Reggie Watts and Tommy Smith just had their first public performance/workshop of their latest piece, Dutch A/V. The collaboration with Seattle writer Brendan Kiley “seeks to replicate the first hand experience of being a flâneur in another city.” The boys packed up spy glasses and headed to Amsterdam where they filmed a myriad of people and places.

Brendan wrote up what the experience of getting this onstage was like on the Slog. Read his thoughts in “Overheard in the Rehearsal Hall.”

Here’s what Seattle Mag editor/writer Brangien Davis had to say about Transition:

Know this: it’s really funny and really good. Rumor has it Reggie has a Comedy Central special in the works, so if you’re one of those people who loves to say, “I saw him before he got huge,” this is your chance.

Read the full review.

[Psssst - Brangien also posted a link to some videos that Reggie created as part of the new Electric Company.]

Tommy Smith sent a couple new pictures from some of the dress rehearsals this week:

I’ve never seen Reggie Watts live. Nor have I seen Tommy Smith live. I’m glad I did. I think you should too.

Reggie and Tommy are like two irregular galaxies colliding in the universe at a rate that no one can measure. I left the theater seeing stars. Reggie has a magnetic persona, the ultimate showman, backed up by his golden voice, stunning beats and loops, and hip-hop-funk-jazz-uncategorizable theatrics that transports the audience to a joyous and weightless plane of existence, alongside his quick wits and authentic storytelling. Then there’s Tommy, whose singular voice is unmistakable, in the words, in the direction. The ease in which the words float and attack is a front to its complexity and power. The awesome film work by Joby Emmons/Nick Bentgen/Austin Elston, provide the evening’s stunning moments, full of rhythm and style, shifting perspectives and genres in unexpected ways. Transition pulls you in with the humor, the sort of young, hip sensibility that’s attractive and slick, but there’s something deeper than that happening here: ideas of reality, subversion, voyeurism, technology, time, psychosis, and control are at play-a fresh look at a new model of total theater; this work is experimental, non-linear, sensory, fragmented, and slippery, but swiftly engaging and supremely well executed. Reggie and Tommy (and a virtual factory of collaborators) take ‘multimedia theater work’ to a new level and are successful in creating a mesmerizing, immersive experience. Go see it!

Teen Tix lays out a formula for this weekend’s show over on their blog.

From Seattlest:

It’s a little bit hard to explain Reggie Watts. Wikipedia calls him a “multidisciplinary comedic performer,” and while that’s accurate, it fails to capture the weirdness of his material. What would you call this? Hip hop Andy Kaufman? Comedy Girl Talk?

From Take 21 (Nancy Guppy’s blog):

And although my injury has me severely cutting back my social calendar, I will be attending “Transition”, the Reggie Watts/Tommy Smith show at On the Boards this evening. The show runs through Saturday, 10/17, and I predict crazy-fun-silly-cool-hilariousness. Catch it if you can.

If you pick up a copy of the Stranger right now, here’s how their short blurb for Transition reads:

Reggie Watts is a musician/comedian whose standup is more like verbal performance art – he makes imaginative leaps, invents languages and false histories, beat boxes, sings and speaks intelligent gibberish. Listening to him, you can feel new synapses hatching in your brain. Tommy smith is a wickedly smart and sometimes sardonic playwright who writes cutting scripts about sex, politics, and varieties of power. They both have an affection for goofy jokes, high concepts, A/V technology, and modern dance. When their brains rub up against one another, sparks fly up your nose and down your pants. – Brendan Kiley

ETA – here’s a link to the post on Slog.

If you regularly read this blog, you know On the Boards is the place in Seattle to see the best in contemporary performance. The Inter/National Series brings just that – performance groups from outside Seattle, giving locals a taste of what’s going on outside of our city. Some of these groups have never presented in Seattle, some are making a welcome return, and some may never come back. These opportunities are HUGE – for artmakers and art spectators alike – the best in the world here in your backyard. You either see it, or you don’t. And you definitely don’t want to miss it.

The very same can be said of On the Boards’ NW Artist Series which starts this week with Reggie Watts | Tommy Smith – Transition.

Where do you think superstars of the performance world started? On the local level. And On the Boards is doing their part to showcase up-and-coming artists with roots in the Pacific Northwest region to present what is the future of contemporary performance – theater, dance, and music. Here’s why you shouldn’t miss it…

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Jeremy Barker from theSunBreak sat down with Reggie Watts and Tommy Smith for along interview in the OtB mainstage lobby. Here’s what he had to say about the experience:

Tommy Smith and Reggie Watts don’t so much talk to you when they sit down to discuss their work as banter. No doubt this owes something to their process for creating Watts’s onstage material, which involves Watts calling Smith up at odd hours with whatever ideas have popped into his head, so the two can discuss, write them down, come back to them later, and maybe somehow turn it into something.

Read the full preview/interview.

Margaret Friedman previews Transition opening this weekend at OtB:

Reggie Watts and Tommy Smith, like most artists today, are seeking the holy grail of “what’s next” in the post-Aristotelian era of storytelling.

Read the full thing.