Seattle Rep’s DRY POWDER: Beyond the Theater

Seattle Repertory Theatre presents DRY POWDER by Sarah Burgess from March 17 – April 15, 2017. Set in the top echelons of today’s morally-compromised financial sector, this dark comedy explores the uneasy relationship between being good and doing well. Librarians at Seattle Public Library created this list of books, CDs and films to enhance your experience of the show: Seattle Rep’s DRY POWDER: Beyond the Theater.

Movie Mondays: What’s So Funny about Sports?

I love comedies. I don’t love sports. But I do love the sports comedy sub-genre. These four films rise to the top of the ranks in my book (along with the best sports comedy ever, Caddyshack, which I’ve blogged about previously and will probably write about again).

The Bad News Bears (1976) was a favorite of mine as a kid, though it’s really not a “family movie.” Walter Matthau stars as Coach Morris Buttermaker, the curmudgeonly down-and-out coach of a terrible little league baseball team full of foul mouthed boys. That is, until Coach recruits Amanda Whurlitzer (Tatum O’Neal), who’s pitch is good enough to turn the team’s luck around, if the rest of the team would only accept her. It’s an interesting combination of the benefits of grit and perseverance alongside cynicism and lots of rude, crude (but funny) humor.

Jet City Improv presents Live Theatre at the Library!

​Posted by Elizabeth W.

Come and contribute to a lively, rollicking comedy show where your participation is key! Jet City Improv’s talented performers will collect ideas from audience members to create short-form, unique sketches in a style similar to “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”

This show is highly participatory and fast-paced — in order to enjoy a lively and energetic performance, Jet City Improv strongly recommends that you eat a meal before the show. Created in 1992 by Mike Christensen and Andrew McMasters, Jet City Improv has grown over the years into one of Seattle’s most popular theater experiences. Now in its 21st year, it is a fast-paced, funny, audience-interactive, all-ages appropriate short-form improv show that performs in Seattle at the Historic University Theater every weekend.

The comedy show will take place at the Central Library on Friday, August 8th from 7 to 8 p.m. All are welcome!

Interested in comedy? Check out our The Art and Techniques of Writing Comedy booklist.

 

Movie Mondays: Kings of Comedy

This fall we saw the publication of books about two comedy giants – the biography Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him by Henry David and the autobiography Still Foolin’ Em: Where I’ve Been, Where I’m Going, and Where the Hell are My Keys? by Billy Crystal. The following films, some of their finest and funniest, are perfect companions to these biographies.

Sit Down with Stand-Ups

My colleagues inform me that March is the official month of mirth, a more depressing concept I truly cannot think of. Despite my enormous reservations with such a frivolously joyful demarcation (what next, Cake and Presents Day?!?), I resign myself to acknowledging such trivialities in my role of public servant.

So here we are. Mirth. Laughs. Jollies. Chortles and/or guffaws. Who better to administer a professional prescription of glee than stand-up comedians? It seems like two decades ago the apex of a comedian’s career was landing an eponymous sitcom on broadcast television. Since the sitcom is now a relic of simpler times the only recourse for gagsters appears to be quill and parchment. 

The funniest nail in the sitcom coffin has got to be Larry David’s HBO comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm. Two of the show’s side-splittingly hilarious co-stars, Susie Essman and Jeff Garlin released books recently. Ms. Essman’s What Would Susie Say? takes its tone from the foul-mouthed, outspoken housewife she