Although now she has decades of experience in the theater industry, Intiman Theatre's artistic director since 2017, Jennifer Zeyl, first found her love for storytelling at a young age.
"What my family did for entertainment when I was a child was my father read to us, and he read a little bit of everything," Zeyl told the SGN, including Agatha Christie, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R Tolkien. Zeyl said she hasn't seen all the film adaptations of these classics, because she didn't grow up with television and she had already envisioned what they looked like in her head, and used to draw as her father read to her.
"I'm entirely sure that that is the reason I'm a set designer," she added.
As the daughter of a Dutch national, Zeyl grew up in a small Amsterdam suburb, and spent her summer months traveling to France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and Greece. Her parents were academics, so she spent much of her time in cultural institutions, including museums.
Using her distinct background to her advantage, Zeyl won a Stranger Genius Award in 2006 for her original design for the production of Crave. Written by renowned English playwright Sarah Kane, the play about loss, love, sex, and desire was one of the Washington Ensemble Theatre's first productions.
Zeyl said Intiman is revisiting Crave early next year, which originally launched the careers of several actors, including Roger Bennigton, Marya Sea Kaminski and Marc Kennison, and also is bringing many of the original cast members back.
"It's four different voices of a very fractured personality, sort of in concert, and sometimes that is an argument, and sometimes that is an agreement. Sometimes it's in love, very sexy," Zeyl said. "It's truly, truly horrifying, but it's a very compelling piece that speaks to inner turmoil, mental health, and loneliness."
While Zeyl is unsure of the set design for this piece, she plans to make improvements to it from last time.

Becoming Seattle's spot for cabaret
Intiman will also present a Langston Hughes's Black Nativity, as well as cabaret shows. Its fall cabaret lineup includes Justin Huertas' Triple Fire Sign, which was exclusively created for the theater.
Zeyl said there was intentionality around presenting and supporting new performance ideas.
"A lot of these are acts that would be at Re-bar if Re-bar was still going," Zeyl said. "The loss of that as a venue... as a space to experiment and a trusted brand... hits really, really hard. A lot of early career opportunities... or for an established artist to try something different, those experimental spaces kind of dried up too."
Cabaret shows have become increasingly hard to put on due to costs, and Zeyl has been seeing many performers moving to Arizona in particular. Detroit and Pittsburgh are other cities Zeyl listed as cabaret hot spots.
"We're trying to provide a bit of a [stop-loss] to the attrition. A lot of midcareer artists are leaving Seattle, because the stakes are so high for what they might want to try with their work. They also have to be a fundraiser... they have to market it." If Seattle is going to retain artists, Zeyl said the city must find ways for them to financially survive without worrying about closures.
"We have to afford them the space to experiment and create something amazing and new, and take the pressure off of them," said Zeyl, who noted how Intiman has been assisting cabaret productions. "We did all the marketing and all the ticketing so they could just make the fucking art."

For more information, visit https://www.Intiman.org