About The Play
Six of the Pacific Northwest’s best playwrights joined forces to investigate, write and stage a “living newspaper,” theatrically reporting on the recent demise of the print version of Seattle’s beloved daily newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. This innovative play explores how journalism is evolving and what that evolution means for our culture and community, city-wide, nationwide and world-wide. NSCC’s own Dawson Nichols directs this world premiere which includes “articles” filed by Scot Augustson, Kelleen Conway Blanchard, Pam Carter, Paul Mullin, Bryan Willis, and Nichols himself.
The resulting show contains pieces exploring the 100 year-plus history of the P-I from fool-hardy writer-explorers of the Olympic Mountain range to the more recent Joint Operating Agreement (JOA) with the Seattle Times and the ultimate decision by the Hearst Corporation to shut down the paper on March 17, 2009. A collection of short plays or “articles” weave together, covering the same beats the P-I itself covered: local politics, sports, music, and yes, even Seattle’s local theatre scene.
Production History
| 2009 | Seattle | NSCC Stage One |
Production Media
Misha vs Joe from Paul Mullin on Vimeo.
Pressing a Politician from Paul Mullin on Vimeo.
Production Stills
Awards and Mentions
“There’s generally two ways that journalists are depicted. They're either crusaders who go about uncovering wrongdoing everywhere, sometimes at personal risk, or else they're venal, ambitious climbers that don't care who they destroy on their way to a bigger story, a bigger name and a bigger paycheck. This play doesn't seem to fall in either of those camps.”
-- Brook Gladstone, host and managing editor of NPR’S ON THE MEDIA. (Listen Now)
“The play is a eulogy (one of the deeper, more nuanced eulogies of the P-I yet), but it doesn't romanticize the paper or the journalists who worked there.... The scenes range from the crude cacophony of the newsroom to a reporter interviewing the mothers of victims of the Green River Killer to the sad absurdity of a resume-building workshop after the P-I closed.... It maintains a tense, journalistic energy: tragedy running hand in hand with absurdity... and a callous, bittersweet humor that helps the medicine go down.”
-- STRANGER arts editor and theater critic, Brendan Kiley. (Read Review)
“As one who has made a career out of caricature, I see the play as a similar exercise in artistic license; an attempt to stretch the facts and employ humor in the service of making a broader point and stir up discussion. In its best moments, the play does that.”
-- Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, Dave Horsey. (Read Review)
“The play moved rapidly from idea to first reading to stage-ready because the playwrights weren't interested in creating a piece of local nostalgia.”
-- Former Arts Editor for THE SEATTLE P-I, John Levesque. (Read Review)
“... the material was given an organic, nonlinear structure that favored flexible pacing and shifting of time and space. "It's Not In the P-I" addresses more than a century of P-I history. With many more angles to cover, Mullin and Nichols are considering future "editions" of their production. "You dig into this material," says Nichols, "and you realize what a profound change our culture is going through. We've only begun to grapple with it.”
-- Freelance Critic for THE SEATTLE TIMES, Jeff Shannon. (Read Review)
“You need to get yourself a t-shirt that says 'soul cannibal'."
-- Host of THE MENAGE, 1150 AM KKNW, Julie Mains. (Listen Now – 30 secs in)
“It’s Not in the P-I” goes through many emotional turns. The theater fills with laughter as the play pokes fun at the uselessness of trying to question a politician and goes silent after scenes describing the coverage of the Green River Killer. [The] production successfully covers the shock that the closing of the P-I brought to the community while focusing on what really mattered most about it—its sense of closeness and community to all Seattle residents.
-- Reporter for the SEATTLE UNIVERSITY SPECTATOR, Cat Katlett. (Read Review)
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