Evergreen alum and comedian Josh Blue returns to Olympia. See him Saturday
Ladies who laugh
Ladies of Laughter (LOL), a tour that showcases award-winning comediennes, has been coming to The Washington Center for the Performing Arts for long enough that the Olympian features staff is no longer amused by the abbreviation. But the touring production gets plenty of laughs each year. This time around, the show, happening Friday, March 20, features Leighann Lord, 2000 Ladies of Laughter finalist Veronica Mosey and Kelly MacFarland, who won the professional category in 2016. “I met (my husband) on a gnome fetish website,” MacFarland said in her latest special, “Hot Gnome” (https://youtube/_TSFuVXY_vI?si=h09UIAUUbwgIyahm). “The hats were weird at first, but now I can’t do it without them.” The show (https://www.washingtoncenter.org/event/ladies-of-laughter-3-20-2026/) starts at 7:30 p.m. at the center, 512 Washington St. SE, Olympia. Tickets are $31-$51.
Blue vs. the blues
Famed standup comedian and Evergreen graduate Josh Blue returns to Olympia for a performance on Saturday, March 21. Blue, who won NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” in 2006, has appeared on “The Tonight Show” and Comedy Central and at clubs around the world. In his recent special “Being Disabled Can Be Pretty Funny” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yoa7MUa-AL0), the comedian, who has cerebral palsy, referred to himself as “just another wobbly guy on the sidewalk.” “I made eight bucks walking over here,” he said. He’ll take the stage at 8 p.m. at the Capitol Theater, 206 Fifth Ave. SE, Olympia. Doors open at 7 p.m., and tickets (https://olympiafilmsociety.org/joshblue/) are $28.25-$43.25.
For ‘The Birds’
Alfred Hitchcock’s classic “The Birds,” about a town terrorized by avian attacks, is getting a rare big-screen outing at the Olympia Film Society’s Capitol Theater. The 1963 film, starring Tippi Hedren, will be on the big screen at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 19; 4 p.m. Friday, March 20; and 7 p.m. Sunday, March 22. The flick was the pick of Squin, the film society’s Volunteer of the Year. “As a child, I was quite terrified of even the tamest horror fare,” Squin wrote on the OFS website (https://olympiafilmsociety.org/the-birds/). “This is why I have chosen to program Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds,’ as it is one of my earliest memories of making it through a horror movie, and while I was still scared, for maybe the first time it was kind of fun to be scared.” Tickets are $11-$14.
Freelance writer Molly Gilmore felt justified in using the old-fashioned term “comediennes” because the LOL folks call themselves “ladies.”