In this era of corrosive politics and fractured culture, friends are more important than ever. Alas! Seattle’s film and theater communities are losing two friends who have played more behind-the-scenes roles on projects and productions than we can count on our collective fingers and toes: John DeShazo and Susannah Anderson!

If you’ve produced theater or film or created some other artistic event in Seattle over the past 18 years or so, there’s a good chance that John and Susannah have helped build, light, design, perform in, or otherwise bring to fruition your artistic work — sometimes by sneakily building things in the middle of the night, like some kind of wrench-and-drill-wielding arts magician. They’ve worked at almost every venue in town and in every medium since 1999. But like so much great Seattle talent before them, Seattle is losing John and Susannah to a cross-country move this summer.

But before they go, the arts community—and Northwest Film Forum in particular, as John has been with NWFF since 1999, and on their Board of Directors for 16 years—is sending them off in style with two nights of performance (dance, theater, film, and more) featuring a cornucopia of Seattle talent, intermingled with tales of wonder from many collaborators throughout the years.

FEATURED TALENT EACH NIGHT

FRIDAY:

• We open with a musical number about John DeShazo, created by BRET FETZER & ROB WITMER (with JOHN himself, SEAN NELSON, HEIDI DARCHUK, & BRUCE HALL)
• Singer/performer SARAH PAUL OCAMPO with KAREN GARRET DE LUNA and SARA JINKS!
• Experimental theater/research duo THE VIS-A-VIS SOCIETY!
• Raconteur and master of passive aggression MATT SMITH!
• Performer/rock star SEAN NELSON!
• Homegrown nihilist game show THE FUTURE IS 0, with host CLAIRE BUSS aka CLAY BUFF!
• Animator WEB CROWELL’s “Borrowing Time” with SUSANNAH ANDERSON!
• A live auction of spontaneous painting ensemble CHROM-A-MATIC’s paintings that were created during the evening!

SATURDAY:

• Once more, BRET FETZER & ROB WITMER‘s musical number about John (with GUEST OF HONOR JOHN, SEAN NELSON, HEIDI DARCHUK, & BRUCE HALL)
• Dancer/choreographer PAIGE BARNES with writer VANESSA DEWOLF and bassist EVAN FLORY-BARNES!
• Genre-defying performer ilvs strauss!
• Arts administrator-turned-male-entertainer JASON PLOURDE takes on his Magic Mike XXL persona!
• Performer/rock star SEAN NELSON!
• Homegrown nihilist game show THE FUTURE IS 0, with host CLAIRE BUSS aka CLAY BUFF!
• Animator WEB CROWELL’s “Borrowing Time” with SUSANNAH ANDERSON!
• A live auction of spontaneous painting ensemble CHROM-A-MATIC’s paintings that were created during the evening!

Hosted by the Northwest Film Forum’s own executive director COURTNEY SHEEHAN and produced by long-time making-things-happen-guy BRET FETZER!

Illustration by Kathryn Rathke