Moisture Festival Press Reviews

Journal Newspapers
Arts & Entertainment story March 2008
The festival, which runs March 27 to April 13, draws its inspiration from a certain tradition of European entertainment, an anything-goes succession of diverse performers on the same bill that can include aerialists, clowns, jugglers, dancers, comedians, rope acts, can can girls and even drill teams. The Fremont-based event was born of a desire to create something akin to a major Comedy/Varietè showcase in Berlin during the late 1990s, when a huge number of live acts took over several theaters, around the clock, for several days. - Tom Keogh

Seattle Weekly - Spring Arts Guide Feb 2008
The Moisture Festival
Every time we try to nail the lid shut on vaudeville, it comes jumping out again, spraying seltzer and telling corny jokes. This annual performance festival makes you wonder why we ever thought it was dead, with wonderfully offbeat musicians like Baby Gramps and Artis the Spoonman, clowns who are actually funny, neo-circus artists like Circus Contraption, and a full bill of burlesque for those who are old enough for a bit of nudge-nudge, wink-wink. The two-week festival actually makes Fremont fun again, at least briefly. - JL

Seattle Post-Intelligencer "What's Happening"
section cover story March 2007
Moisture Festival, a revival of old-time vaudeville and burlesque for today's sophisticated audiences, is family friendly, appealing as much to kids as parents. Even fickle, status-conscious teens are drawn to the artful silliness of an event offering non-stop, fast-paced acrobatics, yodeling, juggling, clowning, burlesque and other performing arts. - Gene Stout

Seattle Weekly "The Weekly Wire"
calendar of recommended events March 2007
"Varietè" is a useful catchall term that's arisen for all those old-time, low-tech entertainments that kept audiences from Nome to Key West enthralled in the decades before talking pictures, whether vaudeville (magic, song and dance), the circus (juggling, clowning, aerial acts), or burlesque (striptease, ribald comedy). In an age in which pop culture seems to be more and more about corporate manufacture, and when even friendships are conducted largely via staring at a screen, these arts not only celebrate physical skill and quick wit but bring people together for a live, shared, unique experience. The Moisture Festival.embraces all of this. - Gavin Borchert

The Stranger 2006 Genius Awards shortlist October 2006
The worst thing about the Moisture Festival is its name. At best, it sounds hippie-dippie; at worst, it sounds like an armpit convention. Everything else about the annual festival, held in a converted warehouse attached to the Hale's Brewery, is right. It brings together the best vaudeville and circus talent from Seattle (Circus Contraption, Baby Gramps, Fyodor Karamazov, et al.) and beyond (Berlin, England, etc.). Their legendary final performances, where all the acts from that year's festival play one after the other, run for hours. With acrobats, jugglers, a big band, clowns, and beer, the Moisture Festival is new, old-fashioned varieté with all the corniness, sexiness, and unexpected brilliance that implies. - Brendan Kiley

European Weekly March 2007 Seattle's Moisture Festival, a bang-up variety show of comedy, music, and acrobatics that raises inspired lunacy to an art form. The festival's name was inspired by springtime in Seattle, and it's a wonderful way to break out of your winter rut and enjoy some good old-fashioned fun. It may be dreary outside, but entering the Palladium Theater at Hale's Brewery in Fremont feels a bit like stepping under the big top. There's the brightly colored stage, and a concrete floor with rows of seats. Buy a bag of fresh popcorn (and a Hale's brew, if you're so inclined), and soak up the carnival atmosphere. The show itself is a loving homage to vaudeville, music halls, circuses, and cabaret-complete with jugglers, comedy duos, ukulele numbers, unicyclists, aerialists, and a chanteuse or two. The variety acts, which run from five to fifteen minutes each, are performed by artists hailing from the Northwest and across the United States, as well as from Germany and France. Each performance of the three-week festival is different, as the artists take turns performing-so every night is a newly minted extravaganza of comedy and varieté. Not only that, but the Festival also features burlesque shows at the ACT Theater in downtown Seattle. Whew! - Erika Wilson

Seattle Gay News April 2006
In my opinion, the Moisture Festival is one of the best community theatrical events in Seattle all year. Comprised of very talented, energetic and creative artists from the U.S. and Europe and fun-loving, dedicated volunteers, every performance is a surprising, one-of-a-kind experience. - E. Joyce Glasgow

The Stranger March 2006
There is nothing more exuberant and life-affirming than varietè, that precocious child of broad American vaudeville and classy Old World cirque: The cathartic comedy of old-style clowns (think Chaplin, not Bozo), the daring flights of aerialists, the robust muscles of acrobats, and the bright pageantry of jugglers, dancers, and musicians from Seattle's Circus Contraption to Berlin's Hacki Ginda. Plus: cancan girls! And beer! - Brendan Kiley