Megan Coughlin's Cultural Events, 2003
# Date Event Venue Comment
1 1/12/03 Don Pasquale Seattle Opera Good comic opera. Whoever did the supertitles did an excellent job of bringing out the humor.
2 1/25/03 Twelfth Night Seattle Shakespeare Company Quite well done.
3 1/30/03 Russian Nights Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) A series of fairly traditional ballets, but extremely athletic and impressively danced. Good music, too.
4 2/8/03 Russian Nights PNB

Paquita
Tchaikovsky pas de Deux
Esmerelda pas de Deux
Theme & Variations
5 2/9/03 The Triumph of Love Seattle Repertory Theatre (Seattle Rep) Another Mariveaux play, adapted and translated by Stephen Wadsworth, with Harlequin as a main character. Not as consistently uproarious as some, but good.
6 2/15/03 All the Great Books (Abridged) ACT Theatre If the Reduced Shakespeare Company comes to your town, I recommend seeing them. I had seen their "Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)" at the Rep.
7 2/23/03 Norma Seattle Opera Although we saw the "silver" cast, I was quite impressed with both the Soprano and the Mezzo. Great sets, too.
8 3/2/03 Boy Gets Girl Seattle Rep Scary play about stalking. The same author wrote "Spinning Into Butter," which I saw at the Rep in 2001. That one was just not as good as I wanted it to be; this one did a much better job of living up to its promise.
9 3/13/03 Jardi Tancat PNB

Four ballets, two that are modern American, and two that are modern European. All were amazing, although I tend to like the European stuff a little better, I guess:

Quaternary -- set to music by Rachmaninoff, with two pianos on stage with the eight dancers
Scripted in the Body -- included prose from Jeannette Winterson's book "Written on the Body" recited by one of the dancers as he danced
Jardi Tancat -- one of my all-time favorites with this amazing Catalan singer
Fearful Symmetries -- fabulous, even though the title comes from William Blake's "Tyger" (incidentally, try not to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" when you read "Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright/In the forests of the night/What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?")
10 3/22/03 Jardi Tancat PNB Amazing. My only complaint is that the description of "Fearful Symmetries" uses the word "turgid", which must have a ballet connotation that means "complex", because I do not think it means what they think it means. Anyhow, the music wasn't turgid at all...it was like an orchestra playing at being choo-choo trains.
11 4/19/03 Amazed in Burning Dreams PNB

Zais -- the first movement was a little frenetic, but otherwise quite amazing.
Amazed in Burning Dreams -- music by Philip Glass, yet not at all annoying.
Souvenirs -- set in a 1930s NY hotel. Fun.
12 4/20/03 Nora Intiman Theatre By Ingmar Bergman, based on Ibsen's "A Doll's House".
13 4/27/03 Things Being What They Are Seattle Rep Pretty good play about two men (starring great Seattle actors) who move next door to each other and develop an unlikely friendship.
14 5/3/03 The Taming of the Shrew Seattle Shakespeare All male cast. Lots of singing. Pretty darn good, actually.
15 5/10/03 Fidelio Seattle Opera Actually missed going to the matinee I was supposed to attend, but really wanted to see Jane Eaglen sing the title role.
16 5/18/03 2 Pianos, 4 Hands Seattle Rep

Two pianists/actors reenacting their "piano nerd" childhoods. Fun, and with some great music.

17 6/1/03 The Light in the Piazza Intiman Fine, but overhyped.
18 7/27/03 Blue/Orange Intiman Really very good.
19 8/2/03 Parsifal Seattle Opera Five hours of Wagner, but great music and excellent singers.
20 9/6/03 UW Huskies vs. Indiana Husky Stadium Kind of a dismal first half, but a convincing win in the end.
21 9/7/03 Cirque du Soleil Grand Chapiteau in Renton Thank god there's a place for rhythmic gymnasts to find work.
22 9/14/03 Homebody/Kabul Intiman Really just incredibly amazing. It's essentially almost two plays: the first a 1-hour monologue by the Homebody; the second in Kabul, trying to figure out what has happened to the Homebody.
23 9/20/03 UW Huskies vs. Idaho Husky Stadium Another scary first half, another commanding win. Can't keep playing like this in the Pac-10, though. Still, is there a nicer place to spend a sunny Saturday?
24 9/27/03 UW Huskies vs. Stanford Husky Stadium Finally, a really good game. Started out a bit flat, but they woke up and realized they were pretty evenly matched.
25 10/4/03 Swan Lake PNB Just bloody incredible. I'd seen it once before, at the Opera Garnier in Paris, but this was even better. Kent Stowell eliminated some of the boring choreography, and Patricia Barker was amazing as Odile/Odette, turning her very sweet, swanlike appeal into something aggressive and grasping in the second act.
26 10/11/03 UW Huskies vs. Nevada Husky Stadium A great game...if you're a Nevada fan. Really just appallingly bad for Huskies, though.
27 10/18/03 Mourning Becomes Electra Seattle Opera Can't complain about the story, sets, direction, or singing, but I just didn't like the music. Too expository, not sufficiently melodic, nor dramatic.
28 10/25/03 UW Huskies vs. USC Husky Stadium Horrible.
29 10/26/03 21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com Intiman Hilarious. You could tell which audience members found it hitting close to home.
30 10/27/03 Misalliance Seattle Rep Quite funny George Bernard Shaw play.
31 11/1/03 UW Huskies vs. Oregon Husky Stadium Fun.
32 11/11/03 A Woman of No Importance Theatre Royal Haymarket, London Very well done production of this Oscar Wilde play.
33 11/12/03 Me and My Girl Theatre Royal Sawclose, Bath Performed by the Bath Light Opera Group ("BLOG"), not all of whom were quite up to the challenge. The two leads were good, though, and the audience seemed to love the whole experience.
34 11/13/03 Anything Goes Theatre Royal Drury Lane, London Fabulous production.
35 11/22/03 UW Huskies vs. WSU (Apple Cup) Husky Stadium I can't believe the Huskies pulled out a win, but it certainly was fun to watch.
36  11/30/03 Over the Moon

Seattle Rep

 Based on a PG Wodehouse book, a fun farce.
37 12/13/03 Luminaria ("Pathway of Lights") Greenlake This year, they were actually blowing out the candles as we walked. Next year, we're going to have to walk first, eat dinner later.
38 12/25/03 The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King Oaktree Cinema Yaay! I'm bummed that the series is complete, though.

Last updated: January 5, 2004
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