Stage Review - Ted & Gary

Stage Review - Ted & Gary
Presented By: Jules Maes Saloon - Seattle, WA
Show Run: October 03 - October 17, 2025
Date Reviewed: Monday, October 13, 2025
Run Time: 2 Hours (including 2, 10-minute intermissions)
Reviewed By: Greg Heilman

Some stories don’t care what stage they’re presented on - indoors, outdoors, proscenium, thrust - while others almost insist on being told in a very particular way and in a very particular setting. Ted & Gary, the new play from Beau M. K. Prichard that presents a hypothetical relationship between serial killers Ted Bundy and Gary Ridgway (The Green River Killer), is in all ways the latter. The play, which examines a world in which these two killers knew each other in life as told through three not-so-chance meetings between them—Bundy as mentor and Ridgway as student—cries for a dark corner to be told in.

That dark corner is found at Jules Maes Saloon, the oldest bar in Seattle, and perhaps one of the only venues in the city with enough history in its wood and its walls to shoulder a story like this. It’s not a “set” so much as a living organism—creaking floors, half-lit bottles behind the bar, and a sense that a hundred conversations have already taken place here before these two men sit down to start theirs. The choice of space isn’t just atmospheric; it’s essential. Beau’s play doesn’t work without that intimacy, that proximity, that sense that we—the audience—might be sitting just one table over, hearing a quiet exchange that history forgot to record.

Beau, who both wrote and directed the piece (he also takes on a third role as bartender) takes a unique approach to his storytelling, one that isn’t to shock, but to quietly place the audience inside a psychological experiment and let the silence work its way under the skin. Ted & Gary succeeds because it never overplays its hand. There’s no spectacle, no gore, no flash. Just two men, three meetings, and the growing unease of what might have been said if history had given them the chance to meet.

Anchoring that unease are the two leads: Seamus C. Smith as Gary Ridgway and Ryan Higgins as Ted Bundy. Each actor has transformed himself, not just emotionally in how they portray their characters, but physically as well. Costuming by Rochelle-Ann Graham underscores their opposing worlds—Ridgway’s blue-collar roots expressed in workwear simplicity, Bundy’s affluent, academic confidence captured through subtle, deliberate polish. Seamus looks the part, and in a turn that is almost frightfully accurate, channels Ridgway’s contained volatility through micro-expression, and his explosiveness when that volatility is too much to bear. His gestures are economical but precise; even the flick of an eyebrow becomes a tool of communication. He captures the unassuming ordinariness that made the real-life killer so elusive, and that ordinariness becomes the most unsettling thing about him.

Meanwhile, Ryan embodies Bundy with a disarming charm that borders on arrogance. He exudes that aloof “I’m too smart to get caught, but I dare you to try anyway” energy that defined Bundy’s public persona. The interplay between the two men—one calculating his next sentence, the other watching, cataloguing, learning—creates a slow-burn rhythm that’s hypnotic to watch. They share the table but never share the power, and the balance shifts with every conversation. It’s fascinating to watch as Bundy exhibits control over the conversation early on, but as the play progresses, the balance begins to lean in Ridgway’s favor, his hesitancy in engaging Bundy giving way to a comfort that allows him to open up and reveal what amounts to a manifesto of motivation.

Beau’s writing allows for that shifting dynamic. He’s clearly done his research; these conversations feel unnervingly plausible, the personalities laid out exactly as one might suspect had these two actually met. There’s an authenticity to the rhythm of their speech—the pauses, the half-smiles, the ways each man tests the other’s boundaries. The tension isn’t about what’s said but about what hangs between the words.

It’s a raw play told in a raw setting, and the immersive environment in the darkened back room at Jules Maes deepens that tension. Lighting lets the room itself breathe as a third participant, and Shawn Shelton’s work with the actors’ makeup adds just enough realism to blur the line between actor and apparition, the kind of detail that works best when unnoticed.

There’s another aspect to the show, the audio/video component, in which the audience sees Seamus’ Gary Ridgway in prison orange speaking about his relationship with Bundy over what feels like a closed-circuit television. The audio quality isn’t great, but that’s part of the point. He’s not on a highly produced television show, he’s in prison, in handcuffs. It’s a nice touch, though as the production matures, I’d like to see it be a little less obvious that the video is being controlled from another device.

By the time the third and final meeting concludes, there’s no catharsis, no comfort. Only the unsettling recognition that evil doesn’t always announce itself—it sometimes just sits across the table, smiling faintly, ordering another round. Ted & Gary lingers long after the lights go down, not because of what we saw, but because of what we didn’t. Beau Prichard’s play is about proximity—how close we can get to understanding darkness without falling into it. And in that dimly lit corner of Jules Maes, experiencing the hauntingly good performances of Seamus C. Smith and Ryan Higgins, the definition of immersive theatre is on full display, where the line between observer and participant grows terrifyingly thin.

Ted & Gary as closed, but to keep up to date on future performances, visit https://www.tedandgary.com/index.html.

Photo credit: Brett Love