For Seattle arts aficionados, fall is the most wonderful time of the year. Theaters and performance companies are back in action after a brief summer hiatus, and many arts organizations are kicking off their seasons in venues across the city. There’s a buzz in the air, even as it cools, as creatives debut work they’ve been incubating for months, or even years. And while it would take dozens of pages to cover all of the exciting shows and exhibitions launching this fall, we’ve rounded up a few of our most-anticipated debuts in theater, dance, visual art, and more.

Dance

The Times Are Racing

Kicking off its 2024/25 season, Pacific Northwest Ballet will present work from three dynamic contemporary choreographers: Edwaard Liang, Justin Peck, and Jessica Lang. Premiered in 2021 through PNB’s digital program, Liang’s The Veil Between Worlds, which explores the universal search for spiritual and physical connection, returns to Seattle for its local stage debut. Peck, resident choreographer of the New York City Ballet and one of the dance world’s most in-demand artists, is bringing his 2017 work, The Times Are Racing, back to McCaw Hall. Set to an electronic score and performed by sneaker-clad dancers, the high-energy piece incorporates elements of tap dance that push it into unexpected movement territory. The rep’s third installation (untitled at press time), by PNB resident choreographer Jessica Lang, is, according to her, “inspired by the philosophy and psychology behind the Japanese artform kintsugi,” in which broken pottery is repaired with powdered gold.
The Times Are Racing runs Sept. 20–29 at McCaw Hall

Mouthwater Festival

After winning a multiyear Mellon Foundation grant, Saira Barbaric — a Seattle-based Black, Disabled, multidisciplinary artist — rolled the prize into the research, investigation, and design of an accessible artistic structure. The results will become tangible this fall with Mouthwater Festival — a first-of-its-kind Disabled Arts fringe festival co-founded with NEVE and Vanessa Hernández Cruz, two fellow Disabled, multidisciplinary artists. Presented in partnership with Velocity Dance Center and held at venues around town, including 12th Avenue Arts, Base: Experimental Arts + Space, and On the Boards, the two-week event will give Black, Brown, and Indigenous Disabled artists a hub to collaborate and connect through dance, cabaret and burlesque, music, and theater performances. “I believe that the Mouthwater Festival has the potential to be a transformative force in our city,” Barbaric says. “By creating a platform for Disabled artists, we can address some systemic barriers and set standards for a more vibrant and understanding norm within the arts community.”
Mouthwater Festival runs Oct. 1–13 at various venues

The Works: Reconnected

For one night only, get a sneak peek at a work in progress from Seattle’s Dance Guild Company. The Works: Reconnected marks the second iteration of the group’s showcase, The Works, and features multidisciplinary performance pieces from Guild and other local dance creators, including by SLOWBURN Dance Co., as well as a new dance film by Kelli Carnes. Pieces will run the gamut of styles and cover themes of identity, community, and overcoming hurdles. “It is a chance for the dancers of the Guild to explore and create in a supportive environment,” says company founder Alex Ung. “We’ll see contemporary, modern, ballet, hip-hop, and swing!” The full performance is scheduled for April 25 and 26, 2025.
The Works: Reconnected will show Oct. 19 at YAW Theater

Theater

Primary Trust

Winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Eboni Booth’s dramatic comedy Primary Trust is coming to Seattle Rep this fall. Directed by Kaytlin McIntyre, the play tells the story of Kenneth, a bookstore worker in a small town who is used to his daily routine. When he is laid off unexpectedly, Kenneth’s world is upended, and he must connect with others in order to move forward and survive. “Primary Trust is about friendship, the necessity of change, and mai tais,” McIntyre says. “Set in a small town in upstate New York, the socially anxious Kenneth has carefully curated his own bubble thanks to the help of a local tiki bar and his imaginary friend Bert. But when Kenneth loses his job, that bubble suddenly bursts, and he must find the confidence and courage to face the unknown. Told with great humor and theatricality, this play takes an empathetic look at our collective loneliness and asks how we will find each other in a lost world.”
Primary Trust runs Oct. 24–Nov. 24 at Seattle Rep’s Leo K. Theater

Indian School

Known for an artistic practice deeply rooted in traditional ritual and embodiment exploration, Timothy White Eagle is debuting a deeply personal solo performance, Indian School, at On the Boards. Created around themes of cultural displacement and identity, the evening-length show looks at family histories, modes of assimilation, and the intergenerational impacts of the violence of decades past. Tapping into his lineage, White Eagle traces the story of his grandfather being forcibly removed from his tribal family and his own adoption by a white family in Washington, showing that through the trauma, storytelling is one of the most powerful tools for human resilience and healing. The production includes original music by Olivia Komacheet, live sound design by Crystal Cortez, video projection and scenic design by Juniper Shuey, a concep- tual video installation of archival imagery by DB Amorin, lighting by Geoff Korf, and dramaturgy by Hatlo.
Indian School runs Nov. 14–16 at On the Boards

Cowboys with Questions

Inspired by Euripides’ The Bacchae and the rise of contemporary cults, Cowboys With Questions (produced by Washington Ensemble Theatre) is a take on a modern-day Greek tragedy that tells the story of George, the charismatic leader of a small community in a tunnel under the Soledad Mission in California. As the group shares wine one evening, a rogue cowboy shows up with questions about everything from land prices and cattle care to the 1980s New Wave band Talking Heads. Written by local playwright Re- becca Tourino Collinsworth and directed by WET regular Suz Pontillo, Cowboys With Questions looks at what it takes to survive difficult times — and whether the cost is worth it.
Cowboys with Questions runs through Sept. 15 at 12th Avenue Arts

Visual Arts

Refract: The Seattle Glass Experience

Now in its sixth year, Refract: The Seattle Glass Experience is the nation’s preeminent glass festival. With more than 90 events featuring work from more than 70 artists, the four-day event, presented by Visit Seattle and Chihuly Garden and Glass, will give attendees the opportunity to visit 20 private studios — including The Boathouse, Dale Chihuly’s infamous hotspot — via shuttle bus. Additionally, Refract will present a new exhibition of work from winners of the popular Blown Away series, daily demos at Seattle Glass- blowing Studio, and opening exhibits at the Seattle Art Museum and METHOD gallery. “Our goal is for guests visiting from around the world to remember Seattle for this city’s exceptional glass artists,” says Michelle Bufano, executive director at Chihuly Garden and Glass. “Highlighting those artists continues the longstanding commitment of Chihuly Garden and Glass to enrich Seattle Center with vibrant creativity.”
Refract: The Seattle Glass Experience runs Oct. 17-20

What is Perverse is Liquid

The University of Washington’s Henry Art Gallery is bringing the first large-scale Seattle presentation of work by New York artist A.K. Burns, with the multi-medium installation What is Perverse is Liquid. With a focus on Burns’ Negative Space video series (created between 2015 and 2018), the exhibit includes photography, collage, and sculptures that help deepen the artist’s investigation of the relationship between people and place, with a dash of speculative fiction. “It highlights the multifaceted ways Burns challenges hierarchies of power and agency across marginalized communities and the environment,” says Henry curator Nina Bozicnik. “In this time of social inequity and ecological crisis, Burns’ work is potent, creating a portal to envision possibilities for transformation and a world of collective liberation.”
What is Perverse is Liquid running now– May 2025

Warren Dykeman: FAST FLUX TEST

Longtime Seattle artist Warren Dykeman returns to studio e gallery for his fifth studio solo show at the gallery. Titled Warren Dykeman: FAST FLUX TEST, the body of work, featuring a series of new drawings and paintings created over the past two years, combines analog methods (drawing, collage) with digital graphics for a visual representation that is striking and familiar at the same time. “I wanted to push the boundaries of how much the surface could hold on this piece,” Dykeman says of the large-scale, collaged Portals. The show’s title, FAST FLUX TEST, refers to the Hanford site breeder reactor (a reactor that produces more nuclear fuel than it consumes) located in Kennewick, the artist’s hometown.
Warren Dykeman: FAST FLUX TEST runs Sept. 14–Oct. 26 at studio e gallery

 

PROCESSION and Understory

Two contemporary female artists — New Mexico’s Emily Leonard and Portland-based Mia Farrington — are launching their second Winston Wächter Fine Art shows with solo presentations this fall. For Understory, the Nashville-born Leonard will show a series of paintings inspired by her time in New Mexico. Looking to the ground, she creates lively impressions of wildflowers and grasses with a riot of color and a flourish of abstraction that lets the viewer bring their own interpretations and experiences to the work. Farrington’s PROCESSION is a color study grounded in geometric forms, in which the artist invites the viewer to experience color as a vibrant, “living” element rather than a static, artistic tool. Inspired by the likes of Josef Albers and Anne Truitt, Farrington uses large, minimal forms to create relationships between colors to show that restraint and boundlessness can successfully coexist.
PROCESSION and Understory run Oct. 30–Dec. 23 at Winston Wächter Fine Art

Books

In So Many Words – Three Years, Two Months, One Me

Local essayist and poet Mary Lou Sanelli’s forthcoming work, In So Many Words — Three Years, Two Months, One Me (Chatwin Books), is, on its surface, a collection of essays about living in the Northwest. But dig deeper, and Sanelli’s introspective writing serves as a poignant reminder of the importance and reward of paying attention to the small, everyday moments that are easy to overlook. Whether through fleeting interactions with strangers or complicated relationships with those we love, human connection is one of the most important and lesson-imparting experiences we can ever have. Sanelli understands this and threads it throughout her engaging style, which draws from a life of writing, travel, and dance.
In So Many Words — Three Years, Two Months, One Me is out on Sept. 10. Two local author events are scheduled in conjunction with the release: at Elliott Bay Book Co. on Sept. 13 and Third Place Books on Oct. 3.