TeenTix Blog

Jason Johnson, is local a punk musician, in three bands: Dogbreth, Itemfinder and The Exquisites. Their music makes you feel as if you’re at a rock concert. It's very real with live instruments; you can really feel the melody. It’s violently emotive. Each song has its own story, whether it’s about love or just wanting to hang out with friends and watch anime.

When did you start playing music? And why?

Recently, we were able to sit down with Jason Clackley of the Vera Project, an all ages music venue that showcases up and coming artists. He is also a part of two bands, The Exquisites and Dreamdecay. He talked with us about The Vera Project, his experiences, and about the path of new and emerging artists.

Where are you from and how long have you been making music?

The Vera Project has become a household name in Seattle since their founding in 2001. They hold shows for all ages with a strong value on no drugs or alcohol within the building, while creating a fun space for teens and adults alike. Many have seen shows, performances, and concerts at The Vera Project, but not many know of the significance it has on the local Seattle artists it partners with. From holding programs, to booking new artists their first shows, it is clear The Vera Project cares about its Seattle musicians and the music community it cultivates. One of these up and coming musicians is the young, dedicated, and inspired Hunter Grier. A fresh high school graduate, Grier, 19, has already released over twelve collections of songs and tells us he has more in the works.

Grier is a DIY artist. When I asked him what that means, he told me “DIY [do it yourself] culture is what the name implies. It’s doing it by yourself, being able to like take projects into your own hands.”

Join Seattle Women's Chorus for a complimentary evening of daring rock 'n' roll as they celebrate trailblazing female singer-songwriters!

You and up to three other folks are invited to see this performance for FREE with your TeenTix Pass on April 28th at 4:00 PM. All you've gotta do is sign up below with the requested information to claim tickets to this event! Visit this link to directly fill out the form, or scroll down this page to enter your info.

The Vera Project is an organization steeped in independent spirit. With roots in the D.I.Y. movement, the entire space hums with a deep reverence for creativity and individuality, and possesses a kind of unapologetic grittiness that’s rare in most mainstream venues. It feels like the grown-up evolution of a punk house—a place carved out by artists with the needs of artists in mind. One artist at the forefront of this carving is Jason Clackley, programs director for The Vera Project and long-time fixture in the Seattle music scene. Sitting before a backdrop of locally-illustrated zine covers, show flyers, and band posters, Clackley speaks animatedly about his youth, his experience with the local arts culture, and his evolution as an artist. His simply-stated personal history feels like a perfect extension of The Vera Project mission.

“I bought a guitar, and I started making music. I took a few lessons and started playing shows, and then I started doing my own shows, and I moved on from there.”

Hey, musical theatre fans!

The 5th Avenue Theatre is offering TeenTix tickets to a special performance of The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical, and you're invited! On Tuesday, April 23rd, you can see this new musical with this special offer - just RSVP right here or on the form below for your chance to make the list.

George Balanchine's iteration of A Midsummer Night’s Dream has taken form at Pacific Northwest Ballet for the first time in five years. Inspired by Shakespeare's play of the same name, the tale regards love in its many forms—and trickery as a means to define it.

Set in the enchanted woods that surround the borders of ancient Athens, the tale follows the interference of the Fairy King, Oberon, and his jester, Puck, in the romantic relationships between mortal lovers Hermia and Lysander, and the soon-to-be couple, Helena and Demetrius. When Puck mistakenly puts Lysander under a spell causing him to fall in love with Helena, conflict plagues the forest. Pacific Northwest Ballet corps de ballet dancer Christian Poppe (with soloist Ezra Thomson and PNB company dancers) in a rehearsal for George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Photo © Lindsay Thomas.

As the dancers in A Midsummer Night's Dream feverishly practice for opening night, Pacific Northwest Ballet prepares for the rush of people who will be spending their night watching the show unfold.

William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night’s Dream tells the story of a fight between King Oberon and Queen Titania, and the quarrel between two mortal couples that leads to absolute chaos and disorder. Pacific Northwest Ballet is known for its vibrant, graceful, and effortless performances. But, this does not come without a great deal of effort, grueling rehearsals, and some kinks to work out.

You may have noticed that TeenTix has a brand new look!

With the help of some amazing supporters, a fantastic tech team, and a whole lotta love, we've just updated our website with a TON of new spiffy facets, including easier access to all the arts-going information you love.

TeenTix hosted our first ever Beyond the Review Press Corps Intensive April 8-12 at the Downtown School. This was a 5-day Intensive workshop where a group of ten teens spent the mornings learning about arts journalism, and the afternoons applying their new skills. Teens received one-on-one mentorship from professional arts journalists and were able to edit and finalize an article for publication on the TeenTix blog.

Over the course of the week, the group went behind the scenes at several TeenTix Arts and Community Partners. They observed a rehearsal at Pacific Northwest Ballet, interviewed musicians at The Vera Project, and chatted with the leadership team of the Intiman Theatre as well as several participants in the Intiman's STARFISH PROJECT. The teens had the opportunity to write previews, interviews, and feature articles based on their experiences. Stay tuned on the blog to read the articles written during the Intensive!

Good news—it’s April now, so there’s pretty much a guarantee that it won’t snow again (and after February’s Snowpocalypse, we’re all ready for that). Temperatures are heating up, some early seasonal flowers are blooming, and Seattle residents are finally starting to emerge from hibernation. But leaving the den is difficult, so we’ve lined up a selection of art that’s sure to help you wake up. For theater enthusiasts, we’ve got A Doll's House Part 2 at Seattle Repertory Theatre, The Addams Family Musical at Edmonds Driftwood Players, and Dry Land at Seattle Public Theater, which cover a range of topics from family drama to the struggles of unwanted teen pregnancy. If you want to catch a movie, try the Stroum Jewish Film Festival, a film series that explores Jewish and Israeli identity held at a variety of venues in and around Seattle. There’s also Strange Fruit at the WOKENESS Festival by Spectrum Dance Theater, a dance festival that aims to push against assumptions surrounding race, gender, and culture. With all this variety, there’s sure to be something to catch your eye, so wake up, get woke, and go see some art!

The Teen Editorial Staff is made up of 5 teens who curate the review portion of the TeenTix blog and manage the TeenTix Newsroom. More information about the Teen Editorial Staff can be found HERE.

The TeenTix Press Corps promotes critical thinking, communication, and information literacy through criticism and journalism practice for teens. For more information about the Press Corps program see HERE.

Our generous friends at Pacific MusicWorks are offering you and up to three others the opportunity to see their upcoming concert, International Woman of Mystery, this Sunday, April 14th. Both performances are eligible for this deal!

Simply fill out the form below to get $5 tickets for you and three friends or family members (a deal not honored at the door).

I have this idea of what someone who’s never lived on the West Coast thinks Seattleites get up to on a typical Tuesday. Visions of hipster tech executives swirl around in their head, and they dream of crowded rooms full of performance art with the kind of convoluted self expression attributed only to Pacific Northwest pheromones.

[lavender]: a self portrait fulfilled this vision. It encompassed all which is beautiful, yet utterly inaccessible about Seattle culture. Certainly, it was bold in its existence, but shedding the elitist pretense required to fully enjoy it was a daunting task. It was performed at Oxbow, a damp, concrete room full of twenty-something hipsters. As I entered the performance space, keyon gaskin, who wrote the piece, gave me hand-bound book with a lavender paint smear on the front, full of poetically deconstructed musings. Every poem felt distinctly as though it was conceptualized at two am—the kind of thing you’d write before passing out in bed.

Since everything is in a constant state of change, a huge variety of media can be shoehorned into the theme of “Metamorphosis”. This theme was stretched to its artistic breaking point at the Hugo House’s Literary Series, an evening of readings by acclaimed authors Benjamin Percy, Vanessa Hua, and Keetje Kuipers, as well as a musical performance by vocalist-producer-composer-improviser-goddess Sassyblack.

The Hugo House’s Metamorphosis literary series event specifically referred to Franz Kafka’s iconic story of the same name, in which a man is inexplicably transformed into a hideous beetle. Beyond the mutable theme of change and transformation, an insectoid motif crawled throughout several of the pieces. From author Benjamin Percy’s tale of a girl haunted by cockroaches and smoke, to Sassyblack’s repetition of “straight buggin-out” over spacey recorded beats, this reading was not an event for entomophobes—google search: person who fears insects.

Thanks to our generous friends at ArtsWest, TeenTix Members can see JOHN at the 2 for $10 rate when they RSVP on the following dates: Thursday, April 4 @ 7:30pm Friday, April 5 @ 7:30pm Saturday, April 6 @ 7:30pm Sunday, April 7 @ 3pm

What's 2 for $10? On certain days at each of our Arts Partners, TeenTix Members are invited to bring along another person of any age with them to a show or exhibit for an additional $5. Take your mom, a younger sibling, or a friend who doesn't yet have a TeenTix Pass (then get them to sign up!) The only stipulation is that the TeenTix Member must purchase the tickets themselves at the box office and show their Pass. BOOM, ARTS ACCESS. You can read more about 2 for $10 here on our FAQs page.

Seattle’s own Moisture Festival labels itself a vaudeville variety show. But what exactly does that entail? In all honesty, even after attending the event myself, there is no easy answer. With dozens upon dozens of acts in the festival as a whole, and an outlandish lineup of comedians, acrobats, clowns, and more, each show in the four-week run is a unique collection. The lineup caters to all audiences: there are family-friendly shows in the evenings and more risqué performances later in the night.

The festival’s home, Hale’s Palladium, is a brightly painted structure on the backside of the modern and hip Hale’s Brewery. At its entrance, we were greeted by a man in a gaudy orange astronaut costume and a nametag labeling him Zee. Zee scanned our tickets with a smartphone app—the last piece of modern technology we would see for the duration of this event—and ushered us inside. The Palladium is a much humbler and informal venue than such a name might suggest, with an exposed wood ceiling studded with lights of all kinds stretching over many rows of chairs facing a low stage. An acrobat’s swing is tied up in the rafters, foreshadowing acts to come.

American Junkie starts in the middle: Tom Hansen, our narrator played by Ian Bond, is shooting up heroin after having done it too many times. Losing most feeling in his limbs, Tom barely manages to call 9-1-1. This leads him, bitterly, to rehab. Adapted by director Jane Jones and Kevin McKeon from Tom Hansen’s memoir of the same name, American Junkie follows two time periods: one of Tom’s entry into rehab and stumbling towards recovery; the other of his childhood, adolescence, involvement with the Seattle punk scene, and everything else leading up to his 9-1-1 call. American Junkie, which had its last performance at the Book-It Repertory Theatre on March 10, is not an uplifting story of recovery: rather, it’s a portrayal of the stranglehold of addiction, as seen through one man’s funny, honest, and wry internal monologue. It’s also a portrait of Seattle before the tech boom, and of the punk scene before Nirvana made it famous. Poised for the current moment, where opioid addiction is ravaging whole communities, American Junkie is a moving, visceral portrait of addiction and the dirty underbelly of Seattle.

Visual arts: cool. Tours of exhibits: cooler. Tours led by the artist themselves: the COOLEST.

On Saturday, April 13, BAM is offering 10 spots to TeenTix Members in an extra-special tour with Clyde Petersen, the artist behind Merch & Destroy. Clyde himself will be leading the 45min tour through his exhibition that’s currently on view through April 14, so it will be one of the last days to view the exhibit!

The classic conundrum: you want to see a show with your TeenTix Pass, but you're not sure there will be tickets at the door. What's an artsy teen to do?

DESPAIR NO LONGER. TeenTix Members are invited to Returning the Bones at Book-It Repertory Theatre on April 6th @ 2pm, and you can sign up for seats ahead of time right here. Just fill out the form below with the requested info, and Book-It will get in touch by April 5th to confirm your reservation!

My name is Spencer and what I’d like to do, is talk about Boom Bap with all of you! It’s my new favorite show at CSz if you wanna know, why read my review and see!

When you walk into Atlas Theater in Fremont, WA, the jokes start before the show does. Above their cash register is a dollar bill hanging on the wall with the caption “The First Dollar That CSz Seattle Ever Framed.” CSz Seattle, of course, refers to the Pacific Northwest’s iteration of what is a national league of competitive improv referred to as “Comedy Sportz”.