When it's a theater company in Washington state.

In this week's theater section, I gently chide the new theater company "Woman Seeking... theatre West" for choosing a difficult and confusing name.

"Woman Seeking..." (any name that requires quotes so you can distinguish its punctuation from the punctuation in a normal sentence is difficult and confusing) began in NYC. Holly Storms sent me an email from "Woman Seeking..."'s east coast branch:

Just an fyi (not that you asked) - we were/are called Woman Seeking... a theatre company in NYC. The name was chosen as kind of a spoof of the personal ads - only we are seeking... better roles, more opportunities, the right to be young, old, heavy, thin, any ethnicity while still being cast in wonderful roles.

When we arrived in Washington State, they have this silly rule that you cannot form a company with the word "company" in the title. So Woman Seeking... a theatre company West didn't work. And thus we became the confusing Woman Seeking... theatre West. I guess if we have to explain it - we are missing something.

Turns out she's right. There is a silly rule. According to state law (article 24.03), a nonprofit "MAY NOT contain any of the following designations or abbreviations of: Corporation, Company, Incorporated, Limited, Limited Partnership, Limited Liability Company, or Limited Liability Partnership."

Cathy Verellen at the Secretary of State's office confirmed this, saying the RCW reserves those words for for-profit corporations.

Which means a few local companies—Seattle Shakespeare Company, New Century Theater Company, Taproot Theater Company, Young Americans' Theater Company—might have to start shopping around for new names.

(Or, per the comments get a DBA "doing business as" license and call themselves whatever the hell they want. Apologies for my ignorance: I've not incorporated anything more sophisticated than gin and vermouth in a martini shaker.)