Expect the unexpected this weekend as Olympia hosts silent play, Hump Fest and diva Meow Meow

Daring diva

Surprising siren Meow Meow, whose cabaret-style act combines intellect, history and song with a gleefully wacky comedy, wowed the crowd when she popped into Pink Martini’s 2024 concert at The Washington Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Olympia. “She almost stole the show,” said Jill Barnes, the center’s executive director. “The audience loved her.” On Saturday, Feb. 22, Meow (aka Melissa Madden Gray) is back. The sultry siren sings in many languages but favors German a la “Cabaret’s” Kit Kat Klub. Though there’s no telling exactly what will happen on stage Saturday, she has been known to crowd surf and invite audience members on stage to serve as furnishings. The performance, at 8 p.m. at the center, 512 Washington St. SE, Olympia, comes after The Center Stage Awards and Gala, for which ticket sales closed Thursday, Feb. 20. Tickets to Meow Meow’s concert are still available at prices ranging from $25 to $69.

The subject is sex

Hump Fest, Dan Savage’s annual amateur porn festival, is celebrating two decades of bringing people’s sex lives onto the big screen — sometimes in extreme closeup. The contents vary each year, but the festival consistently showcases a wide range of body types, shapes, ages and preferences in works that range from titillating to ridiculous to startling and sometimes even stomach turning. The 2025 festival — for ages 18 and older only — is being presented in two parts, with part 1 screening in Olympia at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 22, at the Olympia Film Society’s Capitol Theater, 206 Fifth Ave. SE, Olympia. (Doors open at 7.) Tacoma drag queen Bobbi Jo Blessings is hosting. Tickets are $20.

Silence, more or less, on stage

The actors in South Puget Sound Community College Theatre Collective’s “Small Mouth Sounds,” opening Friday, Feb. 21, didn’t have to worry much about learning lines. Bess Wohl’s 2015 play follows a group of strangers at a silent retreat. Though the retreat-goers rarely speak, much is revealed in the often-funny drama, which was a hit with critics. “Wohl’s play makes a wonderful case for how eloquently silence can speak,” New York Times critic Charles Isherwood wrote. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Feb. 21-22, as well as Feb. 28 and March 1; and at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 23, plus March 2 at the college’s Minnaert Center for the Arts, 2011 Mottman Road SW, Olympia. Admission is by donation ($12 suggested), with SPSCC students, staff and faculty admitted free.

Also on stage this weekend is a reading of “The Christians,” Lucas Hnath’s acclaimed 2014 play about the mysteries of faith. “The Christians” is the first in Harlequin Productions’ Bold Voices series, aimed at showcasing newer and edgier plays. Readings are at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 22, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 23, at the State Theater, 202 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia. Tickets are $25.

Freelance writer Molly Gilmore talks with DJ Kevin the Brit about what’s happening around town on KGY-FM’s “Oly in a Can,” airing at 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. Fridays.