In this week's theater section, we have Melody Datz on the upcoming Seattle International Dance Festival:

At noon this coming Saturday, June 15, the Seattle International Dance Festival (SIDF) will kick off its “Art on the Fly” street party in South Lake Union, with free performances (including local b-boy heroes Massive Monkees), open classes, bands, margaritas, and a beer garden. Even I, who will freely throw down dozens of dollars for a three-hour ballet in a chilly theater, am much happier about seeing dance if I can watch it while sitting on the grass with a keg cup in hand.

The two-weekend SIDF, produced by Khambatta Dance Company, melds professional dance culture—including an Inter|National series with performers from Israel, Guinea, and Ghana—with an easygoing summer atmosphere.

Also: Cienna Madrid on the Comedy Womb, Seattle's first feminist comedy night, with a detour into Lindy West blowing up the internet last week by suggesting that comedy might—just might—have a lady problem:

It's a Tuesday night in the basement of the Rendezvous, and, up until a minute ago, the room was packed with the kind of crowd comedians dream of—attentive, polite, and quick to laugh. But that all ends when a young male comedian takes the stage with a set that revolves around domestic violence and date rape jokes. "If a girl asks to jerk me off, I'll crack her in the face," he says.

That's precisely the type of comment that doesn't go over well at this weekly open mic, known as the Comedy Womb. The crowd is stonily silent. He pushes on. "I've never understood date rape," he says, nervously running a hand through his hair. "I'd never date a girl after I raped her."

"Get off the stage," someone shouts, breaking the Comedy Womb's no-heckling rule.

"I guess I'll leave you with that," he says.

"Yes, please do," shouts another audience member.

Also-also: I write about Other Desert Cities at ACT (it'll be in Suggests soon):

Picture the Wyeths in their grand Palm Springs living room on Christmas Eve: Dad is a gentle Republican politico and John McCain doppelganger. Son is a goofball TV producer. Daughter is a lefty writer. Mom is a drolly cruel Reagan-worshipper. “You are never going to meet anyone,” she says to the daughter, “if you continue to dress like a refugee from a library in Kabul.” When the daughter announces that she's written a dangerously revealing memoir about her radical leftist older brother who later killed himself, the living room becomes a battleground. Watching the sparks fly between mom (Pamela Reed) and daughter (Marya Sea Kaminski) is like watching two people angrily welding at each other.