NW New Works Fest @ On the Boards

Queen Shmooquan in "I am a Promise," part of the studio showcase at the 2009 NW New Works Festival. Photo by Tim Summers.

Last Saturday we spent a fair bit of the morning and part of the afternoon at On the Boards watching a preview of most of the studio shows from the upcoming Northwest New Works Festival, June 5-7 and 12-14 (100 W. Roy St. Tix $14-$30 for 1-4 performances). For the past few years, the studio showcase of "smaller" performances has been our favorite part of the festival (not that the mainstage shows aren't fine--this year they're all dance), so we were particularly excited to get a sneak peek of what's up. Queen Shmooquan's oddball performance piece I am a Promise is a delightfully weird romp through contemporary pop culture. Byron Au Yong, a Seattle-based composer, is presenting a solo opera called Stuck Elevator, about the travails of a Chinese restaurant deliveryman stuck in a New York elevator. Umami Performance presents a semi-improvised dance work about a couple's difficulty sharing a home.

There are two pieces that struck us in particular. Sunday Service, a multi-media performance about religion and the whys and wherefores of backsliding, features as part of its ensemble cast Becky Poole, who blew us away with her solo performance murder, hope at Annex Theatre back in January. She's back, and yes, she plays the musical saw again. And the other piece that's got us hooked is by Helsinki Syndrome, who returns with a new work, My Body Lies Over the Ocean, which features Seattlest's own Rachel Hynes, live from London. Somehow.