Mysterious Gifts

A guest post from my friend Brooke.
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I work at the Seattle Children's Theater, and I don't normally try to push our productions on my friends and family, and usually don't feel like I need to. SCT is a jewel, and anyone who knows anything about the arts in our city knows that.

However, I really wanted to make sure that everyone knows about the show that we are currently putting on. Mysterious Gifts: Theatre of Iran is part of a project titled Connecting Stories which is an international collaboration of artists creating theatre for young audiences from the United States, the Netherlands, and Iran. Each country has committed to hosting a performance for four consecutive years from 2009 to 2012. The SCT show is the very first performance in this series, and Iranian artist Yaser Khaseb has created such a beautiful show of puppets and movement. After just two weeks here, the show will travel to Tempe and Minneapolis, and the Iranian theater company will have a chance to connect with artists and production staff at each theater. The performance is simply stellar, the whole Connecting Stories project is powerful in so many ways, especially in that it is giving people an opportunity to see the Iranian culture in a brand new positive light.

During opening night of the show this past Friday, the audience, myself included, was captivated. What these artists are sharing is truly something special and unique. Our friends from Iran are only here for a short 4 weeks before they must return home, and the show runs only 2 of those weeks. I am telling you now, you do not want to miss it. It is truly amazing.