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.

Closes...Final Episode of Fall of the House

Today was not only the closing day of A Little Night Music which I worked on all June, but it was also the final episode of Fall of the House Season 5. I really enjoyed this season. It completely filled my drama fix for the month. Congratulations to all involved, good show, good show! I definitely recommend it to any Portland citizen! Check it out at Action Adventure Theatre.

Great Review of Ohio University's Summer Stock Theatre

As I will be attending Ohio University's graduate in acting program beginning this fall, and I will certainly want to be spending time at their summer stock theatre on Cape Cod, I thought I should share this rave review in the Cap Code Times of their production of Anything Goes. Congratulations OU, I am so excited to join you!
Click here for the review!

Grey Gardens in the last weekend

I saw Grey Gardens at Portland Center Stage right at the end of the run this weekend. To those of you who missed it, I am so sorry. To tell the truth, I usually shy away from musicals. They're simply not always my cup of tea, but this one got to me. Perhaps because it's so terrifying. How did the Edith Beales fall so far? Truly what fascinated me about the show is the wild change between act 1 and act 2. In the first act everything was clean, wealthy and sparkling in the second I could almost smell the scent of fifty-two cats, I could sense the filth and poverty, and it was all surrounded by an uncomfortable crazy feeling. I spent most of act 2 mouth agape.
It was a stirring show, one I will not forget anytime soon.