Backstage

• WWU alumna to play Julia Thomas III in the play "Aunt Fondeen and the Lost Dutchman Goldmine"
  How does a job with a major retailer lead to an acting gig in Los Angeles? Well, it doesn't, not directly. But for Stacy Citron, getting that retailer to transfer her from Seattle to L.A. was the first step. The second was subscribing to Back Stage and literally tap-dancing her way to the role of Julia Thomas III in "Aunt Fondeen and the Lost Dutchman Goldmine," an original children's show for the Culver City Public Theatre. Julia needs money to save the family ice-cream parlor and open a nail-and-hair salon, so she and her sister set off in search of a gold mine.
  
  A theater major from Western Washington University, Citron took the retail job to work off her school loans, but she always knew she needed to be in L.A. to pursue her dream. The opportunity presented itself when an L.A. performance of Charles S. Dutton's "From Yale to Jail," a benefit for the Actors Hall of Fame Foundation, of which her father is founder and president, needed volunteers.

Crosscut.com

• Cong. Rick Larsen confronts anger at a town hall meeting on healthcare
  Healthcare has become a contact sport for members of Congress home for the August recess, and Rep. Rick Larsen, the Everett Democrat representing Northwest Washington's Second District, was banged around a bit during a trio of meetings in his district over the weekend. But Larsen isn't headed for the disabled list, and in the end his plea for "Northwestern Civility" basically carried the day with an overflow crowd in Mount Vernon on Saturday. (Story is by Floyd J. McKay, professor of journalism emeritus at Western Washington University.)