Seattle, blessedly, bursts with new-works theater festivals these days. This month, a new festival with a unique spin on the format returns to Kerry Hall: Over three days, Starstuff: A Festival of Solo Artists will build a constellation of works that speak to one another, honoring the collaborative connections between artists, and between artist and audience.
“I wanted to infuse this festival with everything that I wanted for artists, everything I wanted as an audience and everything that I wanted when I was fully a performer,” said Billie Wildrick, an uber-talented Seattle musical theater artist and the creative architect/artistic director of Starstuff, which debuted last year.
This year’s Starstuff runs Oct. 23-25, presented with Seattle Theatre Group.
The festival’s format intentionally groups artists in constellations so their work can illuminate one another. Each block will feature a 15-minute interdisciplinary work, a songwriter performing an original song, a 60- to 80-minute solo show and another new song created in response to that show.
Artists include violinist Tricia Buzzard, aerialist Tanya Gagné, performance artist Bhama Roget and singer-songwriter Lauren Drake, among many other local and national talents. Throughout the weekend, teaching artists will hold workshops to help build bridges between artist and audience.
“We’re all creators, right?” Wildrick said. “As humans, we’re our best when we’re makers and explorers, so these workshops are there to tease that out by putting the artist and audience next to each other — how do you take your experience and begin to put it in any sort of expressive form?”
Starstuff is a project of Astro Lab Productions, a company that’s formally existed for fewer than three years but has exploded onto the scene.
The idea for the Seattle-based theater production company began crystallizing during the pandemic, when Erin and Greg Coomer met Christopher DeLair, a composer and music director who became their son’s vocal coach and, eventually, the family’s good friend.
When Erin Coomer heard that DeLair was writing a musical, “Signs of Life,” she needed to hear it. When she heard it, she needed to foster it.
“My husband and I were like, ‘Well, I guess it’s our job to put this into the world because it’s incredible,’ ” said Erin, now Astro Lab’s co-founder and CEO.
That was in 2023, and the first order of business was supporting DeLair so he could focus on writing.
“I felt so empowered to just create in the summer of ’23 when I was writing all of those songs,” DeLair said. “They just came out of me.”
Erin officially formed Astro Lab Productions in January 2024, and since then the company has grown quickly but organically. Over a glass of wine, she mapped out the Astro Lab vision for Paula Tharp, a theater producer and development pro (and 5th Avenue Theatre alum) who came on board as managing producer.
Out of the gate, Astro Lab co-produced a Tony-winning play (“John Proctor Is the Villain”), all while giving local artists and collaborators a place at the decision-making table and, in the long run, helping Seattle take its place on the national landscape.
“The founding bedrock really is about supporting artists,” said Erin, whose background is in music (Greg Coomer is a visual artist and longtime product designer at video game company Valve). “Because we understand that it’s a tough career and it’s not consistent, and that we are better human beings with them in the world.”
For both Wildrick and Ann Cornelius (who is also Astro Lab’s marketing pro), after years as actors being garlic-pressed into a director or artistic director’s specific vision, the company’s artist-forward ethos felt like a revelation.
“There was a lot of exploration,” Cornelius said of her experience performing in a workshop for “Signs of Life.” “It wasn’t just ‘perform this role,’ it was like, ‘Hey, what do you want to see in this role? Does this song excite you?’ There was so much curiosity about you as an individual and as a performer, and I feel like that curiosity is alive in Astro Lab.”
The momentum is only growing. After several workshop performances of “Signs of Life” in Seattle and New York, a recently released concept album for the musical included Broadway talents like Shoshana Bean, Jinkx Monsoon, Jenn Colella, Deborah Cox and Vanessa Williams.
Astro Lab is also beginning to develop other new works, including the Seattle-grown “Aviatrix,” which will get a local workshop and presentation next January. Among the company’s other ongoing projects: a documentary film about the band Lucius; coproducing a new Lauren Gunderson play called “Billie Jean”; a new Sara Bareilles musical titled “The Interestings”; and enhancing (making a financial contribution to a nonprofit theater production) “Ms. Blakk for President,” based on the wild true story of a drag queen running for mayor of Chicago and later for president.
Astro Lab is built on supporting Seattle artists, Erin said, but company is simultaneously working on projects around the country — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago — with a goal of bringing those artists together here in Seattle. “We’re trying to grow Seattle as a destination hub for artists,” she said.
For now, the Coomers are self-funding Astro Lab, with a multiyear plan aimed at sustainability. What that (hopefully) sustainable model will look like, they don’t know yet — the financial models may need to be as individual as the projects they support.
But they’re moving forward intentionally as they look to the future.
“We don’t want to change anything as we scale,” Tharp said. “We want to keep those deep relationships with everyone that we work with, and continue to support them in the way that they need to be supported, knowing that it’s bespoke, that every artist needs a different type of environment.”
Who knows what that bespoke support might help create? What a thrill not to know yet.
“The power (of artists) comes from us making something new,” Wildrick said. “The regions should be this beautiful farmland of artists being nurtured and growing, of being invited to dig deeper and hone their craft. That’s where we should be pouring our support.”