News

Announcing our 2024 project: ROMEO AND JULIET!

April 5th, 2024

After a lengthy deliberations process, we are excited to announce our 2024 Summer Mainstage project in partnership with Kent Station! Theatre Battery is entering its 13th year of continuous operations, and though our work began with a focus on new plays, we are in an era of expanding the boundaries of what we create. Children's theater, festivals, films, animation, puppetry, drag, dance, music, classes - storytelling and community building through several forms. This year, we are offering our first experience of a global classic.

Imagine being in a family that you would kill to protect. Everyone in town is after your money, and some of them want your blood. One night, your teenage son is out too late. You pray that your enemies haven't found him, but the reality is worse: he has already been struck down... by Cupid.

Theatre Battery presents William Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET opening September 2024 at Kent Station with Radical Hospitality: Free Admission for All Audiences.

This production will feature over thirty performers including professional actors, community members, musicians, dancers, and students. Casting is now open, with in-person auditions and workshops taking place April 28th, 29th, and 30th at Kent Station. We are seeking individuals of all experience levels, ages 5 to 100. More information is available on our Work with us page or via email at theatrebatterycasting@gmail.com.

This is one of our most ambitious projects to date, and it would not be possible without our generous partners, donors, Kent Station, our fiscal sponsor Shunpike, and your enthusiasm and support. Donate, share, and get involved now to support the growth of the arts in Kent!

Theatre Battery is returning to full production!

April 28th, 2023

After four years of waiting, we are humbled and pumped to announce that we are returning to the full production of live theater in Kent in the Summer of 2023! The new comedy DEEP PURPLE WIGGLE written by Milo Cramer and directed by Logan Ellis will open with Radical Hospitality: No Cost ticketing on August 26th, 2023 at Kent Station.

DEEP PURPLE WIGGLE is about Bro and Sibling: twins in their 30s who, up until recently, have self-identified as dudes. When one comes out to the other as non-binary (without either of them fully knowing what it means), a queer Pandora's box is opened. A new play written in January of this year, playwright Milo Cramer is leading a conversation about the weird world of contemporary masculinity.

In addition to the return of our mainstage series, Theatre Battery will again host a free-admission scene study lab for local actors and high school students in July, along with a series of staged readings of developing works and other events to be announced.

Theatre Battery's last full production (Eiko Kadono's Kiki's Delivery Service) went up in Summer of 2019, and we have since created a series of online film and animation projects along with new play development, community building, and educational programs. A huge thanks is owed to everyone who has stood by the organization and lent the community their creativity during this pandemic era.

We believe that it is possible to sustain a professional non-profit theater organization in Kent, and this year we are proud to be supported by 4culture, the Kent Arts Commission, WA State Department of Commerce, and our individual donors. We are under the fiscal sponsorship of Shunpike and are currently accepting tax-deductible donations and participating in WA State's GiveBIG campaign.

Thank you for being in our community. We look forward to seeing you at Kent Station this summer!

Theatre Battery is returning to in-person events!

June 5th, 2022

Dear Friends!

After two years of hiatus from the making of live events, we are preparing to return to in-person programs this summer at Theatre Battery! We are reconnecting our community in Kent and rebuilding our shared creative space at Kent Station.

Theatre Battery is now eleven years old, and we have been thinking at length about how to keep growing within the myriad new challenges associated with producing during the pandemic. So we decided to take a special risk: we will be foregoing any full productions for 2022 and instead investing in free community classes, new projects in development, and artistic celebrations.

Here is what we are looking forward to offering you this summer:

LEGO Harry Potter and the Transgender Witch will have a full-series screening in-person with free admission on Wednesday, June 29th at 7pm! This lock-down animated project has screened across the country in queer film festivals and now comes home with cast appearances, merch, and more. Reservations are available now.
The Battery Powered Series will return with public readings of new plays in development in late July. Among these works will be anticipated development of The Green River Killer Project, which Theatre Battery has been gestating for three years.
The Theatre Battery Acting Lab, a scene study class available to local actors of all levels free of charge, will return for a two-week session from July 11th - 22nd, with a culminating public showcase. With class sections for both professional actors and local high school students, we welcome our community to join us in practicing some craft.
Sleep is for the Weak, our 24-hour new play festival experience featuring local theater artists generating material in a one-day sprint, will return for its seventh cycle on the weekend of July 30th.
Please note: We will be operating as a fully-vaccinated company and requiring proof of Covid-19 vaccination for entrance to our spaces.

In response to the intense economic impact of the pandemic on the artist community, we will be providing increased payment to our full staff and contracted artistic workers from here onward. We believe that it is possible to sustain a professional non-profit theater organization within the Kent community, and we need your support! We are under the fiscal sponsorship of Shunpike and are currently accepting tax-deductible donations. If you are interested in participating as an artist this season, please see our Work With Us page for application information.

We look forward to being in touch with you as this pandemic recovery festival season comes to fruition.

Thank you again for visiting the new Theatre Battery website and for reading this update! Please reach out to us at theatrebattery@gmail.com if you have any questions, concerns, comments, or epiphanies.

Theatre Battery Has a New Website (and Other Updates)

January 15th, 2021

Thank you for your interest in Theatre Battery and for visiting our new website! We hope to get to know you as well, whether you are from Kent or you are checking us out from around the world. As you likely know, the events of 2020 have put a halt to the kind of work that we are most trained to do (a.k.a. in-person entertainment events in which viruses would be all too happy to frolic). We are working in solidarity with the other theaters in our region to return to live production when it can be safe for everyone in our community. Check out our ongoing YouTube Channel for short-form content being created by our artists and follow us on Facebook and Twitter for our latest updates.

In addition to confronting the obstacles posed by the pandemic, theater makers and companies across the United States have been coming together in renewed spirits to change the historic patterns of racism, discrimination, and bias that have challenged and characterized our industry at large for decades. There is a tremendous amount of work that must happen in order to build an industry that does justice to the cultural depth of our world and the people within it. Black, Indigenous, East Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern, Pacific Islander, Latinx, mixed-race communities, immigrant and refugee populations, and other People of Color have been historically excluded from and otherwise abused by the American theater. This injustice has taken countless forms and been called to attention for decades by those that love theater.

It is also our reality that efforts surrounding the building of a more equitable and just artistic ecosystem are political and charged with generational controversy. This often runs alongside the conservative versus liberal duality of our country, which is unfortunate for many theater audiences. It happens all too often that material created for the ideals of social justice alienates the exact people that it is trying to reach, by being inaccessible, self-righteous, or otherwise disconnected from the communities depicted. Kent is a place that straddles this cultural and political divide, with a swiftly growing suburban working class population that is composed majorly of people of color and immigrants.

Theatre Battery aspires to be a resource within the Kent community that generates local dialogue about anti-racism while facilitating creative opportunities for a diverse group of artists. This is all to the end of enhancing cultural and artistic equity within South King County. We are far from alone in this, as the myriad nonprofits, schools, government bodies, activists, and religious institutions serving Kent have been our mentors in social justice since our inception. We are foremost accountable to the Kent community and our mission to serve this region. For a more in-depth exploration of the impact of COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, and other current topics as they relate to Kent, we participated in the creation of a documentary film.

Our resources are modest, but we are at your disposal and working toward bringing you our work in-person again in the future. It will take some time and effort before we are able to produce a full play as we have done each summer for the last ten years, and we appreciate your patience and support. Our funding currently is going exclusively toward the payment of artists for our digital creations, and any donations to Theatre Battery will go directly to such efforts. Our remote staff will be volunteer-based until such time as we can raise funding on a larger scale.