Editor’s note: Since this piece was published, director and playwright Charles Waxberg, who had joined the company as artistic director, has since left in what Waxberg called an amicable parting. The paragraph about Waxberg has been removed from this story.
Roughly translated, the Hebrew word “balagan” denotes a state of “wonderful chaos.”
Say you got hopelessly lost on the way to a club, but found a cooler club through a series of mishaps, and your favorite band just happened to be playing a secret show there. You might call the experience “totally balagan.”
Two professional actors are bringing that ethos to the local theater scene. After an unexpectedly successful first season at the Capitol Hill Arts Center — remarkable in a city where stages are struggling and companies are closing their doors — the Balagan Theatre is expanding, moving into a bigger space on Capitol Hill to accommodate its sold-out shows, and preparing to offer a late night series and acting classes.
The brainchild of actors Jake Groshong and Kaitie Warren, Balagan was born in the Israeli desert in the summer of 2006. Working on an arts grant, Kaitie and Jake lived in Arad, a tiny town near the Dead Sea, and wrote musicals with a dozen other program participants from around the world.
During the eight months in Arad, Warren and Groshong developed their vision to revitalize professional theater in Seattle. They planned the first season’s five-show line-up and assembled a staff of 15 before they even returned to the United States.
The two suspected the Seattle scene had room for something more, a place to confront theater patrons with social commentary and cultural observation. Groshong noted professional theaters were the first to bring HIV/AIDS into the common consciousness through plays like Rent. That’s what they were aiming for.
“It’s about showing generation after generation that live theatre should be seen and enjoyed by all types because it can bring out something in an individual that was missing,” Groshong explained via e-mail. “It can inspire and educate, or create laughter and pure entertainment. I’ve often thought that to get interested in live theatre, all you have to do is see that one show that makes you feel so alive that you yourself want to burst into song, tap across the floor, or climb onto your crush’s balcony. We try to provide that show.”
During Balagan’s first season, Groshong and Warren presented productions that grappled with sexual repression, the war in Iraq, and over-the-top violence. They confidently staged unusual productions, like Shakespeare’s gory, cannibalism-fueled tragedy Titus Andronicus.
“We take huge risks,” Groshong said. “If we fail, not only will we have lost a lot of money, but in some ways I’m sure it would feel like we hadn’t done any good. Like we had thrown away however many years of our lives, through great stress and energy, to end up back where we had started. So we really cannot fail; for the community and for ourselves, it is too great an opportunity to let fall by the wayside.”
So far, the risks have paid off in sold-out shows, positive reviews, and lots of buzz.
Their first-ever opening night in Oct. 2006 drew nine people. The next night there were seven, and the following night there were 11.
“Then our reviews came out and we were sold out the rest of the time,” Jake said. “It felt like there was a place for us here. [It] was immensely inspiring to often see people who generally didn’t go to theatre discovering something they now loved, but had never previously known.”
The need to expand after the first season was obvious, but not easy. Groshong looked for a new space every day for months. He came close to signing leases on a few that fell through before he discovered a new space under construction at 12th Ave. and East Pike St. on Capitol Hill.
Meanwhile, the pair have been reviewing submissions and proposals for Balagan’s second season. There will be five shows on the main stage, Groshong said, plus a run of shows in the late-night series, starting with a local improv group called Suave. There will be a bar in the theater, of course, but several of the surrounding restaurants have expressed an interest in dinner-and-a-play deals once the theater gets going.
In addition to the actual space being bigger, shows will have longer runs this season to allow more people to see them.
Balagan also will offer acting classes for children and adults.
As their vision takes shape, Warren and Groshong hope to provide Seattle with cutting-edge, professional theater that speaks to the experiences of people today. Family theater has its place, Groshong said, but Balagan seeks to fill a hole that’s been left void in Seattle for too long.
“[T]he sometimes unfortunate fact is that Kaitie and I spend nearly every hour outside of our day jobs working on this theatre. We don’t get paid, it’s harder and more stressful than anything we’ve ever done before, and yet we do it because we get to work with amazing people,” he said. “It was never meant to be, and never will be, about Kaitie, or me, or Charles. What it’s about is providing a space that is about the actors. A place for beautiful, relevant theatre, devoid of ego or favoritism.”
For information about upcoming Balagan productions, visit www.balagantheatre.org.