Annex Theatre celebrates 40 years of live performance — including 19 above 11th and Pike

(Image: Annex Theatre)

The building Annex calls home

By Brenna Gauchat

On Saturday, the volunteer and artist led Annex Theatre will celebrate 40 years of producing live theater in Seattle. In its second floor venue above E Pike, the company will host its 40th birthday party and announce its 2027 season lineup which will premiere this January.

“We are very humbled by the legacy of people who have kept the place going for 40 years,” Lucien Oberleitner, who first visited the theater for its 2014 production of Blood Countess years before becoming the theater’s current Artistic Director.

The Annex’s origin is a story of a few local artists advocating for and working with other artists to create a space for independent and self-sustained live theater.

In 1987, a group of Bainbridge High School alums started producing shows in Seattle as a nonprofit organization after years of producing shows on their own. The company’s residency bounced around the city before settling into its current spot, a more than 80-seat theater on the corner of 11th Ave and Pike, in the summer of 2007.

Oberleitner said the Annex is “committed to high risk” art, encouraging pitches that involve more experimental or controversial ideas. This has naturally allowed the company to produce a higher average of political theater and reflect the culture unique to Capitol Hill.

“Since moving to Capitol Hill, we are a decidedly queer theater,” Oberleitner said.

“Our staff and company are very gender diverse, orientation diverse, so a lot of our work falls within the interests of the queer community.”

A scene from a recent production of Wife of Headless Man Investigates Her Own Disappearance (Image: (Image: Annex Theatre)

“I’m of the opinion that all art is inherently political. But we don’t go in with a committed scene, we don’t go in looking for anything particular,” Oberleitner said. “It really is: ‘Did someone bring something forward that struck interest in a person and that they can defend?’”

The Annex chooses a theme for each season as the team finalizes the upcoming year’s production schedule. The theme is a way to connect each production, finding a commonality in the stories and recognizing the ways they reflect the current political climate or public consciousness.

The theater’s upcoming season, “Let the Record Show,” was inspired by the artists’ shared sense of urgency, the collective effort to get the story out.

The Annex operates democratically, which Oberleitner said has partly contributed to the theater’s longevity. Its consensus decision-making process has evolved throughout its four-decade-long run and was originally established to create opportunity for a more diverse conversation.

An Annex table read (Image: Annex Theatre)

“We don’t expect every Company member or every staff member to agree with everything we do or try to adjust,” Oberleitner said. For major decisions like picking shows to produce every year, the Company holds a vote allowing members to stand strongly behind an idea or step out of the project.

Oberleitner said, especially after the pandemic, the theater continues to find better ways to make the shows accessible. Tickets are sold “pay what you can,” starting at $5 with the option to increase in $5 increments. Because the theater is located on the second floor of its building making the venue non-ADA accessible, the company live streams as many of its productions as possible. Tickets to access the streams and recordings of past shows can be found on the Annex’s website.

“We do have some punk values,” Oberleitner said about why they believe the Annex has continued to bring people into the theater for 40 years. “It really is sort of a testament to the community that we continue to show up.”

The Annex’s next show, Rat Cage, begins its three week run on October 9 at 1100 E Pike. You can find more information or RSVP for the Annex’s Anniversary event at annextheatre.org.

$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE

Subscribe to CHS to help hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month — or choose your level of support