TeenTix Blog

Fat Ham is a radiant phoenix soaring through the ashes of Hamlet’s tragedy. With a lively set and explosive characters, this show is a sweet to the sweet.

We follow the story mainly from Juicy, a Queer Black man who struggles with the recent union of his mother, Tedra, and his uncle, Rev. The couple, who married shortly after the death of Juicy’s father, hosts a barbecue party to celebrate. While Juicy helps set up the backyard for the party, the ghost of his dead father visits him and orders him to kill Rev, revealing he was the one that killed him. From there, the story spirals into chaos including musical performances and questionable monologues, while introducing us to the reimagined versions of Hamlet’s characters. Giving a fresh adaptation that branches out from the original play, we see how a story of a woeful prince of Denmark becomes a tasteful tale for the modern age.

Fat Ham is a theatrical feast. It’s a pork-fectly captivating performance full of outstanding success, from the language to the dance party in the end, this production is a must-see. Don’t miss out on this flavorful ride!

Fat Ham, written by James Ijames is a Hamlet-inspired play that made its successful debut at the Public Theater in New York City on May 12, 2022. This production has been generating excitement for its strong exploration of identity through the idea of toxic masculinity, vulnerability and building community. Its recent show on May 9, 2024 in Seattle highlighted the importance of being yourself and accepting who you are. Unlike Hamlet, Fat Ham is mostly focused on finding yourself and not much on seeking revenge. The story revolves around Juicy, a young Queer African American man, who is confronted by the ghost of his dad during a barbecue in the backyard of his modern-day American house, with his contemporary Southern family.

Subverting expectations is the name of the game with this play. Fat Ham is a loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s titular play Hamlet. This play written by James Ijames is a wonderful example of subversion that deserves recognition. It truly feels like a modern take on the works of Shakespeare, who, bear in mind, actually wrote a large amount of comedies. The humor and tragedy are blended so finely that it will leave you in both kinds of tears.

Its intentional focus on Hamlet isn’t just superficial or simply the base in the blend of a story, but the core of which the whole story sits on, allowing the reflection of Shakespeare's work to be visible throughout this play. The values of this story flipped on its head as the story asks, “Why must it be this way?” creating comedy in the face of would-be tragedy. With the focus character of this play being Juicy, our Hamlet counterpart focuses on why one should be allowed to be soft combined with the hardships one would face as one strives for it. This perfectly compliments Larry, the Laertes counterpart which at first seems to coincide with Laertes much more than Juicy with Hamlet, with how he served in the military and even more so with him being an honor-bound yes-man. But if you look closer you see an inner softness that wants to escape the pressure put on him that is practically restraining him to that version of him that other people want him to be.

Fat Ham at the Seattle Rep is a wonderful performance that creates a conversation with the audience about self expression, identity, expectations, and above all else takes immense joy in having fun with the audience. From the set work to the actors’ physical performance, a sense of excitement and festivity is present through the entire play. Although it is very different from its source material of Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, Fat Ham does keep a condensed form of the original’s structure, using it to orient the audience and smoothly establish the play’s characters, plot, and where it differs. The play opens with Juicy (the analog to prince Hamlet) and Tio (the analog to Horatio and Juicy’s cousin) decorating for the party celebrating the marriage of Juicy’s mother, Tedra to his uncle, Rev, which will be the setting for the rest of the play.

Throughout the performance, the cast and especially Juicy, will address or acknowledge the audience, the Shakespearean origins of the play, and the expectations the audience has from those origins. Early on, Juicy will quote lines from Hamlet to demonstrate how he is more studied and introspective than those around him and this evolves later into one of multiple fourth wall breaks, where Juicy stops the play and quotes one of Hamlet’s famous soliloquies in its entirety to the audience. This element of the play can be seen as clunky or gratuitous, but it’s a functional way to integrate Hamlet into its shortened structure and lighter self-referential tone.

Backyard barbeques aren’t your typical setting for tragedies—especially not a Shakespearean tragedy. And yet, the Pulitzer prize-winning interpretation of Hamlet, called Fat Ham, takes place in a suburban backyard. Playwright James Ijames reimagined Hamlet, a story of death, tragedy, and revenge, to be retold by a Southern African American family. Hamlet himself is represented by a queer Black man named Juicy, tackling the challenges of generational trauma and self-identity. The characters themselves struggle with modern problems in a modern-day setting, attributing to the play's biggest strength—its relatability. James Ijames took advantage of the universality of Shakespeare’s themes and effectively translated them into a Southern context. Much like Hamlet, Fat Ham begins with the celebration of Juicy’s mother marrying his Uncle, Rev. However, unlike Elsinore, their wedding cookout takes place in Juicy’s backyard, shortly after the death of Juicy’s father, Pap. Pap later returns in a ghostly form and demands that Juicy avenge him, as it was Rev who was responsible for Pap's murder. This event serves as a foundation for Ijames to introduce themes of mental health, violence, and generational trauma within Black communities. Fat Ham serves as a successful adaptation of Hamlet due to its representation of conflicts within Black communities and breaking those cycles.

While Fat Ham does showcase the darker side of African American trauma, it shows those patterns being broken and resolved. An example of this is with Pap. Ijames strategically paints him out to be an abusive father, to represent violence within Black communities in the play. This message is conveyed through aggressive, argumentative dialogue to engage the audience with captivating, evoking verbal conflicts. During Pap’s visit from beyond the grave, they argued, violent words being thrown at each other at bone-rattling volumes. As someone who has heard such conflicts many times before in my own family on similar topics, I found the disagreements to be very relatable. It feels raw, using commonly used phrases many teens hear these days coming from parents, which is something that many fights in entertainment tend to overlook. You can tell Ijames and other writers had done their research when skillfully writing what real quarrels sound like. The dialogue continues to be this play's strong suit to also convey themes of mental health to both characters and directly to the audience.

James Ijames serves a sizzling feast of social commentary with a glaze of comedy, all wrapped in the stage play, Fat Ham. In Fat Ham, we follow a Hamlet-like character, Juicy, and his struggles with his newfound family dynamic; after his father, Pap, was killed in prison, his Uncle Rev, married his mom, Tedra. At the beginning of the play, while Juicy leaves his best friend/cousin Tio in the yard, Pap's ghost appears. With flickering porch lights and a red sky, Pap, draped in white sheets, shuffles through the yard in search of Juicy as thunder cracks off stage. The same scene is repeated when Juicy is now left alone, mirroring the same sequence in the original Hamlet, yet instead of Juicy bravely seeking after his father’s ghost, he cowers in fear, freaking out as the spirit surges towards him. Pap then urges Juicy to seek revenge once he calms down, encouraging him to gut his uncle like a pig in a display of toxic masculine ideals of violence. Throughout the play, Juicy struggles with the idea of killing Rev, not wanting to follow his fathers footsteps.

Juicy, (portrayed by Taj E.M. Burroughs), is an angsty, brooding, thoughtful character; much like his Shakespearean counterpart, Hamlet. His story similarly follows Hamlet's, with the exception of the family dynamics. Though Juicy struggles with his fathers, Pap’s, (played by Reginald André Jackson), death, it’s for different reasons. Juicy isn’t super comfortable with grieving his father, seeing as they didn’t have the best relationship; he recounts a time when Pap destroyed his favorite doll because he viewed it as unmanly. His mom, Tedra, (Jasmine Lomax), also recounts how Pap would hit her, “in the tit!”, as she said. Another difference between our modern Hamlet and the original is that he doesn’t actually want to kill his uncle Rev, (also played by Jackson), because his father wants him to. He doesn’t like him, that much is the same, but Juicy dislikes him because he pressures Juicy to be more manly, even encouraging him to fight and be angry, much like Pap. Plus the fact that Juicy recognizes how fast Rev married his mom, and how harmful Rev’s behavior can be to her. Tedra still sees this as an improvement from Pap, though, because even if Rev is mean and toxic, he’s a step up from Pap, and Tedra is scared of being alone, as she states when talking to Juicy about his problems with his uncle.

Accepting a legacy is never as simple as it sounds, whether it be the weight of a crown or a sizzling hot grill. It’s considered an honor to carry what your forefathers have passed down—or at least it should be. Seattle Rep presents a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet called Fat Ham, written by James Ijames. It follows the story of Juicy, an aspiring HR manager, as he battles expectations creeping in from every corner and staying true to himself as a queer and Black man in the rural South. Having so much piled on his plate, Juicy’s various troubles and even that of those around him echo the many realities of swaying in contradiction. It’s hard to know where to start. Through its characters’ struggles, Fat Ham beautifully portrays the struggle of being authentic towards yourself in an environment that doesn’t nurture it.

The play opens by showing off preparations to celebrate Tedra’s (Juicy’s mom) remarriage to Juicy’s uncle, Rev. Juicy is then visited by an anguished spirit in need of revenge: his own father. With the pressure on and a blade thrust into his hands, Juicy’s subjected to countless reminders of his upbringing and is faced with an ultimatum he’s not sure he can carry out, as it goes against his core beliefs. Torn between continuing a toxic cycle and challenging expectations for the men in his family, Juicy sets himself down a path of trial and error.

Day in Day Out is a three day indie music festival at Fischer Pavilion in the Seattle Center. This year, hundreds of people flocked out to see their favourite artists while withstanding some seriously hot weather, with temperatures hovering around the mid 80s over the weekend. The crowd was trending younger, with many people taking refuge from the sun sitting on a grassy slope looking out at the stage that was completely covered in people the whole time I was there. Photo courtesy of Day In Day Out Fest

There were food trucks and various booths giving out free energy drinks, breath mints, protein shakes, and the like as some sort of giveaway marketing campaign. The Celsius booth was particularly intriguing, with a bizarre silver ball sculpture in the middle of their tent that was reminiscent of videos I’ve seen of liquid mercury. Unclear how liquid mercury relates to energy drinks but it was kind of cool I guess in a waste of resources kind of way. All their reps were wearing matching all black outfits, matching Celsius tees, and matching fake tans. I shouldn’t be too judgmental though, as I did partake in the free Celsius. The festival setup was simple, with a mainstage, and in the 21+ section a DJ booth that had mostly local acts playing music in between sets. Philadelphia indie punk band Mannequin Pussy were fantastic performers, with guitarist and lead singer “Missy” Dabice oscillating between a breathless baby girl lilt and hoarse full throated screaming, both while singing and talking to the audience. She railed against the harmful heavy metals and toxins found in tampons in between songs, and many lyricshad a political message to them. Photo courtesy of Day In Day Out Fest

In every human life, there is a mother. It’s a foundational experience for most, but that doesn’t mean it’s one free of complexity or hardship. In the final concert of their 8th season, Mother, Emerald City Music combines film and music into a flawed but impactful meditation on the relationships we have with our mothers.

Mother’s program was made up of five short films and five relevant musical selections, each told through interviews with a diverse group of subjects, varying in age, race, class, and background. It began with a simple and familiar lullaby, “Wiegenlied,” by the mid-romantic icon Johannes Brahms. This gentle piece segued into the first film, “Mother is…” which explored that very question by simply asking the interviewees. Answers varied greatly, ranging from “a monster” to “an adventurer.”

Pianist Adam Neiman is a painter of sound. No note is too brief for him to color, and no piece is too simple to spin vivid images of. At the Seattle Chamber Music Society, Neiman’s program of Ravel and Rachmaninoff miniatures wasn’t monumental, but he brought out their charm. Sensitive and meticulous, he treated the audience to a jewel box of a performance—intimate, quaint, and restorative.

If McCaw or Benaroya Hall is like the Climate Pledge Arena, the Seattle Chamber Music Society is like The Vera Project. It’s smaller and focuses more on educating audiences. The audience members, who are mostly elderly, know each other on a name basis, and I got a nametag at the entrance.

It’s been a pleasure curating the events for the newsroom this year. One thing we zoomed in on was finding events from underrepresented venues and artists to push our writers into the deep zone of art critique. Although you’re guaranteed a good time at big venues such as 5th Ave., or MoPOP, branching out to explore smaller events deepens our knowledge of the arts and their impacts. Especially for teens, gaining familiarity with the corners of the arts scene in Seattle can take a rabbit hole of research and bravery. Good art is important in a community, but learning to unravel details transforms its impact. We hope you find time this summer to explore the niches of the Seattle arts scene.

Earshot Jazz has an enormous calendar of daily jazz events around Seattle. From cafes to fancy hotels, they’ve got a wide variety of performers that won’t disappoint. If you’re looking to deepen your jazz taste or try something new this is your jackpot.

For this year’s Seattle Black Film Festival, arts organization, and festival host LANGSTON Seattle paid homage to the complexity of Black experiences. The festival offered a variety of films featuring local and international Black actors, directors, and producers. The genres and styles varied from unconventional mediums, like music and dance videos, to short yet devastating films showcasing the intricacies of interpersonal relationships. I focused on short films from the series “‘Waiting to Exhale: Films from the Feminine Perspective” and was struck by how each filmmaker chose to utilize or subvert expectations placed on Black women.

The first film I watched, entitled “Dressed” (2023), challenges the idea that marriage is the pinnacle of achievement. It follows the main character through her series of misadventures trying to sell her lightly-used wedding dress. While the context behind her urgency to sell the dress remains unclear to the viewer, writer, and director Bethiael Alemayoh pushes us almost uncomfortably close to the main character, so close it feels like the viewer is an accomplice to her unsuccessful attempts to get her life together. Ann-Kathryne Mills in Dressed (2023), written and directed by Bethiael Alemayoh

It’s difficult to imagine the humanity behind a faceless entity like a corporation. With the way that many corporations are discussed in the news and media, it becomes a challenge to remember that there are people behind them and that at a certain point, the business ceases to represent them. This loss of connection and humanity was observed by Stefano Massini and captured in his play The Lehman Trilogy, a show of epic proportions that depicts the inner lives of the family behind Lehman Brothers Bank, a company widely known in part because of its eventual downfall. Ben Powers’ adaptation of the script was brought to life on stage by director John Langs and a mere trio of actors: ACT’s adaptation of The Lehman Trilogy presents an incredibly emotional, engaging elaboration on the play through the clever staging and direction, evocative performances, and impressive technical prowess. These aspects of the adaptation offer a remarkable portrayal of the Lehman family’s journey to America, their business’s rise to prominence, the painstaking power struggles against one another, and the cycle of fathers, sons, and brothers that brought the business into existence.

The play follows three generations of the Lehman family and the evolution of the family business across those generations, from humble beginnings of a fabric store in Alabama to an internationally renowned, immensely powerful investment bank. An act is dedicated to each era of the family, spanning from the 1840s to the 2000s, and with each era, a different iteration of the Lehman Brothers’ business. The first act sees the business grow in scale as the brothers are pitted against each other, through the chaos of the Montgomery fire and the beginnings of the Civil War. The second act sees the turn of the century, with the business moved to New York City and reaching new heights under the control of the family’s next generation. The business grows and grows, but faces the looming threat of the market crash by the end of act two. Finally, the third act details the harrowing struggle of the final generation of Lehmans to pull America out of the Depression. Following their success, the show takes a turn, depicting the arrogant feeling of invincibility held by the workers at the Lehman Corporation as the business transitions to one of the biggest international investment banks. The energy of the third act enraptures the viewer, to the point where the foregone conclusion of bankruptcy still felt like a shocking ending, leaving the audience reeling as the stage blacks out. The Lehman Trilogy at ACT Contemporary Theatre, photo by Rosemary Dai Ross

A green sign on a black wall of MoPOP’s Gone Too Soon exhibit, guest curated by Nabila Ahmed, asks questions like “What was your first reaction to this person’s death?” and “Did their death change the way you took in their work?”

These questions are designed for those old enough to remember the night when Robin Williams died, the day Kurt Cobain died by suicide, and the day Biggie Smalls was murdered. On the August night Robin Williams had taken his own life, my first thought was of his role as John Keating in Dead Poets Society. It seemed ironic, and deeply sad, that the teacher who had tried to save Neal hadn’t been able to save himself.

Lots of big ideas and only ten minutes on the clock: an author's worst nightmare. Or could it be something more? With their new 10-minute play festival, Inspired By… Mirror Stage sets up this thought-provoking challenge that bends and twists the limits of storytelling, allowing for playwrights, directors, and actors to shine. Inspired By… showcases six new plays that reflect the world we live in today, and the challenges we face in the Seattle community.

I had the pleasure of interviewing one of the Inspired By… playwrights, Stacy D. Flood, to find out why this is a festival truly like no other – and why, perhaps, limitations are a way to break through barriers. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Nothing ever gets old in the Market Theatre, where, for over 30 years now, Unexpected Productions has resided and produced spontaneous shows for its eager audience. As surprising as it may seem, they’re Seattle’s oldest improvisational company and have been entertaining theater-goers with nothing less than truly one-of-a-kind experiences.

Attending THIS IS FOR YOU: An Improvised Theatre Poetry Experience, which ran from April 5-28 in honor of National Poetry Month, was the first time I attended an improv show, and I was excited to find out how the performers would combine improvisation and poetry. Most of all, the idea of going to a show that would never happen again was intriguing. That’s the thing about improvisation: it’s always changing. The only constants are the actors on stage and their immense creativity.

Romeo and Juliet is the classic tragedy of star-crossed lovers who are famously doomed from the start. This version, produced by the Seattle Shakespeare Company, consists of 2.5 hours immersing the audience in beautiful language and guiding us through a complete rollercoaster of emotions.

Taking my seat in the audience at the Center Theatre, the sense of intimacy struck me immediately in the small, dimly lit space. This was heightened by the fact that the stage was on the floor, with the actors on the same level as the audience, blurring the line between performer and spectator. As the theatrical smoke wafted over us, anticipation hung in the air. Everyone sensed that something momentous was bound to happen; we just didn’t know what.

At Jet City, improvisation is the name of the game. With their new production, Journey of the Wind, they use the malleability of improv storytelling to explore themes of humanity, loss, and childhood– all with the whimsy and finesse of your favorite animated films.

Atop the simple, rounded platforms of the stage, this collaboration, running from May 3-18 at Theatre Off Jackson, between Jet City Improv Presents and Chinatown’s Pork Filled Productions shines.

With this list of opportunities in various different mediums, at different times, and in different regions, YOU pick how you will spend your Summer from a variety of programs through our many arts partners! Don't see something you like quite yet? Bookmark this page and check back as we update this list as more opportunities become through the Summer!

Music Opportunities:

On the cold rainy evening of April 20, the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra performed a selection of pieces from Blues and the Abstract Truth, the 1961 landmark jazz album by composer and saxophonist Oliver Nelson. SRJO performed the repertoire, along with two pieces composed by artistic director Michael Brockman, with smooth, assertive skill and an infectious love for the music at hand.

That night, Benaroya’s Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall was distinctly warm, even before the concert started. Its field of red seats sloped softly under the overhead lights. Patrons talked to and greeted each other, some so familiarly it felt like a monthly community potluck. The stage sat close and cozy to the audience, with a piano, drum set, and array of chairs for the musicians gleaming a short distance from the front row seats. As the hall filled, a few orchestra members started coming onstage and taking their seats, quietly laughing with each other and tuning their instruments. One musician spotted friends in the front few rows and chatted with them from the stage. As the lights came down and people settled into their seats, the person introducing the band made sure to shout out volunteers and board members in the audience. Before a single brassy note was played, there was a joyful lack of divide in that hall.

Then, when the performance truly began, that lack of division made SRJO’s concert something special. Nelson’s album cascades (even beyond the song called “Cascades”) in conversational yet calculated melodies, dulcetly energetic. The mood of the concert varied from song to song, but each piece played – including the ones not from Nelson’s album – shared that conversational yet calculated aspect. In “Hoe Down,” my favorite song of the repertoire and one of the first ones SRJO performed, the band blared brightly and assertively like a morning parade, while in “Teenie’s Blues,” they wound their way through deeper, darker sounds like rafts through a river. Every member of the band, from the saxophones to the trumpets to the trombones to the rhythm section, and guest vocalist Jacqueline Tabor, got a chance to shine in a solo, and shine they did. When a musician stood up, or stayed seated in the rhythm section’s case, all eyes in the audience and the band turned to them as they played their solo. Photo by Jim Levitt

And it’s here where you could spend the whole concert watching a single musician. Each band member plays at least one solo, but each person also reacts to the rest of the band’s musicianship. When drummer D'Vonne Lewis takes command of a song, the rest of the band stays active, tapping their feet, watching him play, or nodding their heads as they listen intently to the rhythms. When Tabor joins the band onstage for a vocal piece, she’s a lightning rod of attention. When trumpeters stand up to improvise a section, the saxophonists in the front row smile as the riffs hit their ears. Every single musician is absolutely in it, steadily and seamlessly. Watching them know this music inside and out, enjoying each other’s musicianship, is delightful.

Throughout the show, artistic director Michael Brockman intersperses the music with explanations of the pieces and introductions to soloists, conversing smoothly with the audience. The energy in the room is a call and response, in which the audience gladly participates. People laugh at the right moments, whoop and cheer for soloists, and soak in the anecdotes of Nelson’s return to classic jazz at a point in time when the genre’s future was uncertain. It’s no surprise that there’s no fourth wall in Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra’s Blues and the Abstract Truth. It’s easy to be an attentive audience member when the performers are simply masters of what they do. It’s easy to sit back and enjoy when SRJO reminds you of the truth, abstract or not: it’s pure fun to listen to great musicians performing great music.Photo by Jim Levitt