Kitsap Forest Theater is a natural outdoor amphitheater just outside of Bremerton, Wash. It's been run by the Mountaineers for 93 years, and sits on a 640-acre forest preserve. 100 years ago it was all rhododendrons. That was the initial attraction to the area. Some of the people who are Mountaineers began to come and stay every year and they began to do shows, performances and concerts, and eventually that developed into an annual theatrical production. The shows have been continuously running

This week on Sound Effect , we tell stories from amongst the trees. Theater In The Woods The Kitsap Forest Theater is one of the oldest outdoor theaters in the country. Tucked in the woods outside of Bremerton, performances have been held here every single year for 93 years, except for a couple of years during World War II.

Michael McAndrews has had a lifelong love affair with birds. It all started with an article he read as a kid in National Geographic. It profiled homing pigeons used in wartime to communicate messages between troops. Michael was captivated by the story of a bird named Cher Ami that saved almost 200 American soldiers in France during World War I. So he started buying his own birds and training them. In fact, his classmates called him “birdbrain,” not as an insult, but because birds were the only

There’s a letter on Yulina Bilombele’s dining room table that she cannot read. “Defendant failed to pay the rent and has further failed to vacate and surrender the premises.” Bilombele is a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo. She’s 80 years old. She does not speak English. She is too frail to work and she does not have the money to pay rent. So, she turns to the man many Congolese refugees in Seattle call: Floribert Mubalama. “They want us to help them,” he says. “They have to go to

Traveling on a commercial flight these days can be rough. Perks such as free meals and pillows are long gone. Today, airlines charge for everything from where you sit on the plane to how much legroom you’re allotted. It’s easy to forget there was a time, not too long ago, when passengers dressed up to get on an airplane. 79-year-old Gloria Sferra remembers very well what flying used to be like. She was a stewardess for Pan American Airlines from 1962 to 1964 — a golden era of commercial air

Jesse Hayes’ love of flying began as a kid growing up in Texas. His family had a car but they also had an airplane, which Jesse’s father adored. Jesse says that as an African-American family, that meant that they could literally fly over racism when they went on trips to visit family. The airplane made it possible for Jesse’s family to avoid the things that made traveling difficult for so many people of color in the American South at that time — such as being denied accommodations or the ability

A group of students from the University of Washington is working on a way to create satellites that could stay up indefinitely and fly in a circle over a particular patch of the earth. The results could mean cell phone and internet coverage in disaster areas, along with super-high-resolution images of remote places on the planet. Right now, they’re testing their ideas, which have taken the shape of a 12-pound glider with a 20-foot wingspan attached to a small propulsion system that’s powered by

B.J. Listman is one of the elevator operators at the Space Needle. The Space Needle and the Smith Tower, according to B.J, are the only places left in Seattle where there are actually elevator operators. This iconic Seattle landmark has enchanted B.J. since he was a child. “It's kind of funny actually. I have one of those three-foot tall paper Space Needle models, and the model kit had you glued the elevators in place, but I never did because I like to make them go up and down the Space Needle,"

This week on Sound Effect, stories about the view from above. The Best View In The City Space Needle elevator operator B.J. Listman gets to see one of the best views in the world every single day for his job. And for B.J., the view from the top never gets old. High-Altitude Exploration UW Earth and space sciences faculty member Robert Winglee has designed a drone that can fly at an altitude of about 80,000 feet. It has solar panels in the wings and batteries for energy storage, meaning this

Colin McDaniel grew up on the water. He was raised on Bainbridge Island. In the summer, Colin and his best friend Adam loved exploring the island’s coast. Adam’s father had a fleet of unloved dinghies. “They all had those drain holes under the water line and no drain hole plugs to be found anywhere," says McDaniel. "But that didn't stop us from shoving green fir cones into the drain holes and pushing our boats into the gray water and going out for adventures anyway.” Today, McDaniel is a teacher