7, 2014

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Thursday, August 7, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Thursday, August 7, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Thursday, August 7, 2014

• 

Jane Eyre Musical theater has had some success with neglected orphans (Annie or Oliver!, anyone?), so an adaptation of Jane Eyre was probably inevitable. Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel is, after all, one of the earliest female coming-of-age tales ever told, set decades prior during the Georgian period. The show premiered on Broadway 14 years ago, and it might sound like a slog. Quite the opposite. Directed by Karen Lund, this production moves quickly and seamlessly through Jane’s early tale of woe. The show ((created by Paul Gordon and John Caird) focuses on our heroine’s middle period, after Jane is hired to work as a governess at the pleasure of apparent bachelor Edward Fairfax Rochester. Art Anderson’s Rochester is a manifold pleasure to behold. He sings well, commands the stage, and mugs for the audience with assurance. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Jessica Spencer, who turns in an uneven performance as the grown Jane. (Abi Brittle plays defiant 10-year-old Jane.) Too often her Jane seems bewildered and lost in her moral and spiritual upheaval; it’s difficult to see the spark that draws Rochester near. Even so, during the song “Painting Her Portrait,” Spencer gives a jaw-dropping performance, the seeds sown during Jane’s abusive childhood coming to fruition. It is a moving and frightening episode of self-doubt. (7:30 p.m. Wed.-Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 16.) MARK BAUMGARTEN Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., Seattle $15-$40 Thursday, August 7, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Thursday, August 7, 2014

Parlor Live Comedy Club See website for schedule. The Parlor Collection, 700 Bellevue Way N.E., Bellevue $15-$30 Thursday, August 7, 2014

Teatro ZinZanni: When Sparks Fly Maestro Voronin headlines this mad-scientist-themed show. Opens June 6. Runs Thurs.-Sun. plus some Wed.; see zinzanni.com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends Sept. 21. Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., Seattle $99 and up Thursday, August 7, 2014

The Amish Project Jessica Dickey’s stage retelling of the 2006 Nickel Mines Amish schoolhouse shooting. Opens July 24. 7:30 p.m. Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 9. Isaac Studio Theatre, 208 N. 85th St. $15-$25 Thursday, August 7, 2014

• 

The Book of Mormon Tickets went fast when this show toured through town in January of last year, and you’ll have to be quick on the mouse to book a seat for this return engagement. Things this hit show’s creators-Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez-hate: received wisdom, Disney plasticity, Johnnie Cochran, and condescension from anyone anywhere on the politico-religious spectrum. Things they love: production numbers. Their Tony-winning musical follows two fresh-faced Mormons, dorky, porky Elder Cunningham and square-jawed, self-adoring Elder Price, on their first mission to Uganda. Discovering that his confabulated Mormon myths draw converts even more effectively than the ones in his titular Book, Cunningham wreaks havoc in the village. For most of the evening, the combination of perky tunes (by Lopez), jazz hands, and verbal atrocities keeps the show bouncing along expertly. Then Book takes off to a new, exhilarating, hilariously profane dimension when the Ugandans reinterpret, in a show-within-a-show, all that Cunningham has taught them. Credit goes to Parker, Lopez, and Stone for creating a big, glitzy fun-fest that will be absolutely untouchable by any high-school drama department. Oh, and if the shows are already sold out or the tickets too dear, take heart that a movie adaptation is supposedly in the works. (Runs Tues.-Sun.; see stgpresents.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 10.) GAVIN BORCHERT The Paramount, 911 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98101 $45 and up Thursday, August 7, 2014

• 

Wooden O Again Seattle Shakespeare Co. is committed to outdoor productions of the Bard, and this summer’s offerings are The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar. The former, obviously, is a little more family friendly, with Jason Marr and Conner Neddersen, respectively, as BFFs Proteus and Valentine, whose parting triggers a series of love notes, saucy servants, disapproving fathers, misplaced affections, inpudant servants, mistaken identites, loveable brigands, premature announcements-of-death, and cross-dressing. David Quicksall directs. As for the Roman tragedy Julius Caesar, directed by Vanessa Miller, this will be an all-female production, with Therese Diekhans as the doomed overreaching tyrant, Suzanne Bouchard as Brutus, and Amy Thone as Cassius. (See seattleshakespeare.org for park locations and schedule.) BRIAN MILLER Free Thursday, August 7, 2014

An Evening of One-Acts This periodic series presents works by Steve Martin, Sam Shepard, and Woody Allen. R. Hamilton Wright directs them all, with proven stage talent you’ve seen during the prior season. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $15-$51 Thursday, August 7, 2014, 7:30pm

Attack of the Killer Murder of . . . Death “Agatha Christie meets Roger Corman” in this mystery sendup, set on a movie set in 1958. Opens July 18. 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. Ends Aug. 16. Theater Schmeater, 2125 Third Ave. $18-$25 Thursday, August 7, 2014, 8pm

Wise Guys Jet City Improv’s salute to mob movies. Opens July 10. 8 p.m. Thurs.-Fri. Ends Aug. 22. Historic University Theater, 5510 University Way N.E. $12-$15 Thursday, August 7, 2014, 8pm

Improv Anonymous: The Harold A narrative improv format created by legendary improv teacher Del Close.  Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $7 Thursday, August 7, 2014, 8:30pm

• 

An Evening of One Acts Summer is the dead season for theater. It’s sunny outside, so who wants to be indoors? And with so many activities scheduled, it can be hard to concentrate on, say, four hours of Tony Kushner. For that reason, ACT is staging three short works by boldface names, all directed by R. Hamilton Wright. From 1995, Steve Martin’s Patter for the Floating Lady has a lovelorn magician (David Foubert) try to win back his former assisstant (Jessica Skerritt) by levitating her (kind of a gentler form of hostage-taking). How they’ll work this stage trick remains to be seen. Woody Allen’s Riverside Drive is one of those appropriations of a prior text of which the Woodman has grown too fond in recent years (recall Blue Jasmine/A Streetcar Named Desire). In this 2003 work, he paraphrases Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, with a nut case (Eric Ray Anderson) accosting a meek screenwriter (Chris Ensweiler) seated on a park bench and accusing him of having stolen his ideas. (Of course the two have never met.) Last is an early work by a true playwright: Sam Shepard. His 1969 The Unseen Hand is a somewhat uncategorizable sci-fi parable, with three outlaw brothers from the Old West reunited in modern times by an alien overlord. There’s talk of revolution and robbing trains, only there are no more trains left to rob. The sibling dynamics and lament for better, prior times will likely remind you of True West and other, later Shepard dramas. (Previews begin July 18, opens July 25. Runs Tues.-Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 17.) BRIAN MILLER ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $44 and up ($20 every Tues.) Friday, August 8, 2014

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Friday, August 8, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Friday, August 8, 2014

ComedySportz Seattle Comedy Group moves their improv show to the former Empty Space. 8 & 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Atlas Theater, 3509 Fremont Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98103 $14 Friday, August 8, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Friday, August 8, 2014

• 

Jane Eyre Musical theater has had some success with neglected orphans (Annie or Oliver!, anyone?), so an adaptation of Jane Eyre was probably inevitable. Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel is, after all, one of the earliest female coming-of-age tales ever told, set decades prior during the Georgian period. The show premiered on Broadway 14 years ago, and it might sound like a slog. Quite the opposite. Directed by Karen Lund, this production moves quickly and seamlessly through Jane’s early tale of woe. The show ((created by Paul Gordon and John Caird) focuses on our heroine’s middle period, after Jane is hired to work as a governess at the pleasure of apparent bachelor Edward Fairfax Rochester. Art Anderson’s Rochester is a manifold pleasure to behold. He sings well, commands the stage, and mugs for the audience with assurance. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Jessica Spencer, who turns in an uneven performance as the grown Jane. (Abi Brittle plays defiant 10-year-old Jane.) Too often her Jane seems bewildered and lost in her moral and spiritual upheaval; it’s difficult to see the spark that draws Rochester near. Even so, during the song “Painting Her Portrait,” Spencer gives a jaw-dropping performance, the seeds sown during Jane’s abusive childhood coming to fruition. It is a moving and frightening episode of self-doubt. (7:30 p.m. Wed.-Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 16.) MARK BAUMGARTEN Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., Seattle $15-$40 Friday, August 8, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Friday, August 8, 2014

Parlor Live Comedy Club See website for schedule. The Parlor Collection, 700 Bellevue Way N.E., Bellevue $15-$30 Friday, August 8, 2014

Teatro ZinZanni: When Sparks Fly Maestro Voronin headlines this mad-scientist-themed show. Opens June 6. Runs Thurs.-Sun. plus some Wed.; see zinzanni.com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends Sept. 21. Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., Seattle $99 and up Friday, August 8, 2014

The Amish Project Jessica Dickey’s stage retelling of the 2006 Nickel Mines Amish schoolhouse shooting. Opens July 24. 7:30 p.m. Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 9. Isaac Studio Theatre, 208 N. 85th St. $15-$25 Friday, August 8, 2014

• 

The Book of Mormon Tickets went fast when this show toured through town in January of last year, and you’ll have to be quick on the mouse to book a seat for this return engagement. Things this hit show’s creators-Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez-hate: received wisdom, Disney plasticity, Johnnie Cochran, and condescension from anyone anywhere on the politico-religious spectrum. Things they love: production numbers. Their Tony-winning musical follows two fresh-faced Mormons, dorky, porky Elder Cunningham and square-jawed, self-adoring Elder Price, on their first mission to Uganda. Discovering that his confabulated Mormon myths draw converts even more effectively than the ones in his titular Book, Cunningham wreaks havoc in the village. For most of the evening, the combination of perky tunes (by Lopez), jazz hands, and verbal atrocities keeps the show bouncing along expertly. Then Book takes off to a new, exhilarating, hilariously profane dimension when the Ugandans reinterpret, in a show-within-a-show, all that Cunningham has taught them. Credit goes to Parker, Lopez, and Stone for creating a big, glitzy fun-fest that will be absolutely untouchable by any high-school drama department. Oh, and if the shows are already sold out or the tickets too dear, take heart that a movie adaptation is supposedly in the works. (Runs Tues.-Sun.; see stgpresents.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 10.) GAVIN BORCHERT The Paramount, 911 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98101 $45 and up Friday, August 8, 2014

• 

Wooden O Again Seattle Shakespeare Co. is committed to outdoor productions of the Bard, and this summer’s offerings are The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar. The former, obviously, is a little more family friendly, with Jason Marr and Conner Neddersen, respectively, as BFFs Proteus and Valentine, whose parting triggers a series of love notes, saucy servants, disapproving fathers, misplaced affections, inpudant servants, mistaken identites, loveable brigands, premature announcements-of-death, and cross-dressing. David Quicksall directs. As for the Roman tragedy Julius Caesar, directed by Vanessa Miller, this will be an all-female production, with Therese Diekhans as the doomed overreaching tyrant, Suzanne Bouchard as Brutus, and Amy Thone as Cassius. (See seattleshakespeare.org for park locations and schedule.) BRIAN MILLER Free Friday, August 8, 2014

PROK Open Mike Sign up for this generally zany and enjoyable evening, when professionals are also known to drop by.  The People’s Republic Kafe, 1718 12th Ave., Seattle Free Friday, August 8, 2014, 6:30pm

An Evening of One-Acts This periodic series presents works by Steve Martin, Sam Shepard, and Woody Allen. R. Hamilton Wright directs them all, with proven stage talent you’ve seen during the prior season. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $15-$51 Friday, August 8, 2014, 8pm

Attack of the Killer Murder of . . . Death “Agatha Christie meets Roger Corman” in this mystery sendup, set on a movie set in 1958. Opens July 18. 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. Ends Aug. 16. Theater Schmeater, 2125 Third Ave. $18-$25 Friday, August 8, 2014, 8pm

Wise Guys Jet City Improv’s salute to mob movies. Opens July 10. 8 p.m. Thurs.-Fri. Ends Aug. 22. Historic University Theater, 5510 University Way N.E. $12-$15 Friday, August 8, 2014, 8pm

Searching for the Super Scene Fast-paced improv from Unexpected Productions. 8:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $12-$15 Friday, August 8, 2014, 8:30pm

TheatreSports Unexpected Productions’ long-running (since 1983!) improv comedy show, pitting two teams against each other in front of a panel of judges. 10:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $15 Friday, August 8, 2014, 10:30pm

• 

An Evening of One Acts Summer is the dead season for theater. It’s sunny outside, so who wants to be indoors? And with so many activities scheduled, it can be hard to concentrate on, say, four hours of Tony Kushner. For that reason, ACT is staging three short works by boldface names, all directed by R. Hamilton Wright. From 1995, Steve Martin’s Patter for the Floating Lady has a lovelorn magician (David Foubert) try to win back his former assisstant (Jessica Skerritt) by levitating her (kind of a gentler form of hostage-taking). How they’ll work this stage trick remains to be seen. Woody Allen’s Riverside Drive is one of those appropriations of a prior text of which the Woodman has grown too fond in recent years (recall Blue Jasmine/A Streetcar Named Desire). In this 2003 work, he paraphrases Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, with a nut case (Eric Ray Anderson) accosting a meek screenwriter (Chris Ensweiler) seated on a park bench and accusing him of having stolen his ideas. (Of course the two have never met.) Last is an early work by a true playwright: Sam Shepard. His 1969 The Unseen Hand is a somewhat uncategorizable sci-fi parable, with three outlaw brothers from the Old West reunited in modern times by an alien overlord. There’s talk of revolution and robbing trains, only there are no more trains left to rob. The sibling dynamics and lament for better, prior times will likely remind you of True West and other, later Shepard dramas. (Previews begin July 18, opens July 25. Runs Tues.-Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 17.) BRIAN MILLER ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $44 and up ($20 every Tues.) Saturday, August 9, 2014

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Saturday, August 9, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Saturday, August 9, 2014

ComedySportz Seattle Comedy Group moves their improv show to the former Empty Space. 8 & 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Atlas Theater, 3509 Fremont Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98103 $14 Saturday, August 9, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Saturday, August 9, 2014

• 

Jane Eyre Musical theater has had some success with neglected orphans (Annie or Oliver!, anyone?), so an adaptation of Jane Eyre was probably inevitable. Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel is, after all, one of the earliest female coming-of-age tales ever told, set decades prior during the Georgian period. The show premiered on Broadway 14 years ago, and it might sound like a slog. Quite the opposite. Directed by Karen Lund, this production moves quickly and seamlessly through Jane’s early tale of woe. The show ((created by Paul Gordon and John Caird) focuses on our heroine’s middle period, after Jane is hired to work as a governess at the pleasure of apparent bachelor Edward Fairfax Rochester. Art Anderson’s Rochester is a manifold pleasure to behold. He sings well, commands the stage, and mugs for the audience with assurance. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Jessica Spencer, who turns in an uneven performance as the grown Jane. (Abi Brittle plays defiant 10-year-old Jane.) Too often her Jane seems bewildered and lost in her moral and spiritual upheaval; it’s difficult to see the spark that draws Rochester near. Even so, during the song “Painting Her Portrait,” Spencer gives a jaw-dropping performance, the seeds sown during Jane’s abusive childhood coming to fruition. It is a moving and frightening episode of self-doubt. (7:30 p.m. Wed.-Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 16.) MARK BAUMGARTEN Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., Seattle $15-$40 Saturday, August 9, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Saturday, August 9, 2014

Parlor Live Comedy Club See website for schedule. The Parlor Collection, 700 Bellevue Way N.E., Bellevue $15-$30 Saturday, August 9, 2014

Pink Door Cabaret Trapeze performances (6:15-8:45 p.m.) by Bridget Gunning (Sun.) and Tanya Brno (Mon.). Saturdays, go “Behind the Pink Door” (11 p.m.,). See website for full details.   The Pink Door, 1919 Post Alley, Seattle $20 cover Saturday, August 9, 2014

Teatro ZinZanni: When Sparks Fly Maestro Voronin headlines this mad-scientist-themed show. Opens June 6. Runs Thurs.-Sun. plus some Wed.; see zinzanni.com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends Sept. 21. Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., Seattle $99 and up Saturday, August 9, 2014

The Amish Project Jessica Dickey’s stage retelling of the 2006 Nickel Mines Amish schoolhouse shooting. Opens July 24. 7:30 p.m. Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 9. Isaac Studio Theatre, 208 N. 85th St. $15-$25 Saturday, August 9, 2014

• 

The Book of Mormon Tickets went fast when this show toured through town in January of last year, and you’ll have to be quick on the mouse to book a seat for this return engagement. Things this hit show’s creators-Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez-hate: received wisdom, Disney plasticity, Johnnie Cochran, and condescension from anyone anywhere on the politico-religious spectrum. Things they love: production numbers. Their Tony-winning musical follows two fresh-faced Mormons, dorky, porky Elder Cunningham and square-jawed, self-adoring Elder Price, on their first mission to Uganda. Discovering that his confabulated Mormon myths draw converts even more effectively than the ones in his titular Book, Cunningham wreaks havoc in the village. For most of the evening, the combination of perky tunes (by Lopez), jazz hands, and verbal atrocities keeps the show bouncing along expertly. Then Book takes off to a new, exhilarating, hilariously profane dimension when the Ugandans reinterpret, in a show-within-a-show, all that Cunningham has taught them. Credit goes to Parker, Lopez, and Stone for creating a big, glitzy fun-fest that will be absolutely untouchable by any high-school drama department. Oh, and if the shows are already sold out or the tickets too dear, take heart that a movie adaptation is supposedly in the works. (Runs Tues.-Sun.; see stgpresents.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 10.) GAVIN BORCHERT The Paramount, 911 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98101 $45 and up Saturday, August 9, 2014

• 

Wooden O Again Seattle Shakespeare Co. is committed to outdoor productions of the Bard, and this summer’s offerings are The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar. The former, obviously, is a little more family friendly, with Jason Marr and Conner Neddersen, respectively, as BFFs Proteus and Valentine, whose parting triggers a series of love notes, saucy servants, disapproving fathers, misplaced affections, inpudant servants, mistaken identites, loveable brigands, premature announcements-of-death, and cross-dressing. David Quicksall directs. As for the Roman tragedy Julius Caesar, directed by Vanessa Miller, this will be an all-female production, with Therese Diekhans as the doomed overreaching tyrant, Suzanne Bouchard as Brutus, and Amy Thone as Cassius. (See seattleshakespeare.org for park locations and schedule.) BRIAN MILLER Free Saturday, August 9, 2014

An Evening of One-Acts This periodic series presents works by Steve Martin, Sam Shepard, and Woody Allen. R. Hamilton Wright directs them all, with proven stage talent you’ve seen during the prior season. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $15-$51 Saturday, August 9, 2014, 8pm

Attack of the Killer Murder of . . . Death “Agatha Christie meets Roger Corman” in this mystery sendup, set on a movie set in 1958. Opens July 18. 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. Ends Aug. 16. Theater Schmeater, 2125 Third Ave. $18-$25 Saturday, August 9, 2014, 8pm

Searching for the Super Scene Fast-paced improv from Unexpected Productions. 8:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $12-$15 Saturday, August 9, 2014, 8:30pm

TheatreSports Unexpected Productions’ long-running (since 1983!) improv comedy show, pitting two teams against each other in front of a panel of judges. 10:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $15 Saturday, August 9, 2014, 10:30pm

• 

An Evening of One Acts Summer is the dead season for theater. It’s sunny outside, so who wants to be indoors? And with so many activities scheduled, it can be hard to concentrate on, say, four hours of Tony Kushner. For that reason, ACT is staging three short works by boldface names, all directed by R. Hamilton Wright. From 1995, Steve Martin’s Patter for the Floating Lady has a lovelorn magician (David Foubert) try to win back his former assisstant (Jessica Skerritt) by levitating her (kind of a gentler form of hostage-taking). How they’ll work this stage trick remains to be seen. Woody Allen’s Riverside Drive is one of those appropriations of a prior text of which the Woodman has grown too fond in recent years (recall Blue Jasmine/A Streetcar Named Desire). In this 2003 work, he paraphrases Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, with a nut case (Eric Ray Anderson) accosting a meek screenwriter (Chris Ensweiler) seated on a park bench and accusing him of having stolen his ideas. (Of course the two have never met.) Last is an early work by a true playwright: Sam Shepard. His 1969 The Unseen Hand is a somewhat uncategorizable sci-fi parable, with three outlaw brothers from the Old West reunited in modern times by an alien overlord. There’s talk of revolution and robbing trains, only there are no more trains left to rob. The sibling dynamics and lament for better, prior times will likely remind you of True West and other, later Shepard dramas. (Previews begin July 18, opens July 25. Runs Tues.-Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 17.) BRIAN MILLER ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $44 and up ($20 every Tues.) Sunday, August 10, 2014

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Sunday, August 10, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Sunday, August 10, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Sunday, August 10, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Sunday, August 10, 2014

Parlor Live Comedy Club See website for schedule. The Parlor Collection, 700 Bellevue Way N.E., Bellevue $15-$30 Sunday, August 10, 2014

Pink Door Cabaret Trapeze performances (6:15-8:45 p.m.) by Bridget Gunning (Sun.) and Tanya Brno (Mon.). Saturdays, go “Behind the Pink Door” (11 p.m.,). See website for full details.   The Pink Door, 1919 Post Alley, Seattle $20 cover Sunday, August 10, 2014

Teatro ZinZanni: When Sparks Fly Maestro Voronin headlines this mad-scientist-themed show. Opens June 6. Runs Thurs.-Sun. plus some Wed.; see zinzanni.com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends Sept. 21. Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., Seattle $99 and up Sunday, August 10, 2014

• 

The Book of Mormon Tickets went fast when this show toured through town in January of last year, and you’ll have to be quick on the mouse to book a seat for this return engagement. Things this hit show’s creators-Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez-hate: received wisdom, Disney plasticity, Johnnie Cochran, and condescension from anyone anywhere on the politico-religious spectrum. Things they love: production numbers. Their Tony-winning musical follows two fresh-faced Mormons, dorky, porky Elder Cunningham and square-jawed, self-adoring Elder Price, on their first mission to Uganda. Discovering that his confabulated Mormon myths draw converts even more effectively than the ones in his titular Book, Cunningham wreaks havoc in the village. For most of the evening, the combination of perky tunes (by Lopez), jazz hands, and verbal atrocities keeps the show bouncing along expertly. Then Book takes off to a new, exhilarating, hilariously profane dimension when the Ugandans reinterpret, in a show-within-a-show, all that Cunningham has taught them. Credit goes to Parker, Lopez, and Stone for creating a big, glitzy fun-fest that will be absolutely untouchable by any high-school drama department. Oh, and if the shows are already sold out or the tickets too dear, take heart that a movie adaptation is supposedly in the works. (Runs Tues.-Sun.; see stgpresents.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 10.) GAVIN BORCHERT The Paramount, 911 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98101 $45 and up Sunday, August 10, 2014

• 

Wooden O Again Seattle Shakespeare Co. is committed to outdoor productions of the Bard, and this summer’s offerings are The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar. The former, obviously, is a little more family friendly, with Jason Marr and Conner Neddersen, respectively, as BFFs Proteus and Valentine, whose parting triggers a series of love notes, saucy servants, disapproving fathers, misplaced affections, inpudant servants, mistaken identites, loveable brigands, premature announcements-of-death, and cross-dressing. David Quicksall directs. As for the Roman tragedy Julius Caesar, directed by Vanessa Miller, this will be an all-female production, with Therese Diekhans as the doomed overreaching tyrant, Suzanne Bouchard as Brutus, and Amy Thone as Cassius. (See seattleshakespeare.org for park locations and schedule.) BRIAN MILLER Free Sunday, August 10, 2014

Wicked Wiz of Oz A 45-minute mashup of your favorite Oz musicals, part of the “Mimosas With Mama” drag brunch. Narwhal, 1118 E. Pike St., Seattle $15-$20 Sunday, August 10, 2014, 1:30pm

An Evening of One-Acts This periodic series presents works by Steve Martin, Sam Shepard, and Woody Allen. R. Hamilton Wright directs them all, with proven stage talent you’ve seen during the prior season. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $15-$51 Sunday, August 10, 2014, 2pm

Piggyback Stand-up and improv unite. 8:30 p.m. Sun.  Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $10 Sunday, August 10, 2014, 8:30pm

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Monday, August 11, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Monday, August 11, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Monday, August 11, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Monday, August 11, 2014

Pink Door Cabaret Trapeze performances (6:15-8:45 p.m.) by Bridget Gunning (Sun.) and Tanya Brno (Mon.). Saturdays, go “Behind the Pink Door” (11 p.m.,). See website for full details.   The Pink Door, 1919 Post Alley, Seattle $20 cover Monday, August 11, 2014

• 

An Evening of One Acts Summer is the dead season for theater. It’s sunny outside, so who wants to be indoors? And with so many activities scheduled, it can be hard to concentrate on, say, four hours of Tony Kushner. For that reason, ACT is staging three short works by boldface names, all directed by R. Hamilton Wright. From 1995, Steve Martin’s Patter for the Floating Lady has a lovelorn magician (David Foubert) try to win back his former assisstant (Jessica Skerritt) by levitating her (kind of a gentler form of hostage-taking). How they’ll work this stage trick remains to be seen. Woody Allen’s Riverside Drive is one of those appropriations of a prior text of which the Woodman has grown too fond in recent years (recall Blue Jasmine/A Streetcar Named Desire). In this 2003 work, he paraphrases Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, with a nut case (Eric Ray Anderson) accosting a meek screenwriter (Chris Ensweiler) seated on a park bench and accusing him of having stolen his ideas. (Of course the two have never met.) Last is an early work by a true playwright: Sam Shepard. His 1969 The Unseen Hand is a somewhat uncategorizable sci-fi parable, with three outlaw brothers from the Old West reunited in modern times by an alien overlord. There’s talk of revolution and robbing trains, only there are no more trains left to rob. The sibling dynamics and lament for better, prior times will likely remind you of True West and other, later Shepard dramas. (Previews begin July 18, opens July 25. Runs Tues.-Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 17.) BRIAN MILLER ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $44 and up ($20 every Tues.) Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Comedy Womb This “female-focused but not female-exclusive” show includes a headliner and an open-mike segment, in the Grotto underneath the Rendezvous. JewelBox Theater at the Rendezvous, 2322 Second Ave., Seattle, WA 98121 $5 Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Tuesday, August 12, 2014

An Evening of One-Acts This periodic series presents works by Steve Martin, Sam Shepard, and Woody Allen. R. Hamilton Wright directs them all, with proven stage talent you’ve seen during the prior season. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $15-$51 Tuesday, August 12, 2014, 7:30pm

• 

An Evening of One Acts Summer is the dead season for theater. It’s sunny outside, so who wants to be indoors? And with so many activities scheduled, it can be hard to concentrate on, say, four hours of Tony Kushner. For that reason, ACT is staging three short works by boldface names, all directed by R. Hamilton Wright. From 1995, Steve Martin’s Patter for the Floating Lady has a lovelorn magician (David Foubert) try to win back his former assisstant (Jessica Skerritt) by levitating her (kind of a gentler form of hostage-taking). How they’ll work this stage trick remains to be seen. Woody Allen’s Riverside Drive is one of those appropriations of a prior text of which the Woodman has grown too fond in recent years (recall Blue Jasmine/A Streetcar Named Desire). In this 2003 work, he paraphrases Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, with a nut case (Eric Ray Anderson) accosting a meek screenwriter (Chris Ensweiler) seated on a park bench and accusing him of having stolen his ideas. (Of course the two have never met.) Last is an early work by a true playwright: Sam Shepard. His 1969 The Unseen Hand is a somewhat uncategorizable sci-fi parable, with three outlaw brothers from the Old West reunited in modern times by an alien overlord. There’s talk of revolution and robbing trains, only there are no more trains left to rob. The sibling dynamics and lament for better, prior times will likely remind you of True West and other, later Shepard dramas. (Previews begin July 18, opens July 25. Runs Tues.-Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 17.) BRIAN MILLER ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $44 and up ($20 every Tues.) Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Comedy Womb This “female-focused but not female-exclusive” show includes a headliner and an open-mike segment, in the Grotto underneath the Rendezvous. JewelBox Theater at the Rendezvous, 2322 Second Ave., Seattle, WA 98121 $5 Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Wednesday, August 13, 2014

• 

Jane Eyre Musical theater has had some success with neglected orphans (Annie or Oliver!, anyone?), so an adaptation of Jane Eyre was probably inevitable. Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel is, after all, one of the earliest female coming-of-age tales ever told, set decades prior during the Georgian period. The show premiered on Broadway 14 years ago, and it might sound like a slog. Quite the opposite. Directed by Karen Lund, this production moves quickly and seamlessly through Jane’s early tale of woe. The show ((created by Paul Gordon and John Caird) focuses on our heroine’s middle period, after Jane is hired to work as a governess at the pleasure of apparent bachelor Edward Fairfax Rochester. Art Anderson’s Rochester is a manifold pleasure to behold. He sings well, commands the stage, and mugs for the audience with assurance. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Jessica Spencer, who turns in an uneven performance as the grown Jane. (Abi Brittle plays defiant 10-year-old Jane.) Too often her Jane seems bewildered and lost in her moral and spiritual upheaval; it’s difficult to see the spark that draws Rochester near. Even so, during the song “Painting Her Portrait,” Spencer gives a jaw-dropping performance, the seeds sown during Jane’s abusive childhood coming to fruition. It is a moving and frightening episode of self-doubt. (7:30 p.m. Wed.-Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 16.) MARK BAUMGARTEN Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., Seattle $15-$40 Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Teatro ZinZanni: When Sparks Fly Maestro Voronin headlines this mad-scientist-themed show. Opens June 6. Runs Thurs.-Sun. plus some Wed.; see zinzanni.com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends Sept. 21. Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., Seattle $99 and up Wednesday, August 13, 2014

An Evening of One-Acts This periodic series presents works by Steve Martin, Sam Shepard, and Woody Allen. R. Hamilton Wright directs them all, with proven stage talent you’ve seen during the prior season. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $15-$51 Wednesday, August 13, 2014, 7:30pm

Flipside Comedy Show Stand-up every Wednesday at this bastion of old-school Seattle charm. 13 Coins, 125 Boren Ave. N., Seattle See website Wednesday, August 13, 2014, 8pm

Duos Comedy Showcase Unexpected Productions presents comedians two at a time. Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $5 Wednesday, August 13, 2014, 8:30pm

• 

An Evening of One Acts Summer is the dead season for theater. It’s sunny outside, so who wants to be indoors? And with so many activities scheduled, it can be hard to concentrate on, say, four hours of Tony Kushner. For that reason, ACT is staging three short works by boldface names, all directed by R. Hamilton Wright. From 1995, Steve Martin’s Patter for the Floating Lady has a lovelorn magician (David Foubert) try to win back his former assisstant (Jessica Skerritt) by levitating her (kind of a gentler form of hostage-taking). How they’ll work this stage trick remains to be seen. Woody Allen’s Riverside Drive is one of those appropriations of a prior text of which the Woodman has grown too fond in recent years (recall Blue Jasmine/A Streetcar Named Desire). In this 2003 work, he paraphrases Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, with a nut case (Eric Ray Anderson) accosting a meek screenwriter (Chris Ensweiler) seated on a park bench and accusing him of having stolen his ideas. (Of course the two have never met.) Last is an early work by a true playwright: Sam Shepard. His 1969 The Unseen Hand is a somewhat uncategorizable sci-fi parable, with three outlaw brothers from the Old West reunited in modern times by an alien overlord. There’s talk of revolution and robbing trains, only there are no more trains left to rob. The sibling dynamics and lament for better, prior times will likely remind you of True West and other, later Shepard dramas. (Previews begin July 18, opens July 25. Runs Tues.-Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 17.) BRIAN MILLER ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $44 and up ($20 every Tues.) Thursday, August 14, 2014

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Thursday, August 14, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Thursday, August 14, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Thursday, August 14, 2014

• 

Jane Eyre Musical theater has had some success with neglected orphans (Annie or Oliver!, anyone?), so an adaptation of Jane Eyre was probably inevitable. Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel is, after all, one of the earliest female coming-of-age tales ever told, set decades prior during the Georgian period. The show premiered on Broadway 14 years ago, and it might sound like a slog. Quite the opposite. Directed by Karen Lund, this production moves quickly and seamlessly through Jane’s early tale of woe. The show ((created by Paul Gordon and John Caird) focuses on our heroine’s middle period, after Jane is hired to work as a governess at the pleasure of apparent bachelor Edward Fairfax Rochester. Art Anderson’s Rochester is a manifold pleasure to behold. He sings well, commands the stage, and mugs for the audience with assurance. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Jessica Spencer, who turns in an uneven performance as the grown Jane. (Abi Brittle plays defiant 10-year-old Jane.) Too often her Jane seems bewildered and lost in her moral and spiritual upheaval; it’s difficult to see the spark that draws Rochester near. Even so, during the song “Painting Her Portrait,” Spencer gives a jaw-dropping performance, the seeds sown during Jane’s abusive childhood coming to fruition. It is a moving and frightening episode of self-doubt. (7:30 p.m. Wed.-Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 16.) MARK BAUMGARTEN Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., Seattle $15-$40 Thursday, August 14, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Thursday, August 14, 2014

Parlor Live Comedy Club See website for schedule. The Parlor Collection, 700 Bellevue Way N.E., Bellevue $15-$30 Thursday, August 14, 2014

Teatro ZinZanni: When Sparks Fly Maestro Voronin headlines this mad-scientist-themed show. Opens June 6. Runs Thurs.-Sun. plus some Wed.; see zinzanni.com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends Sept. 21. Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., Seattle $99 and up Thursday, August 14, 2014

An Evening of One-Acts This periodic series presents works by Steve Martin, Sam Shepard, and Woody Allen. R. Hamilton Wright directs them all, with proven stage talent you’ve seen during the prior season. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $15-$51 Thursday, August 14, 2014, 7:30pm

Attack of the Killer Murder of . . . Death “Agatha Christie meets Roger Corman” in this mystery sendup, set on a movie set in 1958. Opens July 18. 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. Ends Aug. 16. Theater Schmeater, 2125 Third Ave. $18-$25 Thursday, August 14, 2014, 8pm

Wise Guys Jet City Improv’s salute to mob movies. Opens July 10. 8 p.m. Thurs.-Fri. Ends Aug. 22. Historic University Theater, 5510 University Way N.E. $12-$15 Thursday, August 14, 2014, 8pm

Improv Anonymous: The Harold A narrative improv format created by legendary improv teacher Del Close.  Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $7 Thursday, August 14, 2014, 8:30pm

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An Evening of One Acts Summer is the dead season for theater. It’s sunny outside, so who wants to be indoors? And with so many activities scheduled, it can be hard to concentrate on, say, four hours of Tony Kushner. For that reason, ACT is staging three short works by boldface names, all directed by R. Hamilton Wright. From 1995, Steve Martin’s Patter for the Floating Lady has a lovelorn magician (David Foubert) try to win back his former assisstant (Jessica Skerritt) by levitating her (kind of a gentler form of hostage-taking). How they’ll work this stage trick remains to be seen. Woody Allen’s Riverside Drive is one of those appropriations of a prior text of which the Woodman has grown too fond in recent years (recall Blue Jasmine/A Streetcar Named Desire). In this 2003 work, he paraphrases Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, with a nut case (Eric Ray Anderson) accosting a meek screenwriter (Chris Ensweiler) seated on a park bench and accusing him of having stolen his ideas. (Of course the two have never met.) Last is an early work by a true playwright: Sam Shepard. His 1969 The Unseen Hand is a somewhat uncategorizable sci-fi parable, with three outlaw brothers from the Old West reunited in modern times by an alien overlord. There’s talk of revolution and robbing trains, only there are no more trains left to rob. The sibling dynamics and lament for better, prior times will likely remind you of True West and other, later Shepard dramas. (Previews begin July 18, opens July 25. Runs Tues.-Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 17.) BRIAN MILLER ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $44 and up ($20 every Tues.) Friday, August 15, 2014

Can Can Cabarets Seattle’s center for neo-burlesque presents shows and/or live music nearly every night; see website for full details and ticket prices. Can Can, 94 Pike St. Downstairs from Matts & Chez Chea, Seattle see website Friday, August 15, 2014

Comedy Underground See website for complete schedule, including their “Monday Madness” open-mike night, 8 p.m. Comedy Underground, 109 S. Washington St., Seattle, WA 98104 $6 Friday, August 15, 2014

ComedySportz Seattle Comedy Group moves their improv show to the former Empty Space. 8 & 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Atlas Theater, 3509 Fremont Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98103 $14 Friday, August 15, 2014

Greenstage

Othello, Love’s Labours Lost, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Comedy of Errors in various area parks, July 11-Aug. 16, all free. See greenstage.org for full schedule. Free Friday, August 15, 2014

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Jane Eyre Musical theater has had some success with neglected orphans (Annie or Oliver!, anyone?), so an adaptation of Jane Eyre was probably inevitable. Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel is, after all, one of the earliest female coming-of-age tales ever told, set decades prior during the Georgian period. The show premiered on Broadway 14 years ago, and it might sound like a slog. Quite the opposite. Directed by Karen Lund, this production moves quickly and seamlessly through Jane’s early tale of woe. The show ((created by Paul Gordon and John Caird) focuses on our heroine’s middle period, after Jane is hired to work as a governess at the pleasure of apparent bachelor Edward Fairfax Rochester. Art Anderson’s Rochester is a manifold pleasure to behold. He sings well, commands the stage, and mugs for the audience with assurance. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Jessica Spencer, who turns in an uneven performance as the grown Jane. (Abi Brittle plays defiant 10-year-old Jane.) Too often her Jane seems bewildered and lost in her moral and spiritual upheaval; it’s difficult to see the spark that draws Rochester near. Even so, during the song “Painting Her Portrait,” Spencer gives a jaw-dropping performance, the seeds sown during Jane’s abusive childhood coming to fruition. It is a moving and frightening episode of self-doubt. (7:30 p.m. Wed.-Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Ends Aug. 16.) MARK BAUMGARTEN Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., Seattle $15-$40 Friday, August 15, 2014

Laughs Stand-up and other comedy. See website for complete schedule, including open-mike night.  Laughs Comedy Spot, 12099 124th Ave. N.E., Kirkland, WA 98034 $10-$20 Friday, August 15, 2014

Parlor Live Comedy Club See website for schedule. The Parlor Collection, 700 Bellevue Way N.E., Bellevue $15-$30 Friday, August 15, 2014

Teatro ZinZanni: When Sparks Fly Maestro Voronin headlines this mad-scientist-themed show. Opens June 6. Runs Thurs.-Sun. plus some Wed.; see zinzanni.com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends Sept. 21. Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., Seattle $99 and up Friday, August 15, 2014

PROK Open Mike Sign up for this generally zany and enjoyable evening, when professionals are also known to drop by.  The People’s Republic Kafe, 1718 12th Ave., Seattle Free Friday, August 15, 2014, 6:30pm

An Evening of One-Acts This periodic series presents works by Steve Martin, Sam Shepard, and Woody Allen. R. Hamilton Wright directs them all, with proven stage talent you’ve seen during the prior season. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $15-$51 Friday, August 15, 2014, 8pm

Attack of the Killer Murder of . . . Death “Agatha Christie meets Roger Corman” in this mystery sendup, set on a movie set in 1958. Opens July 18. 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. Ends Aug. 16. Theater Schmeater, 2125 Third Ave. $18-$25 Friday, August 15, 2014, 8pm

Wise Guys Jet City Improv’s salute to mob movies. Opens July 10. 8 p.m. Thurs.-Fri. Ends Aug. 22. Historic University Theater, 5510 University Way N.E. $12-$15 Friday, August 15, 2014, 8pm

Searching for the Super Scene Fast-paced improv from Unexpected Productions. 8:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $12-$15 Friday, August 15, 2014, 8:30pm

TheatreSports Unexpected Productions’ long-running (since 1983!) improv comedy show, pitting two teams against each other in front of a panel of judges. 10:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Unexpected Productions Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley, Seattle $15 Friday, August 15, 2014, 10:30pm

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An Evening of One Acts Summer is the dead season for theater. It’s sunny outside, so who wants to be indoors? And with so many activities scheduled, it can be hard to concentrate on, say, four hours of Tony Kushner. For that reason, ACT is staging three short works by boldface names, all directed by R. Hamilton Wright. From 1995, Steve Martin’s Patter for the Floating Lady has a lovelorn magician (David Foubert) try to win back his former assisstant (Jessica Skerritt) by levitating her (kind of a gentler form of hostage-taking). How they’ll work this stage trick remains to be seen. Woody Allen’s Riverside Drive is one of those appropriations of a prior text of which the Woodman has grown too fond in recent years (recall Blue Jasmine/A Streetcar Named Desire). In this 2003 work, he paraphrases Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, with a nut case (Eric Ray Anderson) accosting a meek screenwriter (Chris Ensweiler) seated on a park bench and accusing him of having stolen his ideas. (Of course the two have never met.) Last is an early work by a true playwright: Sam Shepard. His 1969 The Unseen Hand is a somewhat uncategorizable sci-fi parable, with three outlaw brothers from the Old West reunited in modern times by an alien overlord. There’s talk of revolution and robbing trains, only there are no more trains left to rob. The sibling dynamics and lament for better, prior times will likely remind you of True West and other, later Shepard dramas. (Previews begin July 18, opens July 25. Runs Tues.-Sun.; see acttheatre.org for exact schedule. Ends Aug. 17.) BRIAN MILLER ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle, WA 98101 $44 and up ($20 every Tues.) Saturday, August 16, 2014