Mystery opens Taproot Theatre season

Seattle’s Taproot Theatre Company opens its 30th season with J.B. Priestley’s mystery, “An Inspector Calls,” a suspense classic about the mysterious death of a young woman and the inspector who unravels the mystery.

Where to see it “An Inspector Calls”: Tonight through March 4 at Taproot Theatre, 204 N. 85th St., Seattle. Tickets, $23-$30 (senior/student discounts), 206-781-9707. “Steel Magnolias”: Tonight through Feb. 18 at Whidbey Playhouse, 730 SE Midway Blvd., Oak Harbor. Tickets, $12, 360-679-2237, www.whidbeyplayhouse.com. “Color Me Dark: A Story of the Great Migration North”: A Pied Piper Presents presentation at 2 and 4 p.m. Sunday at the Everett Performing Arts Center, 2710 Wetmore Ave., Everett. Tickets, $11-$13, at the box office, 425-257-8600.

The play, written at the end of the World War I and set just before the beginning of World War II, was a critical and box office smash hit in revival productions in London and New York in the 1990s. The Royal National Theatre’s 1992 revival broke records with 19 awards, and the show ran for 18 months on Broadway.

“An Inspector Calls” takes place in an English country house where an inspector unravels the secrets of a powerful, wealthy British family.

The role of Inspector Goole is played by Everett resident Don Brady.

On a spring evening in 1912, the prosperous Birling family celebrates the engagement of their daughter to a promising young businessman. But when an unexpected caller arrives with news of a young woman’s tragic death, the stage is set for a mystery with many surprises.

Performances begin today and continue through March 4 at the company’s Seattle theater.

“Steel Magnolias”: Southern sisterhood rules in Truvy’s Beauty Spot, the setting for Robert Harling’s 1987 off-Broadway comedy-drama about the trials and tribulations of six women beset with a host of family and personal problems.

“Steel Magnolias,” the source of a hit 1989 movie with an all-star cast, is a sentimental talkfest juiced up with plenty of comic barbs and poignant scenes.

Whidbey Playhouse is presenting the play tonight through Feb. 18 at the Oak Harbor theater. Saturday night’s performance is a “Girls Night Out” performance that includes gifts and games and special treats for women (and men are welcome too).

Judi Hendrix directs a cast that includes Dulcey White, Traci Frost, Julie McNutt, Jan Trumble, Gaye Litka and Amanda McCartney.

“Color Me Dark: A Story of the Great Migration North”: More than a half century after the end of the Civil War, black Americans in the South still lived and suffered under the Jim Crow laws that segregated schools and other public places.

These laws and their racist aftermath, along with economic hardship, were among the reasons why a great migration of black Americans from the South to the Midwest took place in the early years of the 20th century.

Author Patricia McKissack wrote about the black American experience in her award-winning historical fiction.

One of her books, “Color Me Dark: A Story of the Great Migration North,” has been adapted as a stage play for young children. It will be performed Sunday in Everett as part of the Village Theatre’s Pied Piper Presents season of children’s plays at the Everett Performing Arts Center.

The play tells the story of the migration through the lives of two sisters. Erma Jean and Nellie Lee Love, with their family, are driven from Tennessee to Chicago, only to find racism is inescapable. But they learn to stand and fight, and their story affirms the values of resilience and family.

The performances, suitable for children in grades three through eight, are at 2 and 4 p.m. Sunday.

Matthew Lawrence photo

Don Brady (left), Robert Gallagher and Kevin Brady in Taproot Theatre’s “An Inspector Calls.”

The women from Whidbey Playhouse’s “Steel Magnolias”: Amanda McCarthy (left), Gaye Litka, Dulcey White, Jan Trumble, Traci Frost and Julie McNutt.

“Color Me Dark: A Story of the Great Migration North,” a Pied Piper Presents production.