We did it, everyone: The season of ceaseless “A Christmas Carol” material has at last let us free into 2024. Most of my December media consumption consisted of watching holiday standards for the first time — including “Die Hard” (and “A Very Die Hard Christmas”) and the entire extended “Lord of the Rings.” To balance this out, my January live performance picks feature short runs of new work and innovations in immersive theater.
Jan. 12 to 13 at BASE; $20 to $30
BASE. Occasional. Is. Back. I’m delighted that this “platform for new work in experimental dance and performance,” established by BASE in 2017, is making a grand return with “Ama, the Diver.” Developed in Seattle during a Nalanda West residency, “Ama” adapts a Noh play of the same name, which itself adapts a Japanese story of uncertain origin. BASE Occasional welcomes back all three contributing artists to the space for a weekend of live performance.
Jan. 13, 4 to 10 p.m., six-hour drop-in window at Theater off Jackson; $15
Magpie Artists’ Ensemble, of theme-subversive fairy-tale notoriety from previous productions “Briar/Rose” and “The Myth Cycle,” presents a self-paced immersive event that highlights deep worldbuilding and interactive characters. “FABLE” draws from cultures in our world in a “unique time and space, with its own rules and mythologies to discover.” All tickets allow freedom of entry/exit through the six-hour performance window on its singular show day.
Jan. 18 to 20 at 18th & Union; $10 to $50, in-person or streamed
When I was in college, I would return home late from shows to the dulcet tones of the most airbrushed, canned romantic reality TV imaginable. In a “sadistic spectacle sure to be the guiltiest pleasure of all,” Pearl Lam’s one-person show presents the story of Amethyst Crystal, whose reality dating show dreams become a solo-survival nightmare. Featuring drug-induced hallucinations, a failing TV network and the direction of Mario Orallo-Molinaro, Lam’s “XXX Island” is sure to be an unexpected adventure.
Jan. 18 to 20 at Theater Off Jackson; $5+ (pay what you can)
I first encountered “Good Water” a few years ago in its 2020 infancy. After its success at the Kennedy Center in 2022, Jessica Moreland’s script comes home to Northwest Original Works Theatre, a new company that aims to platform young Seattle artists. Combining the modern fear of climate cataclysm with the ancient story of Pandora’s box, “Good Water” explores survival, grief and persistence in the face of doom.
Read more of the Jan. 3–9, 2024 issue.