We walked into our caucus location -- a hot, overcrowded elementary school with signs that said "Welcome to the First Grade" -- as an undecided voter, and two and a half hours later walked out as an undecided voter, but with a deeper appreciation of democracy. Not that it made much difference in real-world terms. Our precinct (189 people turned out) went heavily Obama, which we understand is how the wind blew in Seattle......

CHAC's indefatigable Matthew Kwatinetz is organizing trips to Olympia to show support for extending the use of King County's Lodging Tax for culture. Kwatinetz claims that without the extension, arts funding could be "cut from $35 million per year to less than $2 million per year." Thursday morning's caravan leaves from CHAC at 10am. Who knows, maybe you'll run into Josh Feit in the Olympian halls of power. Think about that.HOW: Buses and vans will......

Maybe the first thing we should tell you about Striking 12 at CHAC -- besides the SAD tie-in, the rave reviews, or the fact that only 600 people in Seattle will have the chance to see it -- is that you can win half-off tickets to it. A limited number of $15 tickets are being held for those who correctly answer the following trivia question:Name at least one of the bands featured the first year......

It ain't easy being a mid-sized professional theatre: not that long after Seattle's Empty Space declared empty pockets, the 30-year-old Tacoma Actors Guild has closed down. In January of 2005 TAG faced a coronary-inducing $400,000 debt, and though it had made some progress retiring it, their Board president Jim Handmacher said in the Tacoma News Tribune that key foundations were standoffish: “We were optimistic with (new director Charlotte Tiencken) that TAG would get back......

It was a one-night-only monologue, Mike Daisey's Stories from the Atlantic Night Cafe, and CHAC artistic director Matthew Kwatinetz was happily rearranging chairs for a packed house. Backstage, the program informed us, Daisey was taking an hour to scribble away on a yellow legal pad the outline for what would be a brand-new 90-minute-ish monologue, his delivery punctuated only by pauses as he sipped from a glass of water or glared at remembered insults......