Kent group to present free screening of transgender student web series

Kent’s Theatre Battery will return to the Kent Station shopping center for the first time since the start of the pandemic in 2020.

At 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 29, it will host a free screening of its pandemic-made stop motion animated web series “LEGO Harry Potter and the Transgender Witch.”

This is a local LGBTQ+ and youth-friendly Pride event at which the story of Quincy Blueburger (Hogwarts’ first transgender student) will be told in full length on screen, said Logan Ellis, producing artistic director of Theatre Battery.

Ellis said the series launched in 2021 and has since played in film festivals, on YouTube, in elementary schools as curriculum and in corporations as queer competency training. The Kent nonprofit UTOPIA WA is the producing partner in this project and several of their staff members voice roles in the series.

To reserve a seat, go to theatrebattery.org/hp-transgender-witch.

Theatre Battery will operate as a fully-vaccinated company and requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for entrance to its spaces.

In July, Theatre Battery will host a series of new play events and also a free acting class available to anyone in the community. The culmination will be Sleep is for the Weak, a 24-hour new play festival on July 30, which will bring together 30-plus theatre artists to create a festival of new material in a single weekend.

More information is available at theatrebattery.org/news.

Ellis said the group will forego any full productions for 2022 and instead invest in free community classes, new projects in development and artistic celebrations.

Ellis, who grew up in Kent and graduated from Kent-Meridian High School and Green River College, established the theater company 11 years ago to bring socially pertinent contemporary plays to diverse audiences.