JAW 2009: I play rough!

Today is the last day of JAW a Playwrights Festival at Portland Center Stage (PCS), and everything seems to be winding down. Thank you everyone who came to see me in the three short plays I was in at the festival. I felt really good about how they all went, and the audience seemed to enjoy the shows a lot. I imagine that's mostly due to the brilliant young playwrights who wrote the shows; Robyn Pritzker who wrote Open the Box, Alec Chase who wrote Fleeced, and Emily Schad who wrote Mental Ugly.
I was very happy to see so many people at PCS yesterday seeing JAW. It's wonderful that so many people in Portland are interested in seeing new work! And what new work to see! The mainstage shows have been brilliant so far. Yesterday afternoon was Futura by Jordan Harrison, quite a treat for anyone into typefaces, and yesterday evening was Middletown by Will Eno. What I love about Middletown is that while it's very funny, it kind of sneaks up on you. Both last night and in our preliminary table readings at the beiginning of the festival, I felt like I should spontaneously burst into tears at some points of the play and laugh hysterically at others. Both Futura and Middletown were so evocative!
Well the festival is not over yet, so if you can make it I highly suggest the shows today. At 4:00 is Kick by Ivy Knight and On The Nature of Dust by Stephanie Timm. At 8:00 is Ovum by Malcom Stumpf and 99 Ways to Fuck a Swan by Kimberly Rosenstock. Both are FREE, so come!

JAW 2009: First Day, Big Weekend!

Alright, everyone, tomorrow is the big day, the big weekend at JAW begins!
This week has been exhausting, but really fun. The whole JAW crew managed to take a break from rehearsal on Wednesday to all go to the beach. We had a wonderful time. Thanks, Kelsey Tyler, for BBQ-ing all those hamburgers and hot-dogs!
All our toils over the past week have put together brilliant performances of six brand new full length plays, and six wonderful, new short plays which will serve as curtain raisers. Tomorrow the weekend kicks off at 4:00 with Freefall by Daniel Felder and Birds of a Feather by Marc Acito. Then, later in the evening at 8:00, Open the Box by Robyn Pritzker (a short play that I am performing in) and Concerning Strange Devices from the Distant West by Naomi Iizuka are performing.
Please come! The shows are free and I would love to share my first experience performing at Portland Center Stage (PCS) with all of you!

JAW 2009: Rehearsing

For several days now I have been hard at work at Portland Center Stage (PCS) contributing to JAW a Playwrights Festival by rehearsing for the Promising Playwrights series. This series is made up of six separate short plays written by six talented young playwrights. They will be performed before each main stage show this weekend.
There are a bunch of really great shows this weekend, and I hope you can make all of them. If you're only coming to a few, however, the plays that I am performing at the beginning of are Concerning Strange Devices from the Distant West by Naomi Iizuka at 8:00pm on Friday, Futura by Jordan Harrison at 4:00 pm on Saturday, and Middletown by Will Eno at 8:00pm on Saturday.
Looking forward to seeing you there!

JAW 2009: The Missing Pieces

Last night I watched the third show in the Made in Oregon series, The Missing Pieces by Nick Zagone. What a wonderful weird comedy that was!
It was the story of a slightly dysfunctional family in Portland 1980. Between the crazed Irish Catholic mother, the confused twelve-year-old son, the dead-beat older brother, he waitress named Honey, the featured playmate in May 1963, a spiritual cult leader called The Bahgwan Shree Rajneesh, and Hugh Hefner, the audience was kept in constant suspense of what shenanigans were going to occur next.
Tonight is the last of the Made in Oregon series, Bad Family by Andrea Stolowitz. It's free at 6:00pm at Portland Center Stage (PCS).

JAW 2009: In School Suspension

There was a great turn out for the second play of the Made in Oregon series last night. So if you missed it, I'm sorry, but you missed a good show. In School Suspension by Brian Kettler was a piece that made me very proud to come from such a talented state. It was diabolical and thrilling, a real edge of seat kind of show. It was about an English teacher at a private high school (Darius Pierce) who, seeking fame for his outlandish methods of emotionally preparing his students, has hired one student as an actor (Paul Glazier) to perform a highly realistic simulation of a school shooting. Two of the school's dangerously disturbed students Danny (Alec Wilson) and Angela (Lauren Blair) are locked in an old Spanish classroon where students are kept for in school suspensions. I really liked the show. The whole thing had a sort of Niel Labute feel for me, and I know it could be considered rude to compare one playwright to another, but I mean that as a complete compliment.
The show tonight is The Missing Pieces by Nick Zagone. Again admission is free and the show starts at 6:00. Also, today Mio Gelato across the stree from the theatre is offerin $1 gelato! With free theatre and a $1 treat, why wouldn't you come?

JAW 2009: The Lost Boy

Last night was the first reading of the annual JAW a Playwrights Festival at Portland Center Stage (PCS). I'm really excited about JAW this year, not only because I am in their Promising Playwrights series, but also because PCS has an exciting line up of new plays and talented playwrights.
Last night marked the beginning of the Made in Oregon series in which four shows from Oregon playwrights are being read on the main stage. The Lost Boy by Susan Mach was the first. Her play was the haunting story (based loosely on true events) of a four-year-old boy abducted from his home in 1874 and held for ransom. The play explored how greed for money, entertainment and fame overpower humanity. I thought it was a great start to the festival.
Please come support new works at PCS these next few weeks. The admission is free and the material is quality. Tonight is the second play of the Made in Oregon series, In School Suspension by Brian Kettler. It's at 6:00 pm at PCS, can't wait to see you there!

Equivocation at OSF

A Little Night Music ended, and I took off straight on vacation. Finally a break from the tyranny of school and work. I spent nearly a week at the coast first at a friend's beach house in Walport, and then continued heading south to my parent's place in Southern Oregon. Summer down here means just a few things, great hiking, rafting on the Rogue River, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF).
Last night I got my mother to head to the festival with me where we grabbed tickets for the world premiere of Equivocation. This show was saturated with history and inside theatre jokes which the highly educated, Shakespeare loving audience adored. It weaves the complicated tale of William Shakespeare and his band of actors after being commissioned to put on a play chronicalling the infamous 1605 Gunpowder Plot. In their efforts to put on a true account of the event they manage to unearth a dangerously political would be conspiracy and realize the full extent of the religious division in England.
Equivocation was touching, funny, and provocative.