The Adventures of Megan Kathy Grace

Do not wait and at the same time be patient

2010-01-02T18:16:00.000-08:00

Every Christmas since I returned to America, I buy myself a new moleskin notebook. At first I was going to keep it as a sacred place to write only about my thoughts about Theatre, plays I've read, shows I've seen, but then I realized that it was also very important to include my own ramblings because the two worlds influence each other and are deeply connected. I could not be one without the other. Once I allowed myself this freedom, I am never without my notebook because it helps me digest the world around me.

I have a special tradition, that when I'm ready to devirginize my moleskin, I take out the best pen I can find and write "A Word of Advice" from Anne Bogart's book A Director Prepares. It's just my way of reminding myself (theater-related or otherwise) to seize the moment but to also be patient. This was originally sent to me by Kristan when we first started dating and it continues to remind me that he supports and encourages me in all that I do. Dating another artist, another director no less, can be tricky, but at the same time the best thing, because no one understands what you go through better than another director, and even better when that person is also your partner.

I just deverginized my third moleskin and I thought I'd share the passage with all of you:

A Word of Advice by Anne Bogart

Do Not assume that you have to have some prescribed conditions to do your best work.

DO NOT WAIT

Do Not wait for enough time or money to accomplish what you think you have in mind.

Work with what you have right now.

Work with the people around you right now.

Work with the architecture you see around you right now.

Do Not wait till you are sure that you know what you are doing.

Do Not wait for what you assume is the appropriate, stress-free environment in which to generate expression.

Do Not wait for maturity or insight or wisdom.

Do Not wait until you have enough technique.

What you do now, what you make of your present circumstances will determine the quality and scope of your future endeavors.

And at the same time, be patient.

"Happy New Year"

2009-12-31T15:49:00.001-08:00

So that happened: 2009 is coming to an end, but for me this is not the New Year. It doesn't feel like the beginning of the year to me. It has always felt like this awkward holiday in the middle. Where people pretend to start over. Really for me, my new year starts in August. Mostly because of the school year, but now as an adult it's because my favorite planner starts in August and so does the theater season. Somehow the end of summer and the beginning of fall begins the new year. Summer is over and with it's passing it takes away the carefree attitude and ushers in a serious "back to work" one.

Here is how the "2009" year breaks down:

January: Moved to part-time at PCS, begin part-time at Windermere. How to Disappear-dramaturg, Fertile Ground-Krishna's Folly
February: not much-it went by rather fast
March: Spring Break with Kristan in NY
April: Let go from PCS, and I turned 25, continue part-time at Windermere
May: Fly to Providence to see Endgame
June: Third Rail Workshop
July: Begin rehearsal for The Bullet Round, attended JAW
August: The Bullet Round Opens & Closes
September: Rehearse Fool for Love
October: Fool for Love Opens
November: Watch the entire 6 seasons of MI-5, begin working for Linda, visit Kristan for Thanksgiving
December: Watch a lot of Criminal Minds, read scripts, Kristan home for Hamlet

Not too bad. A pretty eventful year if you ask me! Learned a lot about myself and my chosen profession.
But in reality, my year started in August, so it's not fully complete until next August. I am rather curious what 2010 has in store for me...

I make resolutions all year round, so making one tonight isn't special. But here it goes: I would like to take Joey on an hour walk every morning, which would mean getting up at 7am. Can I do it? You all know I love to sleep. Go to Yoga 2-3 times a week. And read more scripts.

Coming to a January 2010 near you, Megan finally gets her Real Estate License. Finally. (maybe)

Is it time for GLEE yet?

2009-11-17T18:26:00.001-08:00

I was late to arrive to the scene of 'Glee'. I kept reading people commenting about it on facebook and after my show opened I watched it on hulu and instantly fell in love. It made me want to start voice lessons again. I even made my parents watch all the episodes back to back on hulu to get caught up. And every time an episode airs, I can't wait until the next show. I'm hooked and it looks like a lot of people are. It also seems to me that then entire theater community is also in love with the show, The New York Times just wrote an article about it. OMG. How popular is that? It seems to me that it will become one of those shows you watch over and over again, like 'Slings and Arrows' or 'Arrested Development'.

If you haven't had a chance to watch the show I suggest you get on it right now. Below is a segment from one of my favorite episodes.

David Mamet Wins!

2009-11-12T09:49:00.000-08:00

From American Theater Magazine's Facebook Note:

You may be familiar with TCG's annual list of plays that will get the most productions in the coming season; this year Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's boom took top honors. But after going through season survey (in the October issue of American Theatre, we discovered that while Nachtrieb's play will certainly get the most productions of any single play, he's not the most produced playwright this coming season.

So we decided to do our own calculations to find out which writers take the honors, and we think the results, while not entirely surprising, are quite illuminating. They speak for themselves, but first two caveats: These numbers are compiled from self-reporting TCG member theaters; there may be another Crucible out there somewhere that hasn't yet made its presence known. And in the case of the most-produced playwright, two productions were added into consideration that weren't on the TCG season survey because they're Broadway productions.

Pop quiz: Which of the three (or is it four?) productions listed below are premieres? (You have to count co-productions that played first on the West Coast and are now coming to NY--otherwise the number of world premieres listed below is literally just two.)

Without further ado, here they are: the most produced playwrights in America for the 2009-2010 season.

UPDATE: We've gone over the list again and added a few blind spots: some big ones (McNally, Simon, Coward) and a few less obvious ones (Sheinkin, Hatcher).

David Mamet
19 productions: 5 of American Buffalo; 3 of Speed-the-Plow; 2 of November, Glengarry Glen Ross, and Oleanna; and one each of A Life in the Theatre, Two Unrelated Plays by David Mamet, Romance, Race, and The Voysey Inheritance (adaptation)

August Wilson
17 productions: 5 of Fences; 3 of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom; 2 of Jitney, Seven Guitars, and Radio Golf; and one each of The Piano Lesson, Two Trains Running, and Gem of the Ocean

Sarah Ruhl
17 productions: 8 of Dead Man's Cell Phone; 3 of Eurydice and The Clean House; and one each of Passion Play, In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), and Late: A Cowboy Song

Steven Dietz
17 productions: 7 of Yankee Tavern; 4 of Becky's New Car; 2 of Shootin Star and Go Dog Go (adaptation); one each of Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure and Honus and Me (adaptation)

Neil Simon
14 productions: 4 of Lost in Yonkers; 3 of The Odd Couple; 2 of Broadway Bound; and one each of Brighton Beach Memoirs, The Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Barefoot in the Park, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, Come Blow Your Horn

Terrence McNally
13 productions: 4 of Master Class and The Full Monty; 2 of Golden Age; and one each of Ragtime, A Perfect Ganesh, and The Lisbon Traviata

Arthur Miller
13 productions: 5 of All My Sons; 4 of The Price; and 2 each of The Crucible and Death of a Salesman

Tennessee Williams
13 productions: 7 of The Glass Menagerie; 4 of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; and 2 of A Streetcar Named Desire

Jeffrey Hatcher
12 productions: 4 of Ella; 3 or Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (adapt.); 2 of Tuesdays With Morrie (adapt. w/ Mitch Albom); and one each of Cousin Bette (adapt.), The Government Inspector (adapt.), Lucky Duck, and Mrs. Mannerly

Noel Coward
11 productions: 4 of Blithe Spirit; 3 of Private Lives; and one ach of Brief Encounter, Present Laughter, Design for Living, and Hay Fever

Donald Margulies
10 productions: 6 of Shipwrecked! An Entertainment; and one each of Dinner With Friends, Time Stands Still, Collected Stories, and Brooklyn Boy

Horton Foote
9 productions: 2 of Dividing the Estate and Trip to Bountiful, and one each of The Orphans Home Cycle (which is technically 9 one-acts over 3 programs, so special props to Horton), To Kill a Mockingbird, Valentine’s Day, The Carpetbaggers, and The Young Man From Atlanta

Conor McPherson
9 productions: 6 of The Seafarer, 2 of Shining City, and 1 of The Weir

Peter Sinn Nachtreib
9 productions of boom

Michael Hollinger
8 productions: 7 of Opus and one of An Empty Plate in the Cafe Du Grand Boeuf

Harold Pinter
8 productions: One each of No Man’s Land, Moonlight, Betrayal, The Collection, The Homecoming, and The Caretaker, and two anthology shows: Two by Pinter and Hearing Noise in Silence: A Six-Play Celebration

Rachel Sheinkin
8 productions: 7 of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and one of Little House on the Prairie (adapt.)

Thoughts on Theatre

2009-11-10T22:40:00.000-08:00

I was looking through my e-mail to see if I had a copy of UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL by Glen Berger (p.s. If you do have a copy could you send it to me.), and found this NY Times article from October 1999. My gmail search picked up the word underneath. (Trust me it's in there, google highlighted it for me).

It's an excerpt from a conversation between influential playwrights moderated by the lovely Steven Drukman. I really think it's worth a read: (and it also gives me the opportunity to tell you about my followspot interview.)

Earlier this month, nine American playwrights gathered in Provincetown, Mass., to discuss the future of American theater. The meeting, organized by the Provincetown Repertory Theater, was recorded before an audience in the town hall. The moderator, Steven Drukman, who is writing a history of American avant-garde theater, began by asking whether there are two separate theater cultures in the United States: nonprofit and commercial Broadway. Here are edited excerpts from the session.

JOHN GUARE. Broadway has always been the marketplace. It was where Death of a Salesman was done, where ONeill worked, where The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire came. And then suddenly there was an Off Broadway, which became a much more viable place for serious plays. Broadway is the place where tourists come. When I was a kid at Yale Drama School back in the 60s, you dreamed about having a play on Broadway. I dont think anybody dreams that today. You dream of having a play at the Seattle Rep, or Louisville, or the Goodman or Trinity Rep. Thats where the theater is, and thats healthy. The only dangerous thing about it is that so much of the for-profit theater is learning to use the not-for-profit theater as a way of developing for-profit pieces. Another major problem is that so many producers are becoming fearful. The question is not where are the new playwrights? Or where are the new actors? Its where are the new producers who know how to produce a play, understand the writers intention and protect that?

TERRENCE McNALLY. I do dream of having a play on Broadway, John. It doesnt mean my dream is going to come true. But its a valid dream. Broadway theaters are still the best real estate in Manhattan in which to have our plays performed. Its easy to bash Broadway. I dont think we have two theaters. What has happened is that the plays that used to be done on Broadway, by writers of my generation, weve taken over Off Broadway. There was room for us when I began writing. Now, the younger generation finds it very hard to get established even Off Broadway. The Off Broadway movement was a significant change in our theater. But something has to be done about the economics of all theater, where they are less and less willing to take chances on the Terrence McNallys.

LANFORD WILSON. I have a play that could possibly come to Broadway from the Hartford Stage and it terrifies me that theater people seem to know more about West Ireland than they know about the Midwest.

PAULA VOGEL. When we talk about the future of the American theater we have to talk about the future of our economic structure. There is none supporting the theater. And that is becoming an increasing concern. Not only is it exorbitant to produce in New York, its exorbitant everywhere. And the funding is tied up with the attitude of government officials, who can do a kind of benign censorship. So I think the whole economic infrastructure is at risk.

JON ROBIN BAITZ. I was having breakfast recently with someone whos a rock star and hes a friend. And he was sort of stoned. He looked at me real queer and said, Why would a young person become a playwright? He just didnt understand it. It had no context. People are making little movies now for very little money. When you can make a smart, sexy movie for under $100,000 on digital video, it becomes what the theater might have been. It is evidence that the culture might have moved past the theater for now, to some extent. And maybe it will come back to the theater.

CHRISTOPHER DURANG. As long as Ive been around the theater, which is 25 years, everyone is always saying the theater is dying, blah-blah-blah. And yes it is. On the other hand, will it really end? If somebody wants to make a movie, maybe theyre not meant to be a playwright.

BAITZ. Im not saying its over. Im saying that this priesthood of being a playwright is sort of straining to survive.

DRUKMAN. But are you making a smart, sexy little comedy for under $100,000?

BAITZ. I cant write about sex. I would if I could. Theres just a white noise in here.

WENDY KESSELMAN. But Robbie, if you have to write about something, you have to write about it. For many people, the theater is the only way to really write that. It can be put into a film but its never quite the same. And I agree with Terrence about the dream -- now, having been on Broadway [as the adapter of The Diary of Anne Frank, revived in 1997], I cant wait to go back.

AUGUST WILSON. Having had six plays on Broadway, I would hate to see playwrights abandon it. I think its vital, primarily because the American people see it as the mecca and because the straight play, or the honest, serious playwright, should be represented there. However, when you talk about the future of the American theater, the question that comes to my mind is what is American about the American theater? We have, in American theater, an art form that is based on European dramatic values, an age-old dramaturgy that is handed down from the Greeks. That is the art form that I work in and one that I embrace. America is a society that is multiracial and multicultural. Yet the values of the American theater are based on European-American values. Values of other cultures are not seen as valid. As an example, the theaters that seek to preserve and promote the values of African-Americans do not have relationships to the funding sources because they do not meet the sociological criteria of being European-American. If were going to have something that is called an American theater, then we have to allow room for the esthetic values of Hispanics, for Asians, African-Americans, for all the racial and cultural groups that make up this society, as well as for the age-old tried-and-true values of the European-American. The theater is a tool by which one makes a speech, if you will. And you can look at it in terms of the First Amendment right to free speech and the Constitutional guarantee of that. But the lack of access to funding that will allow you to make that speech can be considered a prior restraint.

DRUKMAN. That point is indisputable. But I think what Robbie was getting at is that this new, disaffected youthful artist will get together a group of people, a camera and a sound person. There isnt a comparably active, new avant-garde theater culture that is getting into the theater, which is reflected in Robbies friends comment, Why would you ever be a playwright? Im not sure thats only a question of access.

VOGEL. Playwriting isnt a calling as much as it is a hazing process, in which one is actively discouraged by lack of funding, by poverty, by lack of access. Off Broadway is an impossible goal for playwrights who do not fit the mold of, yes, European dramaturgy.

DRUKMAN. How experimental are we allowing ourselves to be? And are plays getting edgier, or are they becoming more homogenized?

A. R. GURNEY. All really good theater has an element of anarchy underneath it, of chaos, of real darkness. I think thats why we go to the theater, to see people put on masks and try to put shape on that darkness. And that can be frightening not only to the standard bourgeois audiences that go to plays, but to the people who fund plays. And thats a serious thing. When a play becomes too dangerous, too tricky, then the odds are it might not be produced.

AUGUST WILSON. We are all contemporary playwrights and the plays we write are much different from plays that were written in, say, 1930 and 1949. That is because we have built on the tradition of American theater, which was at one time experimental. So the experiment proves the value of the tradition: the playwright sits down and uses or discards at will that which he is given by his predecessors. If you look at American society in the last 30 years, we have made tremendous changes from the time when I was a young man until now, when I am in my middle age. I dont think there is a theater that has kept up with that change. One of the things that playwrights wrestle with, to my mind, is the influence of television. We cannot go backward. Television is here. I think that playwrights are in the process of trying to figure out how to absorb that influence and to make dramatic art out of an influence that wasnt there in the 1920s.

GUARE. I was teaching at a university a few years ago and there were two people in the class who were remarkably talented, where you just say, Ah, there is a future for the theater. They had gone so far into debt to take this writing program that when their two years were up, both of them went out to California just to get work in episodic television to pay off the enormous debt they had incurred. And they are lost because they are both now very successful. They have learned to work in a corporate voice and feel that the theater is elite because its the voice of one playwright. They like the comfort of working on a half-hour comedy that goes into 50 million homes. Those two people will never come back to the theater. Now the amount of money that it costs just to go to Yale or N.Y.U. makes your future impossible, because you incur an extraordinary debt that then paralyzes your life paying that off.

AUGUST WILSON. There is something disturbing about what youre saying.

GUARE. Which is?

AUGUST WILSON. I never took a course, for instance, or went to school. I think there is something called an artist and either you want to be an artist or you dont.

GUARE. But what Im saying is I dont think we live in a society that gives people the confidence to be an artist. I think that youre very, very, very rare.

AUGUST WILSON. Its something that you have to claim though. And you pay your dues or you do whatever is necessary. Im sure that Picasso could have made more money in graphic art, but he was an artist.

VOGEL. Its still a matter of access. I dont think that film is necessarily the enemy. A while ago I had probably the most extraordinary teaching opportunity Ill ever get. I did a playwriting workshop for women in maximum security at an adult correctional institution. Those women did much better than my graduate playwrights. They had to. They wanted to. But they had never seen a play. They had never gone to the theater. We could only approach what theater was by talking about television and film, which was storytelling they know. So a lot of this to me is access. Theater is unmediated between a living and breathing audience and a living and breathing actor on the stage. There are no lenses in between us. There is no directors cut. Its really about a community dialogue and that is why I think that access is made difficult in this society. Those women in maximum security dont become playwrights because they would tell us a thing or two about realism.

GURNEY. I think it has again to do with funding, but a different kind of funding, namely funding for our schools. Just the way the symphony orchestra is having a great deal of trouble now, because the high schools are not able to fund school orchestras and kids dont get a chance to pick up an instrument and learn what it is to be a part of an orchestra. Its the same thing with school drama programs. Somehow the schools have got to introduce the arts.

DRUKMAN. Are there ultimate taboos in American playwriting? Are there things you feel you shouldnt or mustnt----

DURANG. No elephant dung.

AUGUST WILSON. I cant think of a taboo I would impose upon myself. If I did, Id write a play about it.

BAITZ. I think race is still a taboo. Even though people do write about it, its very, very difficult, because there is so much rage and guilt. Its the great subject in this country, this race rage on all sides.

KESSELMAN. There is another interesting taboo Ive come up against and thats children. If you portray children as having deep, serious emotions, you are absolutely lambasted.

LANFORD WILSON. Children know that they are lying and performing for their parents. But we cant write that.

KESSELMAN. The play Im talking about involved a brother tormenting his little sister. When we had discussions with children in the audience -- Have you ever done such a thing? -- they were just thrilled to tell how they put their sisters in trunks and everything else.

AUGUST WILSON. I want to get back to something that Jon Robin Baitz said. I agree with you. I think race is a great subject and an important subject because it deals so much with the history of this country and the aftermath of that history, which we are all a living part of. Obviously I dont find it a taboo.

BAITZ. For me, I guess, the question is, Am I qualified to know whats in my heart? Am I qualified to speak for myself, even?

AUGUST WILSON. When you say race, you are not just talking about African-Americans. You are a member of a race also.

VOGEL. When we talk about writing about race, I keep going back to when Anna Deavere Smith told me that strangers are much more likely to talk to each other about sex than race. Its absolutely true. In another conversation she said white writers have to do the race work. It cant just be writers of color, in terms of reading and thinking it through. And that is when I started thinking about this. Its not a matter of research. Its a matter of thinking it through carefully so that you can stand on the ground from where you write in terms of race. I think that white writers -- whether its guilt or not wanting to go through that journey -- were in the state of denial.

BAITZ. To me, I feel that black people and white people in this country are still terrified of one another on a basic, almost a -- to steal a David Hare phrase -- mineral level. I want to write about that. I think we understand one another even less as the century ends. And the divide becomes even bigger. So, as a taboo, the longer youre silent, the harder it is to grasp.

LANFORD WILSON. Well, art is born out of, among other things, necessity. Writing a play for me is like walking down this landscape of the self. Many things that you confront sometimes are not the best parts of yourself. But you have to be willing to deal with them so that you emerge at the end with a brighter and stronger spirit, ready to go through the next journey.

Translation

2009-11-07T17:04:00.001-08:00

Last night I attended the Opera with Mr. Mead. I was really looking forward to going since it's been ages since I've been to one, and this was Orphee by Phillip Glass. Hello!?

It was outstanding. Really beautiful music, but of course you expected that, a stunning set and a wonderfully told story. You should see it if you can. I highly recommend it. But to see a more eloquently put review go to Mead's site.

And this got me thinking about translation, because this version does something different than other versions of the Eurydice/Orpheus story. I'm not going to tell you, you have to go see it.

I took a translation class in college with Dr. London (yes that was his name and he lived in London..hehe). I adored this class because he was so knowledgeable and spoke like 7 different languages. But the basic idea of the class was learning how different people used translation from the native language to a foreign language or from music to text or visa versa to highlight words that are most important to them. Translators select the version that they believe is what the original author meant when they wrote those words, but this can vary from translator to translator. And your interpretation of their translation could alter your understanding completely.

This is different than adaptation. For example, what Chris Murray is doing with Hamlet at CoHo productions is adaptation. He is using Shakespeare's words, but he's selecting what he needs to tell the story he wants to tell. I am very excited about this upcoming production and even more proud that they have managed to raise the money needed for the set. Bravo!

And all this is inspiring me to find my next project, whatever that may be. I feel a bit stuck at the moment. Not exactly sure where/what to start. But I'll get there and I'll let you know when I do. Right now it's nice to relax and take in the scene.

Food for Thought.

2009-10-19T11:21:00.000-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

And then I read this article and this article.

And all this just got me thinking about the role of women in society and how far have we come, in work and in our relationships. A lot of my friends have been getting married lately so it's got me thinking about why it's so important and how does it change a relationship (besides legally of course)? And why does anyone care if two gay people get married? Let them. This argument about marriage being sacred and only between a man and woman is BS. The sanctity of marriage was destroyed a long long time ago by straight people. Besides, most of the gay people I know have stronger, longer, and healthier relationships than some of my straight friends. Enough about marriage, now on to work...

I work in a heavily male populated medium and in both of my recent interviews (go here & here) I have been asked about how my being a woman has influenced my work as a director or on a specific script. I dunno. I am what I am and I direct. I don't understand how the two can be mutuality exclusive.

Maybe it's because my mother always worked, but I knew from an early age that I wanted to be a mom and have a career and I wasn't going to sacrifice one for the other, even though I've been told that someday I'll have to. I'm stubborn, what can I say. So it's nice to see examples or working mothers in the directing field, although they are few and far between.

All this to say that I think people, our government, our employers do need to be a bit more flexible with our schedules our health care (don't EVEN get me started here...but it needs to change in America now. now now.) Because at the end of the day, America we don't have to do everything the same way. The 9-5 the marriage the living in the suburbs. It's much much better to be different and open and accepting of our differences.

I will step off of my soap box now.

FOOL FOR LOVE OPENING!

2009-10-16T16:20:00.001-07:00

My boss put that up the day the preview article from The Oregonian came out. That way everyone who came into the office could see it. Thanks Kristin!

Check out our fabulous preview from Mr. Marty Hugley from The Oregonian. Thanks Marty!

And last night we participated in Free Night of Theater with PATA's help.
It was amazing to have a full house on our first advertised Preview, but I had never seen many of these people before. People come back to the theater even when it's not free it's still totally worth it!! I promise!

I'm very ready for the show to open tonight. I think we all have done some amazing work and I look forward to having people see it and celebrate in the lobby proceeding the show.

AND...that's all I got because I'm super tired. I can't wait to sleep in tomorrow!

x

Rehearsals & Tech

2009-10-12T10:11:00.001-07:00

We just finished tech and we open on Friday!! Below are pictures from our process.

The boys: Spencer Conway, Chris Harder, & Tim Stapleton

Spencer takes a nap while he waits for us to get to his scene.

The first stages of loading in the set.

Chris and Tim wait while we make adjustments.

Val Landrum, Chris Harder & Tim Stapleton work during tech.

Chris and Tim are made for these roles.

Tech is always long but this one was pretty painless and is shaping up nicely. I can't wait for you to come see it.

Design

2009-10-09T10:10:00.000-07:00

So clearly I've been a HUGE slacker in updating everyone...opps. Please forgive me. Above is a picture of set model. Designed by the one and only Tim Stapleton. As you can see I took away the walls. For many reasons, but mostly because I feel like Eddie and May are trapped in this cycle. I think of that science experiment about the fleas. If you put some fleas in a jar they will jump to get out and hit the top. After a while they learn that they can only go so far. Then when you remove the lid. When they go to jump again they only jump as far as they did when the lid was on.

When reading the script, I became fascinated with May's need to hide in the bathroom. I wanted to see her in her safe place and see the vulnerable side of May. I wanted to see her in all of her shit. So with this in mind I took the walls off the bathroom too.

Another thing I did was move the Old Man from the platform outside the playing area (something Shepard requests in the script) and moved him inside. He's connected to May and Eddie and he's the reason they are this way. So it seemed important to take him out of the audience and put him in the space.

And to top it all off we have Annalise Albright on sound (who will now be responsible for making the walls and door reverberate) and Don Crossley on lights. I am in good technical hands.

Back in the Saddle Again...

2009-09-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

I know that song by heart. Back in the Saddle Again by Gene Autry. It reminds me of my dad because it was on the Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack that he played on repeat as we drove all over Portland. And an image of my dad playing pool with my friend Ashley's dad comes to mind every time. It's weird how certain things can make you recall the most inane moments.

Well I'm back in the directing saddle again. I am directing FOOL FOR LOVE by Sam Shepard for CoHo productions. It stars Val Landrum, Chris Harder, Spencer Conway, and Tim Stapleton. I am so lucky to work with such fabulous people!

What I love most about this play is Shepard's poetry and the intensity and raw emotion. He says it should be relentless. I couldn't agree more. May says to Eddie, "You're like a disease to me." It is this crazy love that makes you sick but you can't quit even though you know you should. I think we've all been there.

Opening Weekend & Reviews

2009-08-12T16:43:00.000-07:00

The Bullet Round opened on Friday. I can't believe that's over. Steven and I have only been talking about this play for two years! This must be what planning a wedding is like. All this prep and then it comes down to the BIG day: Opening.

I picked Steven up from the airport Thursday night after the final preview and notes. There was an accident on the lower level so they were rerouting traffic, so that paired with the fact that we forgot to exchange phone numbers made it a bit tricky. But I found him! Yea!

Opening day was awesome because even before we opened we received two lovely previews from Marty Hughley of The Oregonian and Ben Waterhouse of The Willamette Week, which made me feel like the prettiest girl at the dance. I must thank Trisha Mead for her PR expertise. This woman is amazing. A-MAZ-ING. Well, that and the fact that opening night was sold out and full of nice VIPs including, Pier Carlo Talenti all the way from the Mark Taper in LA. He was Mr. Mead Hunter's guest of course.

Sitting through the 90 minute show was hard. For the first time all week I wasn't able to stop the show if something went wrong, and unfortunately there were a few things that I wish I could have fixed. Not being in control is hard sometimes.

The reception went off beautifully. Food donated by The Blue Monk and wine from Castillo de Molina. Everyone was so lovely and it was a huge relief to have the show open and out of my hands.

The next day Steven and I went to dinner and discussed the show, our favorite parts, other theater related topics and of course our dogs.

And then the reviews came. Mead was the first on his blog. The Oregonian review came out Monday. And the Willamette Week review came out on Wednesday. I am pretty pleased with both. I am so surprised and happy that this came together so beautifully (but of course not without my technical director, stage manager and myself suffering from some serious sleep deprivation). Thank you everyone for all your help.

Please spread the word and direct people to www.bulletround.com for tickets or call 503-781-2156.

Our sweet poster

2009-08-06T14:48:00.001-07:00

Need I say more? Designed by the lovely and talented Patrick Weishampel.

Build Build Build

2009-07-30T10:19:00.000-07:00

I fully admit that I'm not technical. I don't do math or measurements and I don't build because I'm insanely klutzy and could severely harm myself. But I threw caution to the wind and jumped in on the build of THE BULLET ROUND.
Here are some pictures. I'm not in any of them because I was taking the pictures of course, but trust me I was working. My body hates me and I feel like I am 105 and arthritic. Can I get a spa day please!

Chad, our Technical Director inspects his work.

Kim, our SM screws in the casters.

Here, Paul shows Gary how to use a drill. Paul's a fantastic actor who can also build things. What more can a girl ask for?

Adorable. Gary gives it a try!

Where we ended late last night. I'll keep you posted on the rest of the process. We have tech all day Saturday and all day Sunday. I'm actually looking forward to it. I love it when it all comes together.

See you at the theatre!

Tonight we dance

2009-07-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

Or rather we build the set. Yesterday in the blistering god awful heat, we loaded in the set for THE BULLET ROUND. Tonight we assemble and get all the moving parts together. Did I mention that there is a turntable? Holy F I know! Over the weekend, I took a "break" from my show (really this just means rehearsals) and celebrated the awesomeness that is JAW. People kept asking me how it was going, to which I would reply: "It's going great but I'm ready for the rest of it." And that's all coming together this week! EEEEEEK! But also OMG I wish there were more hours in the day.

Below are some of the awesome finds that I found at the goodwill bins. I did not pick these up however because they are not appropriate for the show. But it make the hunt more enjoyable. I am no longer a bin virgin and next time I'll bring gloves and more sass.

if only I was doing "I am My Own Wife"

look someone just donated their family album. Made me a little sad.

this one is my favorite.

For Reals?

2009-07-21T18:22:00.000-07:00

Read this.

You're not that shocked are you? You saw Bowling for Columbine. You know this happens. But why is it allowed? An AK-47 no less. Christ almighty.

Recently I spoke to Cease Fire Oregon about hosting a gun turn in during the run of THE BULLET ROUND. Unfortunately, they are unable to do one at the moment due to the decline in donations this year. If you are interested in donating click here.

Also, remember way back when I saw my neighbor waving a gun while inebriated in his backyard...well it's going to trail and I've been subpoena. Awesome. I'll keep you posted. I'm hoping they settle out of court.

On a much much happier note, rehearsals are going well. I love watching the scenes develop and can't wait for load in next week. OMG it's coming up fast!
Do you have your tickets?

Below are pictures of Chris Murray and Paul Glazier rehearsing. They play brothers who fight a lot. It's pretty funny watching them rehearse their scene or while constructively messing around during rehearsals.

Photo Shoot Rd. 2

2009-07-13T12:13:00.000-07:00

Photo shoot for "The Bullet Round" - Dainichia from Michael Buchino on Vimeo.

More fun from this week's photoshoot! Below are pictures of Dianchia(Jeanette) and Kurt(the waiter). I forgot to take a picture of Anthony. I guess I wasn't awake yet.

Now it's up to Patrick & Michael (the fabulous duo) to make the poster!
YEA!

Bullet Round Photo Shoot

2009-07-06T09:47:00.000-07:00

This weekend we had our first photo shoot for THE BULLET ROUND poster. I raided my parents house for costumes. Lava took the pictures and Patrick directed the shoot. He will be photoshopping the images into the poster.
Here is the inspiration:

We first shot Paul, who plays Kevin, Joey's younger brother. Both the boys are from South Boston.

Chris, plays Joey or Joe DieWish an up and coming white rapper. We threw on rap music for inspiration. Here is a sneak peak. This is not the actual picture we used, but look how awesome he looks! I was so amazed by both of their transformations.

When Gary arrived, the music switched to Mozart. Gary plays the professor who studies Joe DieWish's music.

I loved seeing the actors in costumes but I enjoyed watching Patrick and Lava do their thing. I am so grateful for their amazing skills. I can't wait to see the final product.

THE RAPP BROTHERS DO PORTLAND

2009-06-26T12:34:00.000-07:00

I'm going to this tonight. If you don' t know the script you MUST, especially if you work in theater. If you don't know it, let's pretend you do so we can still be friends. Adam Rapp is an awesome playwright. And his brother Anthony (from the Orginial cast of RENT & here on tour) will be reading the part of Wilson. Below is some more information. It's a fundraiser to come out and support and be amazed.

Anthony Rapp joins Portland Playhouse for a staged reading of BINGO WITH THE INDIANS by Adam Rapp (Anthony’s brother and Pulitzer finalist)

Friday, June 26^th

Doors open at 9:00pm

9:30- Nathan James
10:00- The Glyptodons http://www.myspace.com/glyptodons
11:00- reading of "Bingo with the Indians" by Adam Rapp (90 min.)

with actors:
Anthony Rapp, Paul Glazier, Jennifer Rowe, Trystin Chipps,
Lorraine Bahr and Adrianne Flagg.

Portland Playhouse: 602 NE Prescott St.

Tickets: $10 at the door or online at: www.portlandplayhouse.org

The reading is all-ages (wristbands at the door with ID) but the play does contain strong language and adult themes.

Adam Rapp bio:

Nominated for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the play "Red Light Winter".

Recipient of the 2001 Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights, his play, "Red Light Winter," at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, Illinois was awarded the 2005 Joseph Jefferson Award for New Work.

Essential Self-Defense at Playwrights Horizons in March 2007. The World Premiere of Nocturne was produced by the A.R.T.'s (in Boston) New Stages Program to enormous public and critical acclaim. It received Boston's Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding New Script as well as Best New Play by the Independent Reviewers of New England. Nocturne was co-produced Off-Broadway by New York Theatre Workshop and the A.R.T. in May of 2001.

Blackbird made its American debut at Pittsburgh's City Theatre in May, 2002. Mr. Rapp's Faster received its World Premiere in January 2002 at the Culture Project in New York City. Trueblinka was presented at The Public Theater's 1997 New Work Now! Festival and went on to the 1997 O'Neill Playwrights Conference.

The Play:

“Bingo with the Indians” explores how far people will go to get what they want; how they face desires they barely knew they had; how grief seeps to the surface and pent-up rage explodes. -New York Times

A cross between the high-brow and the low-brow it pays tribute to Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” while featuring a pedophiliac rap “Ballad of the turd burglar.”

First Rehearsal & The Pastor Who Urges His Flock to Bring Guns to Church

2009-06-25T15:40:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was the first rehearsal of THE BULLET ROUND. It was a fabulous first read and I enjoyed hearing it out loud again & can't wait to get it on it's feet. I can't believe the play is finally on it's way, it's only been over a year in the making. And on that note, tickets are now available!

This morning, along with the rehearsal notes from last night my stage manger passed on this article she found in the NYTimes. It's worth a read. Here is a quote:

“God and guns were part of the foundation of this country,” Mr. Pagano, 49, said Wednesday as he sat in the small brick Assembly of God house of worship, where a large wooden cross hung over the altar and two American flags jutted from the side walls. “I don’t see any contradiction in this. Not every Christian denomination is pacifist.”

So...I guess what I learned in Religious Education class was incorrect. Glad for the clarification.

Guns-A Late Entry

2009-06-23T09:43:00.000-07:00

This is from an e-mail from a friend about his thoughts about owning a gun in America. I thought it was worth sharing and brings up some really good points.
Discuss

1) Do I own a gun? The answer is yes, I own 3.
1.a) do I lock it up? ALWAYS! I remember when I turned 21 & a bunch of my friends went & bought firearms. They would not lock them or keep them safely hidden… I disagreed with this very strongly; I didn’t get my first gun until I was older simply because I wasn’t ready. I keep my guns locked up & most importantly… UNLOADED! The reasoning is simple; the owner of the gun is really the only person that needs to have access to the firearm. Locking it up & keeping it unloaded ensures that no one else uses or more importantly misuses the gun without the knowledge of the owner.

2) How do I feel about people owning hand guns? I feel like firearms need strict policies to ensure safety but bearing arms are part of everyday life as Americans. I feel very lucky to be able to own guns. Although we don’t have anything stated in the Constitution about the right to drive a car I feel very similar about both. I have been told that driving a car is not a right but a privilege… I wish it were the case for owning firearms. I say this because I feel like anyone that is against owning firearms is simply uninformed & that with the proper information the answer is simple. Guns are not the problem… stupid people are. Do we need more firearm training & safety education? My answer would be an overwhelming yes, but not to the point that gun ownership would become over restricted for law abiding citizens.

3) Do I feel safer that our policemen carry guns? YES!!! I wish it were not the case but with many criminals carrying guns themselves (almost always illegally obtained I might add) I feel that the men & women of law enforcement need to protect themselves adequately. I know many police officers whom I call dear friends & I speak with them openly about the stress & rigors of their work environment. Although sometimes petty & mundane they must always be prepared for a day when they will need to fire their weapon… believe it or not most cops that you talk to hope that day never comes. Ask someone who has been saved by police intervention in a violent situation & see if they favor the police carrying firearms? I suppose on the flip side ask someone who has lost a loved one from wrongful fire from the police & their answer will be different. However I think that statistics will show that those cases are outnumbered by good cops simply doing their jobs. Sadly we hear about the negatives much much more… as we know bad press makes the best press

4) I grew up in a good home in a very safe neighborhood. Since growing up & traveling I have been involved in some pretty scary situations where my life has been in danger. I feel like after these instances I felt like properly familiarizing myself with self defense… remember that phrase “self defense”. I will always enjoy learning more & more about survival & guns are a part of this. This does not mean that bc I own a gun that I am some right wing militia-esc whacko… simply a man who likes to exercise his freedom to protect his property & his own person. After all human nature isn’t that tough to figure out so being prepared shouldn’t be looked down upon.

Rutro?!

2009-06-19T16:09:00.001-07:00

Portland loses a magazine & one that was a huge supporter of theater...rutro.

How you DO the Drammys

2009-06-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

Hire Gary Norman (of London Influence 503-295-0342) to do your hair (actually you should hire him to do your hair all year long. I do.) This year he was responsible for styling Amanda Soden, Amy Newman, Heather Rose Walters, Nicole Gladwin and my hair. And then get Janet Price to do your make up. And that's it. My secret is out.
Here is how he did it:
This is us getting started at 1:30pm. That is Rebecca, we couldn't have done it without her.

This is at 3:30 after all the pins were in. They wrapped my hair around the pins and then flat ironed it. I have a lot of hair. Sorry!?
Side view
And then when they take all the pins out it looks like this. Which is cool in it's own right.
And then Gary pulls on one and it frizzes.
the final product

But the artist is never satisfied. Gary changed the look again for the after party.

I was curious how it would turn out after sleeping on it all night. And to my surprise it didn't really flatten at all. So I had the challenge of trying to style it appropriately for a real estate office. I don't have Gary's skills.
And when you take the bobby pins out when you leave for work you get this:
The question now is: How long do I leave it? How long will it last? I feel like I should wash it because I scared some of the agents at the office. They didn't recognize me & it's bold look for them.
oh well. I rocked it!
Thanks Gary, Rebecca & Janet for making me look so beautiful. And thank you Maureen Porter for the shout out.
I wonder what Gary will come up with next year...

THAT WAS AWESOME

2009-06-08T12:17:00.000-07:00

This whole weekend has been full of theater events. On Friday night, Kristan and I with 10 other friends went to see season 5 of Fall of the House. If you aren't hip to this groove train you are seriously disturbed. If you do one good thing for yourself this weekend GO SEE THIS SHOW and I bet you'll be going back for more. And a word to the wise: make reservations.

Then on Saturday & Sunday, I rehearsed a most fabulous play entitled: COOKING WITH ELVIS by Lee Hall, you know the same guy who wrote BILLY ELLIOT. I'm working with the kids at Third Rail as part of their lab series were we get to play around. All I have to say is this one has Tim True playing a quadriplegic Elvis impersonator. Need I say more?

Last night I went to Anonymous Theatre's The Scottish Play and I am still so totally impressed. If I told you that a cast who had never rehearsed together, never rehearsed in the space, and didn't know who else was in the cast, was doing...well, you know, wouldn't you think they were insane & don't you think that the show would be an entire train wreck?! But no. NO! Not under the direction of Liz Young. It was one of the BEST productions of Mackers I have ever seen. Big BIG surprise: Scott Coopwood as the man himself. He wasn't even in town!

Both on Friday and Sunday night I was so SO deeply moved by the audiences. I found myself watching them, not because I was bored with what was going on the stage (that couldn't be further from the truth), but because I was amazed at how tuned in they were. It is so invigorating to be in an audience with people who are excited to be there & sold out the house! WHOOHOO!

I need a fundraiser like Theatre Vertigo's! (p.s. have you checked out their awesome season? Buy a subscription for $40!) Speaking of fundraising, THE BULLET ROUND website has a donation link now. I'm just saying: support the arts!

See you all at the Drammys tonight! Look out for my GIANT hair (designed by Gary Norman)

Quick Change

2009-05-20T09:25:00.001-07:00

Extra! Extra! Read all about it.
Today in the world of Oregon theater, the big leagues have changed up their line up.
Check it out here.
What does this mean to you? Are you sad to see some of the shows go? Happy to see the new shows in? Indifferent?
I am curious how the subscribers will react. Will they welcome the change or feel somehow cheated? I personally think some of these decisions are smart ones, but also wonder if people are really THAT interested in one man shows. I'm purely curious for my future artistic planning.
What are people really interested in seeing on stage?
Also, how DO people feel about the subscriber model?

So what do you think about gun control?

2009-05-18T17:28:00.000-07:00

I recently asked a few of my friends what they thought about guns and gun control. I'm recently more curious about this topic since the gun in my upcoming directing project is like an additional character.
I gave them a few questions to get them started:
Do you own a gun? If so do you lock it up? Why or why not?
How do you feel about people owning hand guns?
Do you feel safer knowing that our policemen carry guns?
What colors your decision about how you feel about hand guns?

Below are a few of their responses. What do you think?

i do not own a gun. if i did, i would lock it up.
i don't think people should carry handguns, or automatic weapons. hunting, fine. anything else no way. given the amount of gun related crime, i think it's appropriate that police carry guns.

I do not own a gun, if I did, someone would take it and shoot me. Or worse, I would get drunk and shoot my dogs accidentally. No guns for me, thankyouverymuch.
I don't like the idea of housebound handguns, I think they cause more problems than they solve.I am alright with the police carrying guns, but that doesn't make me feel safer. I have no personal experience positive or negative with guns, all I know is the statistics of gun violence in this country, and the amount of guns in this country does not appear to solve any problems whatsoever.

I used to own a gun, but if you own one they are called "weapons" or "peices" or "firearms", no gun owner calls it a gun. Mine was a Walther PPK 9 mm semiautomatic (pistol). I did lock it up, in a drawer next to my bed. I no longer own it. I believed in guns when I lived in South Africa, but not now.
I am a libertarian and believe in constitutional rights, so I believe that people should be able to own as many guns as they want. I am also pro-life, but believe that people who are pro-choice have every right to an abortion. When you're a libertarian, the first priority is to individual freedoms, not personal politics.
I don't necessarily feel safer that our police officers carry guns, but I feel that it provides THEM certain safeties on the job that would not otherwise be possible. I don't believe in war either, but if we have to get into one, I want weapons involved.
What colors my decision is the fact that I grew up in a less stable social context than the one we enjoy in America and I believe that most people, if they were in a really dangerous situation, would kill to save their families, and should do so if that situation arose.

Don't have a ton of strong opinions here- but I DO think that people should be screened before owning any gun- it seems to me that most of the crazy people who have committed mass murders like at Virginia Tech; that Amish school- had signs of being unstable and shouldn't be allowed to own a gun legally. Now; that's not going to stop them if they are hell bent of blowing people away- there's always the black market and shit- but it might stop some people; ya know.

Do you own a gun?
I do not own a gun. Actually, I don't think I've ever held a real gun or seen a real gun fired. Never even been to a firing range.

How do you feel about people owning hand guns?
I don't like it. I wish that wasn't legal. But I understand it. I at least understand the argument for owning one hand gun. What I don't understand is owning 10 guns or automatic weapons or opposing waiting limits or any of the other processes that people try to put in place to limit the number of guns on the streets and who has them.

Do you feel safer knowing that our policemen carry guns?
Yes. If no one could own a gun, then maybe I'd feel differently. But with people able to buy guns, if policemen don't have them, we're just asking for them to be at a disadvantage in many violent confrontations.

What colors your decision about how you feel about hand guns?
The fact that they kill people. And I can't quite get my head around the fact that someone would want to own something that's purpose, at the end of the day, is to kill people.

Great. Everyone is going to move here now.

2009-05-12T16:45:00.000-07:00

Did everyone see this article in the NY Times on Sunday? I was in Providence when I saw someone post this link on their facebook page. I read it aloud to Kristan and with each mention of a hip trendy place our stomachs turned. Now everyone's going to know how cool Portland is.

R.I.P. Boal

2009-05-03T14:35:00.000-07:00

I was talking about Augusto Boal and his Theater of the Oppressed on Thursday with a friend over dinner & then on Saturday I see a few status updates on Facebook about his passing. He was a great theater practitioner and although he is gone his ideas will live on.

Drama, drama & how I feel about guns:

2009-04-22T23:29:00.000-07:00

I take gun violence very seriously. I think it all started with that 90210 episode where David's friend shoots himself in the head in the pool house by accident when he's doing a "trick" with the gun. He forgot or didn't know the gun was loaded and it went off and he killed himself. You know the episode. It is forever burned in my memory. I don't believe you need to posses a hand gun in this day and age. I think they are more trouble than they are worth.

So naturally when I saw my drunken neighbor stumble out into his yard last night and shoot a hand gun in the air at a tree and mumble incoherently, I was a little concerned. The second time I called my landlord and the third time I called the cops (the non emergency number). No. NOT O.K. I don't care if it was a pellet gun. Someone who is within city limits holding a gun while inebriated is uncalled for. How am I supposed to know the difference it looked fucking real!

Turns out having a pellet gun within city limits is actually illegal. And according to the officer I did the right thing. The gun looked real enough to him and he said that if he had the gun pointed at him he would have shot him. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about that statement but I'm glad I played it safe.

Apparently the police also take gun possession very seriously. They came out in full force. The street was blocked off by 3 police cars and there was even a fire truck. I found out later that their first attempt was to go to the door polietly and ask after the gun; however, when the inebriated man resisted arrest and refused to show them the gun they had to shoot him down with rubber bullets, tazer him, hand cuff him and bring him to the police car. I missed all this because I was in the back of the house, but I received this information from a trusted source. Other people came out of the hosue peacefully and eventually handed over the weapon in question. After all the comotion I had to identify the man they took into custody as the man I reported. It was quite a dramatic evening for all involved.

And so this makes me think about the play I'm about to direct: THE BULLET ROUND, where there is a gun that travels between characters; and as Chekhov once said if a gun is presented in the first act it must go off in the last. And as this gun is passed around we learn about the relationships these characters have with eachother. Violence begets more violence and what goes around comes around. The gun is a big deal. I mean the play is 6 scenes (the number of chambers in a gun) and the play is called THE BULLET ROUND. Hello.

Guns scare the shit out of me. They are very powerful objects and invoke a pretty powerful response from people. People are very opinionated about guns in our society and I think it is important to consider their place and their meaning and use or misuse in society. So let's begin that discussion.

I KNEW IT!

2009-04-21T10:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Lynn Nottage was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play RUINED which is playing at MTC. And I totally totally called that. I don't think there is anywhere I can claim this except for here. I knew it! Congratulations Lynn.
The other nominees were: Gina Gionfriddo for BECKY SHAW & Lin-Manuel Miranda & Quiara Alegria Hudes for IN THE HIGHTS.

New Work is here to stay

2009-04-19T14:05:00.000-07:00

Let me answer the question that is on ALL your minds...Yes. JAW is happening.

Just because PCS doesn't have a literary department doesn't mean that JAW is now dead too.
Au contraire mon frere. New work is still alive and well in Portland, OR.

IN FACT, Did you know that coming to Theater! Theater! this August, 7th will the be world premiere of Steven Drukman's THE BULLET ROUND. Who's excited?! I am! (mainly because I am producing and directing this little number) but also because HOW EXCITING for us Portland!

New work is all around. We have some amazing playwrights living right here creating some very exciting work, there is JAW, Fertile Ground, PCS' CRAZY ENOUGH, Third Rail's Craig Wright commission and now a world premiere of THE BULLET ROUND (and I'm sure many many more I have failed to mention & I apologize in advance for this...)

So don't loose hope PDX because after all we are pioneers.

Desperate times...

2009-04-13T15:43:00.000-07:00

...call for desperate measures.
But has it come to this? There is a website for finding a sugar daddy. Some of men pay up to $20,000 a month! humm...
yeah right. As much as it would be nice to have that money (think of all the theater I could fund!) just the idea of it makes my skin crawl.

Instead of Drinks...Support the Theater!

2009-03-31T12:09:00.000-07:00

I am totally overwhelmed and touched that so many of you want to buy me drinks, however I would love it that instead of drinks you could donate that money to the World Premiere production of THE BULLET ROUND by Steven Drukman. As many of you know, I have received a RACC grant to direct and produce this production in Portland this summer. The grant will go to pay for the space and for the rights, but I still need money for the set and the fabulous talent. Chris Murray, Paul Glazier, and Nasir Najieb are cast and excited to get started. Below is some more information about the playwright and the production. This is a very exciting project for the Portland theater community.

I believe in the power of theater and that it can provide so much during these times; a means of escape or simply a means to examine ourselves. Taking risks relies on support from individuals, businesses, and foundations in order to finance our operating costs. Making plays is an expensive business, and through your generous support I am able to keep ticket prices affordable. Any donation is very appreciated. Thank you for helping my dream come true. You can e-mail me @ megankateward@gmail.com or send me a facebook message regarding a donation. You can also mail & make out the checks to Megan Ward, 2342 NW Hoyt #4, Portland, Or 97210.

Steven is a wonderful New York playwright who had is premiere of ANOTHER FINE MESS at Portland Center Stage in 2003, which was workshopped at JAW 2002 and was nominated for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. His work is highly regarded among his peers in the theater community and this play in particular has an important message to tell.

Steven Drukman holds a Ph.D. from New York University where he is an Associate Arts Professor.His newest play IN THIS CORNER, commissioned by the Old Globe in San Diego, will premiere in January 2008. His other scripts include, GOING NATIVE, FLATTERY WILL GET YOU, COLLATERAL DAMAGE, SNOWMAIDEN and TRUTH AND BEAUTY.

He is a recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Award and the Paul Green Foundation Award. As a critic and journalist, his writing has been featured in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Village Voice, The Nation and many magazines. He is a former Associate Editor of American Theatre magazine.

Steven is delighted to have his play have its world premiere in Portland. He has expressed interest in coming to see my production and I plan to fly him out here to have him give a post-show talk back opening weekend.

The play THE BULLET ROUND explores the ways in which violence passes between six unrelated characters over a six-day period. At first glance the story seems to be about a white rapper, his violently racist and homophobic lyrics and his rise to the top. However, we soon learn that people are not always whom they seem to be and despite one’s good intentions, they may be unknowingly supporting aggressive or violent behavior. Mirroring the style La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler, THE BULLET ROUND comes full circle and the violence returns to those responsible. THE BULLET ROUND scrutinizes the morals, racism, and class ideology of today and challenges the audience to examine their own passivity.

The Bullet Round was commissioned by South Coast Repertory Theater and has been workshopped at Playwrights Horizons and New York Theater Workshop.

There goes the neighborhood

2009-03-30T16:04:00.000-07:00

As some of you know, or are finding out right this second...I have been let go, laid off, downsized (whatever. it's all the same to me) from Portland Center Stage. That's not even the worst part. There is currently no literary department at PCS. If you don't know that means the fabulous Mead Hunter (aka Dr. Phun) has also been cut. As much as this saddens me, to leave the only LORT theater in Portland, OR. I must realize that with every door closed another one opens.

I started there as an intern in 2005 back in the "Old Country," which refers to the good old days in the PCPA. I had an interview with Kelsey and Chris at the Coffee People over there, which also is no more, where they basically said, "well yeah we would love the help, but we don't know where to put you." When my mom asked me how it went, I told her I didn't think they liked me and I don't think they want me. Turns out I was wrong! And the internship began.

Because Kelsey gets to work at some ungodly hour I could come in at 3 or 4 and use his computer after he had left to go to Shaboom (where he would sing on a cruise ship or whatever). So quickly I became close with Rose Riordan because she sat across from Kelsey and stayed later than most people. When I left Kelsey and Rose gave me a cup full of chocolates (no doubt stolen from the cupbord and stuffed with candies from Lisa Sanman's desk from when she used to bring in treats). They even made a card, that I hung on my wall my last year in college. It read: "Hey You, what's your face, Kathy... you're going to miss us so much!" And it's true. I will miss them all very much, especially the family like love and bickering.

I don't know how, because Rose is really bad with names--and fully aware of this, but somehow she remebered me and asked me to come back and interview for the company manger position. I didn't get it and we both knew it wasn't really for me anyway. Luckly, JAW/West was coming up and I worked alongside the new company manger, then Dawn Young, now Dawn Sorgnard. Dawn and I quickly became close as we nagivated the round waters that is JAW/West (now know as JAW). It was at JAW where I suddenly took notice of this boy: Kristan. I guess I was so distracted by whatever else that I didn't even notice he had a girls name.

At the end of JAW I came out with two things: a job and a boyfriend. I nearly shat myself: I have a job in the theater! Everyone said that that doesn't happen. But it did to me. I was the Artistic/Literary Assitant for almost four years. While in the position, I assisted Mead with literary things, and Rose with artistic/casting things, even assistant directed and dramaturged on three shows, child wrangled, read a ton of plays for JAW and for the season, hunted for scripts for Chris, and started a monthly reading series. So much has changed since I got there and I'm sure more will change in my absence. I am amazed at what I've learned and what this all means to me. I am very blessed to have had the experience and the support I had while at PCS and I'm excited for my next adventure.

Please keep in touch: megankateward@gmail.com

Megan is

2009-03-01T14:08:00.001-08:00

That damn box at the top of my facebook page constantly harasses me. I spend most of my day thinking. Megan is tired. Megan is brushing her teeth. Megan wonders why she thinks in third person all the time. Megan feels like it asks me to share too much.

I can't get that little voice out of my head. It's become this nervous tick. I've never checked in with myself so much before. And not that I am the sort of person who is so out of touch with my feelings. I am very aware and sometimes too sensitive to my feelings. But now facebook has stepped my game up a notch. Thanks facebook for being my pocket psychiatrist and always asking how I'm doing and how things make me feel.

I may think of many witty things to say and to post on my facebook page, but I don't always put them down. Most are probably not appropriate or if I said what I really was thinking...whoa. I could...well you know, somethings are better left unsaid. Fact. But god bless facebook for trying to make me spill my guts.

And so I may not know anything about twitter (in fact I'm kinda frightened of it) but to me it sounds like a blog that is just a facebook status update bar...do you really want to know all that much? And how healthy is constantly thinking of yourself in third person? Seriously, does someone know the answer? Does anyone else do this? Is anyone listening to me or is it just the voices in my head?

Cried over spilt milk

2008-12-11T23:45:00.001-08:00

bad pun intended. sadly. Tonight I watched 'MILK' the new Gus Van Sant movie. I was moved to tears pretty much throughout the entire movie. Harvey Milk was relentless in his fight for gay rights and although he died much too soon I think he would be proud of where we have come. Or maybe he would have been just what California needed to pass Prop 8. I am just blown away at the ignorance of some people. I can't stand people like Anita Bryant or anyone who raises their Christian flag and pretends to be so open and loving while denying a group their basic rights. Not very Christian. I really hope people just give this issue a rest. Let homosexuals have the right to get married! Stop trying to paint homosexuals as deviants. And if anyone is a threat to a society, it's close minded people.

I really don't know what else to say. Just stop it and fix it.

Merry Merry Christmas Time

2008-12-09T22:47:00.001-08:00

I don't know why, but this year I'm just not feeling the Christmas cheer. My dad and I have a tradition that every year, the day after Thanksgiving we go out and get the Christmas tree. When my brother and I were younger we loved spending all day at the big Christmas tree farm where when we were bored following dad around looking for the perfect tree we could step inside the warm barn house and have apple cider with my our mom and pick out ornaments.

I remember my first year away at college, I came home and the tree was up and all without my help. I was livid. How dare they carry on a tradition without me! But this year, I was like "ho hum, yeah, that tree will do." and "Dad can we hurry this up I really got to get home." What the butt, Megan?! I don't even care about presents.

Although, I have to say that I did see a glimmer of the Christmas spirit at PCS' production of 'A Christmas Carol'. If you went last year, you definitely have to see it again this year. Mead and Cliff made some minor adjustments that really made all the difference. I was like a little kid again and totally engrossed in the story (and exqueeze me how many times have I seen 'A Christmas Carol'?! exactly.). I was so moved and proud of this production I was one of the first people to stand up and clap. ME! I know...right?

So if you are like me and just holding your breath until the holidays are over, check out 'A Christmas Carol' at Portland Center Stage and it might just put you in the Christmas spirit.

p.s. my other favorite version of A Christmas Carol is 'The Muppets Christmas Carol' which I might put in right now...

Reading Reading Reading

2008-11-29T22:24:00.000-08:00

That's all I do these days. And it will be like this until July. And then it will start all over in August. I'm sure I'm going to need glasses soon.
What is really sick about all this is...I like it. It's Saturday night and I'm 20something and instead of boozing it up on the town (which I know how to do very well thank you.) I'm in my sweats reading. READING! It never ends. And I just cannot turn off. I go from work to home where I work some more. The only thing that slows me down is feeding myself and my dog. The dog I can break for, but me no. I hate cooking and I lost my chef in August to grad school. soOOoo...it's back to salads with hard boiled eggs and veggie patties. Sometimes I get inspired, but mainly it's about making the hunger go away so I can get back to reading damn it!

What are you reading Megan?
So glad you asked. I'm reading:

scripts for JAW; a playwrights festival

scripts for CoHo Fresh Northwest New Works Competition

Krishna's Folly by Eugenia Woods (which I will be workshopping and directing for the Fertile Ground Festival)

How To Disappear Completely and Never be Found by Finn Kennedy (I am the dramaturg on this American premier at PCS)

Fool for Love by Sam Shepard (because I'm hoping to direct that with Val Landrum and Chris Harder)

A Director's Craft by Katie Mitchell (because she fucking rocks and I want to learn)

The Actor and the Target by Declan Donnellan (this is for an actor group I'm thinking about starting...& Ken Rus Schmoll suggested it)

Understanding Comics the Invisible Art by Scott McCloud (because Kristan said I should)

What of the Night? selected plays by Maria Irene Fornes (because Ken Rus Schmoll said I should)

but you know. that's it. I think.

you should read this

Annie Leibovitz

2008-11-20T21:26:00.000-08:00

Tonight I went to see Annie Leibovitz talk as part of the Literary Arts & Lecture series. Annie Leibovitz was kinda incredible. They were completely sold out. You could tell she didn't really like talking so she showed pictures and read from her book. She had a very special career path and just seemed to be one of the lucky ones who was in the right place at the right time. She was taking pictures for Rolling Stone Magazine at 21 years old...umm. not fair. It seems like she didn't really have a life outside her career. But that's what being an artist means.

Or that's what I'm trying to find out. Do all the really incredible artists only focus on their careers? I'm sure they don't look at it like that. Leibovitz seemed to express that she became a person through her work; she was able to loose herself in her work. And here I mean to suggest work means her art work not work work. Its seems like she couldn't do it any other way. She couldn't work at half speed so that she could focus on her social life. She actually mentioned towards the end of her talk that she had to teach herself to slow down and make room for more things. Now at almost 60 years-old, she has an established career and three children. And she seemed to carry on a very long and loving relationship with Susan Sontag. Seems like she had it all, love, life, career, and family.

The New Kids on the Block

2008-11-14T16:15:00.000-08:00

Last night I had the privilege of seeing AFTER ASHLEY by Gina Gionfriddo at Portland's new theatre company: Portland Playhouse. These crazy kids just landed here and are kicking ass and taking names. They found space, actors, an excellent season, and support. Go and see their work and introduce yourself to the new kids. Who's excited?!

After Ashley

by Gina Ginofriddo

Directed by Brian Weaver

November 13 2008- December 6 2008

602 NE Prescott Street Portland

Previews: November 13 & 14 at 8pm

Opening Night: Saturday November 15 at 8pm

Sunday 5pm performances on: Nov 16, 23, and 30th.

8pm performances: Nov 20-22, 26-29 and Dec 3-6.

Final Weekend Only: Dec 6 performances at 3pm and 8pm

The Play

After Ashley premiered at the 2004 Humana Festival of New American Plays. After Ashley is a blisteringly funny and deeply affecting story about a teenage boy navigating the joys and terrors of life—all through the distorting prism of a media firestorm. When a family tragedy deals the Hammond family a dose of dubious celebrity, Justin finds himself paralyzed, unable to fully grieve or grow up. The only bright spot is a girl, only Justin can't decide if she's a saving angel or a self-interested groupie. In a world as weird as this one, she might just be both.

The Playwright

Gina Gionfriddo has received the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights, a Lucille Lortel Fellowship, and Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Fellowship. Her work includes After Ashley, Safe, Trepidation Nation, U.S. Drag (published in Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2002) and Guinevere. After Ashley and U.S. Drag are published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc. Her plays have received development support from Denver Center Theatre Company, Trinity Repertory Theatre, ACT (A Contemporary Theatre), Philadelphia Theatre Company, Basic Grammar, and Chicago Films. She has held residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo and Hedgebrook. She is a graduate of Brown University's M.F.A Playwriting Program.

Production History

This play was originally commissioned by Philadelphia Theatre Company and was supported by a residency and public staged reading at the 2003 Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference. It premiered at the Humana Festival of New American Plays in March 2004. Subsequently, it was performed off Broadway at the Vineyard Playhouse in March 2005 with Kieran Culkin as Justin and Anna Paquin as Julie.

The Company

Portland Playhouse is a non-profit theatre company based in North Portland.

Our Mission: Portland Playhouse is dedicated to producing quality, intimate, live performance in which the interaction between artists and audience is paramount. We hold theatre to be a community space in which people of all social, economic, racial, and political backgrounds can come together to celebrate the complexity of our shared human experience.

You may, of course, decide to attend a special invite-only performance on November 23rd at 5. This will be a fundraiser: silent auction, mingling with the cast, and cornhole contest! Tickets are $35.

Fall of the House Season 3

2008-11-13T15:10:00.001-08:00

OMG. I can't even get these words out fast enough...but if you haven't seen Fall of the House this season (or ever for that matter) you need NEED to check it out. It's back and better than ever. And I seriously recommend calling ahead for a reservation because they are selling out. There are only two more episodes this season so make sure you're caught up on the draaama for when it comes back in January. I plan on going to all of the shows this season, I'm super addicted. Maybe it's because I don't have a T.V., or maybe it's just really that good, my hunch is it's really that good...but you won't know I'm right until you check it out.
AND it's for everyone, it's uber Portland and there is nothing we love more than reminiscing about how we all belong to Club Portland.
For more information check out the action/adventure website .

Ummm...she said WHAT?!

2008-10-29T23:52:00.000-07:00

Portland Center Stage’s

NOW HEAR THIS

invites you to a concert reading of

The Drunken City

By Adam Bock

November 3, 2008

4pm-6pm

@ Portland Center Stage

128 NW Eleventh Avenue (between Couch & Davis)

in the Rehearsal Room

Admission is free, but space is limited

Please email Megan Ward at meganw@pcs.org

to reserve your seat

—————————–

Marnie’s getting married! The girls are out on the town to celebrate her last night of being single, when they run into Frank and Eddie. Sparks fly and Marnie is left questioning why she’s getting married. In The Drunken City, everyone is trying to sober up and find some balance—especially the bride-to-be.

*
Adam Bock’s plays include The Thugs (OBIE Award) Swimming in the Shallows (3 BATCC Awards, Clauder Award) Five Flights (Glickman Award) The Typographer’s Dream, The Shaker Chair and Three Guys and a Brenda (Heideman Award). He is the resident playwright at Encore Theater, a Shotgun Players artistic associate, and a New Dramatist member playwright. He is currently writing a screenplay for Scott Rudin/Miramax.

Our outstanding cast includes:

Brittany Burch, Paul Glazier, Chris Harder, Julie Jeske Murray, Chris Murray, & Laura Faye Smith

Now Hear This and Portland Center Stage gratefully acknowledge the support of the Oregon Cultural Trust.

People. People.

2008-10-29T22:20:00.000-07:00

Let's talk about theater etiquette. This past weekend I saw some shows in Portland and I was amazed at how many people talked, or fell asleep and snored, or had their cell phone go off. KNOCK IT OFF!

Don't talk or whisper to your neighbor, we can hear you. And even if we can't totally hear you, we are distracted by what we can hear but cannot quite make out. It's not o.k., people are working and creating art right in front of you, by all means enjoy yourself, but don't be distracting to the performers or the other audience members. It's rude. Turn off your cell phone. Don't even text, you think you're being sneaky but the light from your screen is so bright in our dark theaters. Don't fall asleep, have some caffeine before you enter the theater. Or have your friend next to you wake you up if you start snoring. And please dear god do not do not get up to go the bathroom. Most of the performing spaces in Portland are small and exiting the audience space is awkward, but even in a house as big as PCS, the actors can see you and hear you more than you think. And other audience member get taken out of the play because they are watching you exit and then come back in. Now if it's an emergency, then fine. But seriously, most of us need to learn to use the toilet before getting into the car...I mean theater.

O.K. that's my little rant. Now you know. Don't do it anymore.
Thanks.

Wassup

2008-10-25T16:57:00.000-07:00

Wassap 2008

Wassup the Original

And Scene

2008-10-23T20:38:00.000-07:00

Homesexuals have a fan page on facebook and now some pretty cool tribute videos.

p.s. I love The Gays

London, I love you...Do you love me too?

2008-10-23T00:37:00.000-07:00

Tonight, my friend Langan invited me to see The Kooks in concert at the Crystal Ballroom. It was an awesome concert and I'm glad I got to hang out with my friend before she leaves for New York. But all I could think about during the concert, was that this band could be my friend Sam Man's band. The lead singer, when blinded by the rock concert lighting, could be mistaken for Sam. Probably never in real life, but his lead singer attitude reminded me of him. In fact the whole band could have been his band. I could see Max, Jamie, Chris, and Alex on stage. Weird.

When I was living in London, my friends used to play a game with me. They would play a song and then I would have to guess if the band was British or American. I sucked at this game, because to me the vocalist sounded the same. I lost some cool points here. Oh well. But when listening to the Kooks I could tell they were English. In fact that's mainly the reason I went, besides hanging out with you Langan.

While watching the band, I was annoyed at how clean cut and American the audience all looked. And the smell of axe body spray made me want to vomit. I would never be caught dead at a venue in London in the outfit I wore to the concert. I was wearing sneakers (trainers) and the coolest thing about my outfit was my leather jacket, which I bought second hand at Camden Market. My friend was wearing sneakers made from hemp and recycled tires...so green and so Portland. So that was cool. But seriously going to this concert made me yearn for London. I keep having these flashbacks to parties in central London where my friend Sam Hall would DJ, or afternoons with tea, McVities and Neighbours (an Australian Soap) with Laurel, or beans on toast, and the horrible corner store I used to buy my food, or Topshop and Oxford Circus, or Camden or Portobello Market or trips to Greenwich or Brick Lane with Margot. It was like I was there. I kept hoping that when I walked out that front door I would be coming out of the Mean Fiddler or 333 Mother some place like that. But alas.

So...who wants to put me up on the couch so I can visit London?

Spring Awakening

2008-10-21T23:34:00.001-07:00

Well my Spring has been awakened. I got to see Spring Awakening tonight at the Keller. The tour is in town. I highly suggest seeing this show. It was a good time. I happened to be sitting next to two teenage girls who were loving every minute of it and even grabbed each others hands when the cute boy got up to sing. EEEEE! SO EXCITING. AWWW...remember, remember what that was like? To have your heart leap out of your throat you were so excited!?

I am not a huge musical fan. It's not the unrealistic behavior of bursting out into song, I know plenty of people that do this for real in real life, I'm not sure what it is exactly. But whatever. The songs in this show do an excellent job of giving you that teenager feeling again. These characters may be in period dress, but god damn do they rock out with their cock out. And I have to say, thank god for the masturbation, abuse, sexual abuse, sex ( he makes like he puts it in...yeah. This was too much for some), suicide, boys kissing boys, and an abortion. Finally a musical that gets down and dirty. Oh wait? Aren't these things also in Grease and it Rent (and many others I can't remember right now)? SOOO...why were some of the "older" theater patrons around me so shocked...cuase the actors are kids. Literally the cast is pulled from high schools and colleges around the country. And apparently when they auditioned they had to make a myspace page to see how many hits they could get. The kid with the most hits got called in. Yep...so I hear. Or maybe it's because the blocking is more graphic. Will someone tell me...please.

Anyway, it was a good night all told. The choreography was really interesting and the set was cool. It almost looked like it was 3D at points because of the lighting, which was also really well done. Very rock and roll but could so scale back and be poetic. The hanging light bulbs reminded me of the Armory chandelier. Oh and there were young kids pulled from the audience and asked to sit on these bleachers on stage and be part of the ensemble. Marc Acito, who I ran into at intermission thought I was one of those kids. To be fair, the girl he was referring to kinda did look like me: white with long blonde hair. And the band was on stage and the characters interacted with it (several characters sat down and played the piano) and were constantly pulling mics out of their jackets or handing them to each other. I feel like this was a choice by the director to make it feel more like a rock concert than a musical. Don't hide the mics that's sooo musical theater. Of course they were wearing body mics as well, but the choice to pull out the mics and use the mic stand had to have been a deliberate choice. It's so more rock and roll.

I'm really glad I was able to go. Thanks Cynthia for the tickets! I can't wait for the rights to become avalible.

Go Porland It's your birthday

2008-10-18T17:14:00.000-07:00

And we're going to party like it's your birthday...

I am very proud of the Portland theater scene these days. Last night I saw 'The Receptionist' by Adam Bock directed by Rose Riordan at CoHo Productions. It was fabulous. Chris Murray, Laura Faye Smith, Gary Norman, and Sharonlee McLean starred and they were all incredible. Gary Norman was transformed on stage. You have never seen Gary do a role quite like this. I definitely recommend you check it out.

Last week I saw, 'Wish' by james moore at defunkt theater. Well crafted and hilarious. I was really enjoying the story but then-hang on- it takes a sharp left turn. But don't get discouraged a singing hamster will fill you in in just a second. Another good night of theater.

The next night I saw 'Dead Funny' by Terry Johnson at Third Rail Rep. They have moved into their new space and are hitting it out of the park. It was sold out and the audience loved every moment. I was able to just sit there and enjoy it. Maureen Porter is so lovely on stage, your heart just goes out to her character. You care deeply about the show even if you don't know anything about Benny Hill because you are invested in the characters. I also thought it was smart that the company didn't use the whole stage instead hey built their set just the size they needed. Brilliant.
It warms my heart that there are so many good shows going on right now.

Now Hear This-Now on Mondays

2008-09-23T15:42:00.001-07:00

Now Hear This-Now on Mondays

Posted using ShareThis

Good-bye Mark Russell

2008-09-14T20:37:00.000-07:00

I went to Mark Russell's talk and I found myself wishing I knew him better or at all. I've been grateful for his involvement in the PICA: TBA Festival. He was my first guest artistic director of the festival and I appreciated his focus on theater and performance. See his talk on YouTube about the Under the Radar Festival at the Public in New York. He was also the Executive/Artistic Director of PS122 from 1983-2004. He seems to have an amazing sense of cutting edge work and emerging artists. I want to know how I get his career path. It would be amazing (and I'm sure exhausting) to go to different festivals and performances, both locally and internationally, scouting talent.
Thank you Mark for all you've done for Portland and the festival. Hope to meet you one day.

Vivarium Studio & Superamas

2008-09-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

I think Philippe Quesene/Vivarium Studio was by far my favorite at TBA. I had seen them two years ago with La Demangeaison des Ailes (the Itching of the Wings) for TBA:06. I went with my boyfriend Kristan and I think that was the moment I realized he spoke French, which is probably when I fell in love with him; right there. I have always loved the French, which is how I ended up in England. Long story. And now I love both countries. Complicated I know. However, I did not let my love of the French color my judgment of the pieces. I swear.

Here is why I loved Vivarium Studio's new piece, L'Effet de Serge. It was beautiful and complex, but simple. It wasn't trying to be more than it was. It was a focused piece and super cleaver. I like to refer to it as reality theater.

The play starts with an introduction from a man in a space suit. It is explained to us that the beginning of each piece begins with the ending of the last one. This space suit guy (played by the same person who play Serge) takes us on a tour of Serge's apartment and tells us a little bit about him. Next Serge enters and we watch his life unfold. He is no one special, just a ordinary guy who lives by himself and every Sunday he invites a different friend over and performs a light show for them. They are timed to music. It's pretty impressive how well they go together, but his friends are so-so about the effects. Three weeks go by and he invites all his friends over to watch the "big" performance. They come the way they came before, walking, biking, by car. Yes, by car. It was pretty cool.

Then I raced by car from Imago to PSU Lincoln Hall. I made it with plenty of time. I didn't know much about Superamas, but their picture looked cool. Everyone was dancing and having a good time. And I think that is exactly what they are deconstructing. This idea of happiness. Their show was entitled Big 3rd Episode (happy/end), which now I want to see episode 1: Big 1 (reality show/artifical entertainment) and episode 2: Big 2 (show/businsess).

Through a series of repeated scenes, Superamas, a French Austrian performance group, (again with the French) cynically examines our obsession with sex and vanity. The actors are beautiful and sexy and dubed, but that's the point. The repetitious scenes, mostly one inspired by Sex and the City, cut back and forth between disco-inspired dance numbers, familiar video clips, a French/Austrian video of self expression with football players and cheerleaders, and a film about Superamas' own success. However, the most horrific and also the most beautiful part is when there is a video of a car crash. When the video fades from the screen, the sound and lights take over and create this wonderful ballet. You are at the accident and not just watching it. There is no time to dwell on this because we are back in the ladies locker room to watch them strip down one more time. Bad feelings gone and back to the sexy ladies. Hott.

Tim Crouch

2008-09-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

I was looking forward to seeing Tim Crouch, for no other reason than to hear his accent. I've been missing England and a performance piece entitled "England" sounded like a good idea. Also, he's kinda a big deal.
This piece was breathtaking. It was a site specific work which took place in the Elizabeth Leach Gallery, but very much a theatrical piece which engaged the audience. It was simple and through this simplicity something really magically happened. There was no set, no special lighting, just a sound scape and two performers: Tim Crouch and Hannah Ringham. (picture below)

The story is told by both performances from the point of view of this person who is dying and receives a heart transplant. We see the world through the character's eyes and are transported from hospital to hospital around England until we arrive in a hotel room in a foreign land. We are there to thank the wife of the husband whose heart now beats inside the protagonist. But things get confused, politics and translation get in the way and we end up questioning how did we get here.
It's not the story that made this evening so incredible, although it is a fascinating one, but the way in which the story was told. I think this could be the future of theater; this well told narrative, this intimacy with the audience, the simplicity of design. Getting back to basics.

Lemon Andersen: The Beautiful Struggle

2008-09-07T22:59:00.000-07:00

Last year I saw the Suicide Kings, who were amazing, and I learned that I liked slam poets. So this year I went to see Lemon Andersen. I didn't know anything about him except that he is an urban poet. He all caught our attention when he jumped out from the audience and started rapping. This story starts at the end. Lemon tells us about winning the Tony and then takes us back to his childhood growing up on the streets of Brooklyn. He has had quite a full life: he lost both his parent at a young age to A.I.D.S, ran in a gang, sold drugs, and ended up in jail twice. After his second time out of jail he went to get his hair done at the barber shop and while he was there, he heard about a poetry reading. So instead of spending the money on the haircut he went to see the poetry reading. He was so impressed with the poets that he got carried away and asked the lady to put him name down to read. She told him they were full but if he heard his name he could come up. It was then that he realized he didn't have anything prepared. "I didn't have a poem, but I had experience" he said. And by God does he. His performance tonight was captivating.

So I got to thinking about biography. I'm obsessed with it. I have had many discussions with my boyfriend about the importance of an artists biography. I think it informs their work. To know an artists biography gives you a deeper understanding of their work. Of course the work can be and should be appreciated separate from this knowledge. I just think it gives you a little something extra. An inside look. An intimacy with the text. And now in my cases we are seeing one's biography become their work. This season at PCS we will be producing Storm Large's one woman show about her life. I saw her performance during JAW and was also entranced by her and her amazing life. She monologues and sings beautifully; Lemon monologues and raps; Mark Bamuthi Joseph monologues and dances; playwrights dialogue, monologue, and create text. A successful playwright once told me that you write about what you know because if you do that the work will come from an honest place. What could be more honest than preforming your biography in your chosen artistic medium. I'm not sure what this all means about American Theater or public interest, but it's just something I've noticed.

Reggie Watts & Ten Tiny Dances

2008-09-07T00:48:00.000-07:00

Today was my second day of the TBA festival. I met up with Rose to see Reggie Watt's TRANSITION. We saw his show DISINFORMATION at last year's festival. The performance was directed by the very lovely Tommy Smith, who is also a playwright and we had the pleasure of getting to know when he participated in our Commission! Commission! event for JAW 2007. Needless to say I was looking forward to seeing the show.
Reggie was awesome as always and I enjoyed the use of video. At one point Reggie conducted an interview with someone on the screen about social networking and the internet and the distance but also the intimacy this creates in relationships, which you didn't realize was live until the actress came out on stage with her video set up. However, the biggest payout was when they played a clip from "Teen Wolf", which they had mocked earlier in their performance. I didn't make the connection until they played this clip (jump to 3:40 to see the exact scene) after the show. They had copied it perfectly. Hilarious! The show was entertaining and Reggie is the ultimate "piss-taker" (if you know what I mean).
After the show I ran to my car and drove straight to the Leftbank to see Ten Tiny Dances. I was blown away by last year's performances and had encouraged our new Portlanders Kim and her boyfriend Chad to join me. "It's a Portland Must-See" I said. It's true. Luckily Kim and Chad had got there way before me and saved me a seat. As always the works was packed for this event. I wound up talking to a lady next to me about what she had already seen at the festival and what she was planning on seeing. And it turns out that we might bump into each other at a few events. On my drive home I kept thinking about how wonderful it was to engage in conversation with a complete stranger and how that is SO Portland and very much part of the festival spirit. There were only 8 tiny dances this time but they were very substantial and serious, so you felt like you were getting a full 10. Last year each piece was a mini production and usually involved scene changes or heavy clean up after each performance. They were beautiful, especially to a theater artist. This year it was more about the dancer and the dancing than the effects. I was able to see Mike Barbers face most of the time during the dancing and he looked full of inspiration and awe. It was charming. He's looking for suggestions for the 20th Ten Tiny Dances, so send him your suggestions.

All in all a good night. More to come tomorrow!

Today I went to Europe...

2008-09-05T18:46:00.000-07:00

Yes. It's true. I took a walking tour of Tilburg, the sixth largest city in The Netherlands. Khris Soden was our guide. I was amazed at the similarities between Portland and Tilburg and also how easy it was for me to drift away and feel like I really was in this European province of Noord-Brabant. I have to say this is all thanks to Mr. Soden. I was so captivated by what he had to say that I didn't really need to look around (which I think helped, because then I was not reminded of the fact that yes I am really in Portland and NOT Europe). I was only shaken once, when this crazy lady came straight towards the crowd of people and yelled, "Move!" I found traveling to Europe exactly what I needed on this lovely fall day.

I found out that Tilburg has tree in this middle of a five point intersection that quite controversial because the city wants to remove it and the local businesses and people want to keep it there. I also found out that years ago Tilburg's main business was making fabric and that the people of the town used to bring their urine in a jar to the factories because it was an important ingredient in the fabric making process. I even saw the statue dedicated to this. Surrounding towns mock the residents of Tilburg for this fact, while the people of Tilburg see it as a source of pride. My favorite part was a monument dedicated to non-violent solutions. After six people were randomly murdered (Khris explained that you are five times more likely to be murdered in Portland than you were in ALL of Holland. This sort of thing doesn't happen there.) the city commissioned an artist to create a statue dedicated to this city's loss. The artist (and I'm so sorry I don't remember their name) made a cabinet where people could come and write down their solutions to violence and everyday someone from the city comes and picks up the messages and puts ones they deem fit in the top part on display.

Tilburg is so cool you can even get a degree in Rock n'Roll at one of the local art universities. I was lucky I got to see the city without even buying a plane ticket. Khris will go to Tilburg and conduct a Tilburg Tour of Portland during their city's arts festival. I can't wait to see what they think of us!

Happy New Year!

2008-09-04T12:26:00.000-07:00

For me, the new year starts at the end of August and the beginning of September. I'm sure it has something to do with my August to August calendar (the best organizer ever!) and the fact that the school year starts, the season starts, and the weather starts to turn. There is nothing like the changing of season. I went to school in northern California for two years and didn't understand why it was 80 degrees in October. This is not how it's supposed to be. There need to be leaves in my Fall.
This year seems to be full of new adventures; I have a new apartment, I have a new puppy, and my boyfriend of two years is off to graduate school leaving me to fend for myself. I was pretty sad at first, like really sad, but now I've realized it's going to be o.k. and I have some work to do! I tend to be a HUGE nerd. And since he's been gone, I've taken an opportunity to read and relax and clean my apartment. Sounds pretty boring, but when you have lived at breakneck speed for two years, it's nice to go at a snails pace. I have this huge need to know more more more. So sitting a'top my tower reading is just fine by me.
Also, now is the time to start making the To-Do list...DUTCHMAN was a success so now what's next. I need to find money to produce my next project, I need to find money to travel. Basically my days now consist of hunting for buried treasure.

So in the end this year is all about me! ME ME ME!

But first off to the PICA TBA Festival. Yippeee!

MIMESOPHOBIA (JAW 2004) PRODUCED IN PORTLAND

2008-08-12T19:16:00.001-07:00

MIMESOPHOBIA (JAW 2004) PRODUCED IN PORTLAND

Posted using ShareThis

DUTCHMAN

2008-08-03T15:29:00.001-07:00

It's 1964 a black man sits alone on a subway. A white woman enters...

The David Mamet School for Boys Presents
Dutchman
By LeRoi Jones

Directed by Megan Ward
Starring Julie Jeske Murray & Nasir Najieb

August 15 & 16; 20-23 @10:30 pm
August 17 & 23 @ 2pm

At the Shoe Box Theater
2110 SE 10th

Reservations: 503-781-2156
Tickets: $10

Run time: approx. 40mins.

Need something to do before the show?
Come see Mimesophobia by Carlos Murillo
or grab a bite to eat at Tennessee Reds!

JAW: If you have to ask you'll never know...

2008-07-01T14:29:00.000-07:00

If you are not sure what JAW is please read below and/or click here. For those in the know, I think you might all agree that it is truly the most wonderful time of year. Better than Christmas! And I would hate for the rest of you to miss out on all the uber-fabulous things because you just didn't know...wake up Portland. Come! Be renewed, inspired and bask in the powerful creative rays of JAW!

JAW: A Playwrights Festival turns 10! And to celebrate we are pulling out all the stops. For two crazy weeks in July, from July 8-20, JAW: A Playwrights Festival takes over the Armory – and its environs. We will begin on the 8^th with readings of hot-off-the press new scripts by Oregon’s own:

The Cloud-Bangers
by Matthew B. Zrebski
July 8
All the clouds are cumulonimbus in this heady mix of meteorology, migraines and steamy romance. Only an air-clearing storm will reveal who’s zoomin’ whom.

Starvation Heights
by Ginny Foster
July 9
In this adaptation of the true-crime novel by New York Times best-selling author Gregg Olsen, lady doctor Linda Hazzard opens a sanitarium with some unorthodox treatments. When her clients start leaving her care feet first, a mysterious figure known as Nanny appears, determined to save two patients in particular.

Willow Jade
by Hunt Holman
July 10
Nowheresville, Washington state. Meet four aging chums with a good idea: stave off middle age by reviving their high school rock band. Bad idea: coming to terms with their past during a disastrous game of D&D – in costume.

And of course there’s more. Our You Are There (site-specific) presentations will spill into the streets. The popular Theater Fair will take on a fresh twist. Promising Playwrights will offer new works created by local high school students especially for the Festival. Three new Community Artists Labs allow you some one on one time with featured guest artists to pick their brains and practice your craft. And our anniversary kick-off event will draw on playwrights from the full span of JAW’s ten fabulous years to create a Commission!Commission! event open to all for the first time. So stop by on July 11 to see familiar faces and help us kick off the public weekend.

PLUS IT’S ALL FREE!

We are proud to announce we’ve expanded the Festival’s centerpiece readings on the main stage of the Gerding Theater this year another workshop -- a one woman musical by Portland’s very own Storm Large. JAW received a record number of submissions this year, and although this was not our intention, the festival will have all female playwrights. As a young female artist working in the theater community it is inspiring to see so many accomplished women.

Crazy Enough
by Storm Large
July 19 & 20, 2:00 pm in the Ellyn Bye Studio; seats for this events are very limited.

Drawn from Storm’s life and music, this musical one-woman show is bracingly frank and revealing in a way that only our take-no-prisoners chanteuse can deliver. Her story promises to be as rock and roll as the diva herself.

A Brief Narrative of an Extraordinary Birth of Rabbits
by Colin Denby Swanson
July 19, 4:oo pm on the Main Stage
Coming up with names is a problem for Mare when she starts giving birth to an endless stream of bunnies. But that’s only the start of her problems, as a whole family of guilty consciences comes to the fore. Who can she turn to? Enter The Stork: raconteur, impresario and OB-GYN, all rolled into one.
Promising Playwright Curtain Raiser by Phillip A. Schallberger

Paradise Street
by Constance Congdon
July 19, 8:00 pm on the Main Stage

Jane arrives at her new university post ready to set academic feminism on its head. But when her mind goes wandering, everyone has to improvise, which brings her doddering mother out of semi-senility and inspires an uneducated drifter to impersonate Jane on the lecture circuit. Along the way they all discover that contrary to popular belief, parallel lines do sometimes meet.
Promising Playwright Curtain Raiser by Jordan Beck

Pony
by Sally Oswald
July 20, 4:00 pm on the Main Stage

On the other side of the woods from Woyzeck, Pony lives in a queer microcosm. Marie conjures a killer, Stell wants Heath’s transgendered body, and Cav is forever on the border looking in. Sexual boundaries merge, twist and double back in this tale of five souls in search of identity.
Promising Playwright Curtain Raiser by Blue S. Dieter

Enchantment
by Carson Kreitzer
July 20, 8:00 pm on the Mainstage

Meet Temple Grandin, engineer and high-functioning autistic, working to make the slaughter of cattle more humane; and Bruno Bettelheim, ruining lives with his theory that the “cold mother” is the cause of autism. They lived and live on, but this is no mere documentary; as their lives interweave to create a disturbing and effecting dramatic narrative, you may never think of life and its consequences the same way again.
Promising Playwright Curtain Raiser by Daniel Felder

, , ,
* Promising Playwrights are four exceptionally talented young writers, drawn from our Visions & Voices programs at Cleveland, Lincoln, Wilson and Alliance High School’s FOCUS program. These writers spend all 10 days of the festival working alongside professional actors, directors and dramaturgs, who show them the inside workings of the theater.

JAW is truly my favorite time of year and the 2008 outing is really a must-see, as the art and creation will be exploding out the building. I hope to see you all there!

NOW HEAR THIS SEASON FINALE

2008-06-17T16:47:00.000-07:00

Portland Center Stage’s

NOW HEAR THIS

invites you to a concert reading of

Why Love Doesn’t Recognize Its Name

a new play by Lisa Leaverton

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Noon to approximately 1:30 pm

@ Portland Center Stage

128 NW Eleventh Avenue (between Couch & Davis)

in the Rehearsal Room

Our outstanding cast includes:

Lava Alapai, Mario Calcagno, Drew Danhorn,

Heather Nelson Robertson, Cecily Overman & Amy Palomino

Admission is free, but space is limited

Email Megan Ward at meganw@pcs.org

to reserve your seat

-----------------------------

At a loss for words? Then come down to Lee’s Expressive! He’s the best! Lee and his team of mechanics help clients whose speech patterns are clogged with words that are too ornate, or have the wrong shade of meaning, or just plain don’t communicate. But only Deep Mystery (that’s you, our audience) can unlock the most problematic phrases.

Please join us for our final reading of the season, which promises to be unlike any other reading we’ve had this year: it’s semi-staged; the audience can affect the play’s plot; AND the playwright herself will be here, all the way from Brooklyn, to celebrate the first fun season of

NOW HEAR THIS.

Lisa Leaverton, Playwright (Brooklyn, NY) runs a collective (inquire within) with Director John Kaufmann, devoted to audience dependent, ephemeral theatre. Her One Act, “PERHAPS,” (2008) was read in Outward Bound Series, at CSPS, Cedar Rapids. WHY LOVE DOESN’T RECOGNIZE ITS NAME, for which she received a Richard Maibaum Scholarship was featured at Iowa New Play Festival, 2008. Theatre of The Body (2001), a series of lecture demonstrations created in collaboration with choreographer Katharine Livingston has been performed numerous times since it sold out at Philadelphia Fringe. A Blue We All Know (2008), will be featured in a Gallery production at University of Iowa, Oct. 2008. Other plays include Who Are These They, (2007) read in Primary Stages Playwrights Workshop, The LONG Night, (2008), and The Countess of Misery (2005), full-length play in verse. Since graduating from Peabody Music Conservatory, Lisa has costumed Theatre and Dance companies, including Headlong Dance and Pig Iron Theatre Co. Lisa participated in Goat Island Performance workshops, and KCCTF, 2007. Recipient of a Felton award, Lisa is completing her MFA in playwriting at University of Iowa.

Nancy Keystone

2008-06-16T10:58:00.001-07:00

While I was in Pasedena, I met up with the marvelous Nancy Keystone. She graciously picked me up from my hotel and took me to lunch and then on to her art show in Highland Park. Nancy has directed for Portland Center Stage, you might recall her ANTIGONE or WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOLF. Next season she will be directing all three parts of APOLLO, a multi-media collaborative exploration of the Apollo Space Program. She will be directing the World Premiere of all three parts at PCS with her ensemble The Critical Mass Performance Group, of which she is the founder and artistic director. If you don't know, APOLLO is a must see next season. I won't even talk to you if you don't go see it. Nancy is an incredible artist and you would be doing yourself a huge disservice if you did not witness this.

So naturally, being the young theater artist I am, I solicited Nancy on advice on how to survive in this crazy profession. Basically, I was just looking for light at the end of the tunnel. She gave me hope for better days, told me debt and graduate school are unavoidable and that you have to hustle. Alright, I'm still in.

After the yummy lunch and my spirit renewed, we headed on to Highland Park, which I thought was a green grassy place with trees. No wrong. Highland Park is an area in Pasadena, which Nancy explained, is becoming more gentrified. A local curator commissioned a group of artist to pick a shop on York Blvd. and create a work of art which would later be displayed in the shop. I believe it had to somehow incorporate the store and/or the neighborhood. Louisa Van Leer made a flag which represented the area and was hoping to have them adopt it as their own. Mary Beth Heffernan made a crazy armchair/log sculpture for the local upholstery shop. It was beautiful and frighting at the same time. Steven L. Anderson created a site-specific audio instillation outside of the weaving shop which sampled from Ghandi speeches and sounds from the shop. From the website: "Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock and Outpost for Contemporary Art are collaborating to organize Intersection 2008, which is a multi-sited public installation project that brings artistic interventions into businesses. This project features 17 temporary art installations by artists who live and/or work in North East Los Angeles." Nancy made a sculpture out of stuff she bought at Junior Discount Party Supply. I wish I had the picture of all the stuff she bought sitting on her table at home before she got to work. Her whole table was covered with very colorful goodies. She created two very beautiful chandelier type sculptures, which reminded me of the chandelier that we have at Portland Center Stage, which Nancy designed.

It was a wonderful way to spend my Saturday. I am so pleased that Nancy was able to take time out of her busy life and visit with me!

Why I will never live in Los Angeles

2008-06-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

I moved from L.A. when I was 8 years old. We still have family and friends here and every time we are here we do the whirlwind tour of visiting people and coordinating schedules. The priority in most conversations is about the status of the freeway and the traffic. They talk about it the way Oregonian's talk about the rain. It is something that effects their daily lives and they have to factor sometimes up to an hour or more into their travel time. Easy tasks become difficult because of the traffic. Whatever with that. It may still be cold and rainy in Oregon right now and we may not be able to count on sun until after the Forth of July, but at least the traffic does not hinder us from living our lives. For anyone reading this who does not live in Oregon, don't worry about moving here. We're full and don't need to be like Seattle, a rainy L.A.

NEW WORK IS WHERE IT’S AT!

2008-05-29T12:47:00.000-07:00

Cloud Bangers

by Matthew B. Zrebski

July 8

All the clouds are cumulonimbus in this heady mix of meteorology, migraines and steamy romance. Only an air-clearing storm will reveal who’s zoomin’ whom.

Starvation Heights

by Ginny Foster

July 9

On a lake near Seattle a century ago, lady doctor Linda Hazzard opens a sanitarium with some “advanced” ideas about treatment. When her clients start leaving her care feet first, a mysterious figure known only as Nanny arrives, determined to save two particular patients.

Willow Jade

by Hunt Holman

July 10

Nowheresville, Washington state. Four aging chums attempt to stave off incipient middle age by reviving their high school rock band. That is, if they can keep from killing each other during a disastrous game of D&D – in costume.

PLUS IT’S ALL FREE!

Paradise Street
by Constance Congdon
Jane arrives at her new university post ready to set academic feminism on its head. But when her mind goes wandering, everyone has to improvise, which brings her doddering mother out of semi-senility and inspires an uneducated drifter to impersonate Jane on the lecture circuit. Along the way they all discover that contrary to popular belief, parallel lines do sometimes meet.

Enchantment
by Carson Kreizer

Meet Temple Grandin, engineer and high-functioning autistic, and Bruno Bettelheim, whose book The Uses of Enchantment is notorious for its penetrating analyses of fairy tales. They lived and live on, but this is no mere documentary; as their lives interweave to create a startling, disturbing and effecting dramatic narrative, you may never think of life and its consequences quite the same way again.

Crazy Enough

by Storm Large

Pony
by Sally Oswald
You’ve seen these people on the streets and wondered who they were. Now meet them face to face, before they shape-shift. Gender lines merge, twist and double back in this tale of six souls in search of identify that starts where Woyzeck left off.

A Brief Narrative of an Extraordinary Birth of Rabbits
by Colin Denby Swanson
Coming up with names is a problem for Mare when she starts giving birth to an endless stream of bunnies. But that’s only the start of her problems, as a whole family of guilty consciences comes to the fore. Who can she turn to? Enter The Stork: raconteur, impresario and OB-GYN, all rolled into one.

JAW is truly my favorite time of year and the 2008 outing is really a must-see, as the art and creation will be exploding out the building. I hope to see you all there!

My New Love

2008-05-22T11:31:00.000-07:00

I have been obsessing...and I mean REALLY obsessing about getting a dog for a couple months now. I decided I wanted to adopt a dog instead of buying a puppy because I felt that there were enough dogs that needed a good home. My day would begin and end with me searching the internet for the perfect companion. I would start by checking the Oregon Humane Society, Craigslist, Multnomah Animal Control, the Oregonian and The Willamette Week classified ads.

One day I was so stressed out that I took the bus to the humane society and fell in love with this Brittany Spaniel/mix at the Humane society. She was a year and a half and house broken. She was brought in because the family had a baby and the dog was not getting along. What appealed to me the most about her is that she looked like a big dog but was only 30lbs. I lost her. I didn't have an apartment or anywhere to keep her.

I love big dogs and have no interest in small dogs. I was raised with two labs, Maggie (a yellow lab) and her son Pierre (a black lab). We got Maggie as an incentive to move to Oregon.

My parents promised that we could get a dog when we moved from L.A. to Portland, Oregon (where it snowed...something else we were very excited about. ) We picked up Maggie from a breeder in Bend and she traveled the whole way home asleep on my lap. She was my sister. A few years later we decided to breed her and she produced a litter of 5, one of which was Pierre, who we kept.

Her son Pierre was beautiful and perfect from the beginning. He was the blocky headed black lab who was my brother's since Maggie was mine, but in reality both dogs were really my father's. Last year, Maggie was put down and Pierre passed away right behind her. It broke my heart because he was so sudden. All of this colored my decision not to get a lab; it would be too hard.

Next I decided Cavalier King Charles were the dog for me because they had the personality of a retriever but were small dogs, breed to be lap dogs. I had to get over my snobbery of small dogs because apartments and my lifestyle required them to be no bigger than 30lbs. I loved that they were not hard-wired to hunt or heard or anything like that. These dogs are expensive and have a long list of health problems. All breeds are prone to certain health problems, but this one takes the cake. So then I decided, I would just leave it up to fate. I wouldn't focus on a certain breed or hybrid I would just wait for a dog to say, I'm yours.

Well, it happened. And it happened a little sooner than I expected. I was looking at craigslist and I saw this ad for a cocker spaniel. I hadn't thought much about cocker spaniels and everything anyone had told me was bad, so I was hesitant. But I took one look at this picture and new I had to get this dog. So I contacted the family to ask them why they would give away such a beautiful dog. The mother said that she didn't realize how much her husband didn't like dogs and was sad that the dog had to spend it's life outside. They didn't feel that it was fair and that he would be much better suited to be an indoor dog. Perfect. I would love an indoor dog and he has already been socialized by a family. Things were looking up.

But then things were looking down...because I didn't have an apartment and he was too young to bring to work right away. So I dropped the idea. But I kept dreaming about him and about our life together. These dreams were so vivid that I thought he was actually mine. A day later at work, a friend convinced me to go out to see the dog. Then another co-work joined the conversation and told me I had to at least meet him. I had to know what he was really like. Well we all know how this story ends. I fall in love. He loves me, I love him...it's happily ever after.

But not quite...cause I still didn't have an apartment and my parents weren't being supportive. I stuck with it and finally found a solution: We would live with my parents at their house (they totally came around) and then move into my apartment June 1st. Victory! I picked him up on Tuesday.

I was nervous and scared to be a dog mommy, but we bonded so well and he is such a little gentleman. He continues to surprise me with how lovely he is. He is just happy to be with me. And he's pretty smart too! He is going to be such a mamma's boy...It surprises me how much I love this dog and that makes me pretty happy.

F.U.B.A.R.

2008-05-08T12:53:00.000-07:00

Portland Center Stage’s

NOW HEAR THIS

invites you to a concert reading of

FUBAR

a new play by Karl Gajdusek

May 17, 2008

Noon to approximately 2 pm

@ Portland Center Stage

128 NW Eleventh Avenue (between Couch & Davis)

in the Rehearsal Room

Admission is free, but space is limited

Please email Megan Ward at meganw@pcs.org

to reserve your seat

-----------------------------

Mary lives amid the boxes her abused mother left behind. Her husband David tries desperately hard to stay young and hip. Meanwhile, best-bud Richard is on the road not taken and Sylvia’s along for the ride. But when Mary is the victim of an unprovoked act of violence, it leads them each down different paths of addiction and realization. Four people trying to recognize the people they have become in a time that’s totally F.U.B.A.R.

Karl Gajdusek was born in San Francisco and now lives in San Diego with his wife and son. He writes plays, screenplays and television. He has taught Playwriting at San Francisco’s School of the Arts, UCSD, ISOMATA and The Playwrights’ Center. He has a BA in Literature from Yale University and an MFA in Playwriting from the University of California at San Diego. Karl’s other plays include Fair Game, Silverlake, Minneapolis, Dr.S F.S in the Terminal Ward, Big Sun Setting Fast, The Gilded Garden of Patcheww, Malibu, and Waco, Texas, Mon Amour. Screenplays include Higher, 9 Days Wonder, Widow’s Walk, Reunion, Woderman, The Next Best Thing (not the one with Madonna), and the independent film 58, which he wrote and directed. Story Editor for the Showtime show Dead Like Me. He founded the script publication service Big Sun Publication. He is the recipient of the 1991 Jacob K. Javits fellowship, 1996-97 & 1998-99 Jerome Fellowships, the 1997 McKnight Screenwriting Fellowship, and the 2000 MAG fellowship. When not writing for the theater, Karl spends his time surfing So Cal breaks, writing movies for pro wrestlers, and lovingly changing diapers.

Our outstanding cast includes:

Brittany Burch, Mario Calcagno, Paul Glazier,

Natalie Knapp and Tom Walton.

Stage Directions by Teddy Roisum

Bang, Bang

2008-04-15T09:25:00.001-07:00

Portland Center Stage's

NOW HEAR THIS

invites you to a concert reading of

The Bullet Round

by Steven Drukman

Featuring the talents of
Paul Glazier, Tom Moorman, Chris Murray,
Nasir Najieb, Amy Newman & Michael Fisher Welsh

*

April 19, 2008
Noon to approximately 2 pm
@ Portland Center Stage
128 NW Eleventh Avenue (between Couch & Davis)
on the Main Stage

Admission is free, but space is limited
Please email Megan Ward at meganw@pcs.org
to reserve your seat

-----------------------------

"If you put a gun onstage in Act I, it must go off by Act III."

-- Anton Chekhov

Karma's a bitch, as the hapless inhabitants of this knockabout comedy
are about to find out. In the course of an a La Ronde chain reaction,
an aspiring white rapper gains and loses a gun that continues to
change hands, scene by scene, on its way to fulfilling an
unanticipated destiny.

Steven Drukman's play IN THIS CORNER (about legendary boxer Joe
Louis) opened in January at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre. Other
produced plays include GOING NATIVE (Long Wharf Theatre), FLATTERY
WILL GET YOU (Connecticut Rep), COLLATERAL DAMAGE (Illusion Theatre,
Minneapolis), THE SNOWMAIDEN (Bob Hope Theatre, Dallas) and ANOTHER
FINE MESS (Portland Center Stage), which was nominated for the
Pulitzer Prize. He has been developed and/or commissioned by the Mark
Taper Forum, the Intiman Theatre, South Coast Rep, New York Theatre
Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, Sundance Theatre Lab and the
Williamstown Theatre Festival. Awards: Paul Green Award, Alfred P.
Sloan Award, Heinemann finalist, others. He wrote for many years for
The New York Times, was an Associate Editor of American Theatre
Magazine, and he just released his book of the edited screenplays of
Craig Lucas. He teaches playwriting at NYU.

*

Now Hear This and Portland Center Stage gratefully acknowledge the
support of the Oregon Cultural Trust.

Marjane Satrapi

2008-04-13T11:26:00.000-07:00

Monday April 7th, Marjane Satrapi, author of "Persepolis" gave a talk as part of the Literary Arts & Lecture Series. As soon as I found out I was going I picked up a copy of her graphic novel (a title which she despises. She likes them to be called comics.) So I picked up a copy of her comic "Persepolis" so that I could know more about her life. I became fixated on how one choses to present themselves. Since the wikipedia entry is pretty slim I focused on comparing the picture at the back of the book to the self portrait she drew of herself. I had a hard time believing that they were the same woman. I couldn't find the beauty mark on the right side of her nose. I felt that this was an essential part of her face. She references to the day this mark came to live on her face in her book. The character I came to adore, was not this woman in the back of the book.

Regardless, as soon as Marjane Satrapi came on stage, I could finally see the woman in the comic. Satrapi is a wonderful speaker. She was really inspiring and is definitely not afraid to speak her mind. She is educated and ballsey. Two wonderful traits to have, especially in a woman. My mother, who was not interested in reading the comic before going to see Satrapi talk, was suddenly eager to get the book from me.

I am always amazed at how much the world knows about America, and how little the Americans know about their own country, let alone foreign nations. "Persepolis" introduced me to Iran. I know I would not have learned as much as I did if this book was not a personal story. I was attracted to the book because of who was telling the story rather than what it had to say. She truly is a remarkable women.

As the lecture came to an end the audience began asking her about her smoking habits and how she felt about the new law forbidding smoking in Paris, where she lives. She responded by saying that she didn't appreciate the government treating adults like children and telling other people what to do about their health. Then she simply added this quote from The Cure, "All great art was made by smokers." So you non-smokers should appreciate the work of smokers. And so forever more I will think of Marjane Satrapi as the woman pictured below.

That Time of the Month

2008-03-18T10:50:00.001-07:00

Portland Center Stage’s

NOW HEAR THIS

invites you to a concert reading of

The Evildoers

A new play by David Adjmi

performed by

Ted deChatelet, Stephanie Gaslin, Val Landrum, Tom Moorman & Leif Norby

March 29, 2008

Noon to approximately 2 pm

@ Portland Center Stage

128 NW Eleventh Avenue (between Couch & Davis)

in the Studio Theater

Admission is free, but RSVPs are appreciated

Please call Megan Ward at (503) 445-3845 or e-mail meganw@pcs.org

to reserve your seat

-----------------------------

Described by one critic as "a culmination of the last four centuries of theater," The Evildoers runs the gamut of theatrical forms from Jacobean tragedy to drawing-room comedy. Not for the faint of heart, Adjmi's Carol and Jerry and Martin and Judy make Albee's George and Martha look like Sunday School teachers. Be forewarned: the only thing nastier than their tart tongues and their violent actions is their politics.

DAVID ADJMI’s plays include Strange Attractors, The Evildoers, Elective Affinities, Marie Antoinette and Caligula. David’s work has been developed and produced at the Sundance Theatre Lab, Manhattan Theatre Club, NYTW, Lincoln Center and Portland Center Stage’s JAW Festival, among others. He is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including a McKnight Fellowship, the Marian Seldes-Garson Kanin Award, a Jerome Fellowship, a Helen Merrill Award, an Ovid Grant for New Writing, a Lecomte du Nouy Award, a Cherry Lane Theatre Fellowship, as well as multiple fellowships from The MacDowell Colony and Ucross Foundation.

SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION

2008-03-04T22:18:00.001-08:00

Today was the first rehearsal for the World Premiere of "Sometimes A Great Notion" adapted & directed by Aaron Posner at Portland Center Stage. It was a truly inspiring first read through. This script came to us a couple of years ago and I first encountered it at our first workshop reading. I immediately fell in love with Kesey's characters and felt a sense of new found pride for Oregon. This is a great work of fiction and Posner has perfectly captured Kesey's world in this adaptation. I am pleased to have been a part of this process and am so glad that the work will have its premiere at our theater in its home state. This script reminded me today why I love love LOVE theater and I highly recommend coming to see the show. It opens April 4th on the Main Stage. Click Here to find out more.

Addictions

2008-02-17T15:12:00.000-08:00

Below are some addictions that I refuse to give up for Lent. Sadly I had to be reminded that Lent was even happening.

I am in love with Guitar Hero. Yes Yes it's true. Even my boyfriend has a hard time pulling me away. I get so into it I can't stop. I swear at the T.V. and of course blame them for my mistakes. I turn into a three year old child who hasn't learned to share and hates being forced to by others. Most mornings I wake up with a Guitar Hero song stuck in my head. If you have yet to get hip to this groove train I definitely suggest it. But be careful. You've been warned.

Project Runway. I may not have cable but I am able to follow the fierceness via the BravoTV website and talking to co-workers about what I missed. I'm so excited to find out who wins and judging along with the judges about which outfits are the best.

Buying trashy magazines. I'm sorry but if it says Britney and Crazy I'm buying. Nothing makes me feel better about my life then seeing the terrible decline of the princess of pop. And I feel bad for her. I bet if she had known this was going to happen she might not have signed up for the Mickey Mouse Club.

Oregon Humane Society Website. My apartment doesn't allow me to have pets. But I want a dog so bad, so I go to the Oregon Humane Society website and shop dogs that I can't have. It only makes me sad, but I love imaging that I could have one.

Sleeping. Can't get enough of this. Seriously it's almost frightening how much I love it. And as a result...Viso the Portland owned energy drink that is full of vitamins and other goodies. I can't make it through a day without my Viso Vigor. It's packed with 300mg of caffeine. Yes folks, that's approx. 3 cups of coffee. They should contact me to be there spokesperson. My desk at work is littered with them.

That Time of the Month

2008-02-17T01:25:00.001-08:00

Portland Center Stage’s
NOW HEAR THIS

invites you to a concert reading of

All Hail Hurricane Gordo
a new play
by Carly Mensch

*
February 23, 2008
Noon to approximately 2 pm
@ Portland Center Stage
128 NW Eleventh Avenue (between Couch & Davis)
in the Rehearsal Room

Admission is free, but space is limited
Please email Megan Ward at meganw@pcs.org
to reserve your seat
-----------------------------

Two brothers’ tenuous hold on stability gets blown apart when they take in a plucky young houseguest with a secret. While India is running away from her relatively normal family, Chaz struggles to find normalcy in the one he already has. Is it possible to be your brother’s keeper and have your own life, too?

Carly Mensch is currently a fellow at The Juilliard School's Lila Acheson Wallace Playwrights Program and the playwright-in-residence at Ars Nova. All Hail Hurricane Gordo was developed at Ars Nova's Out Loud Series, the Kennedy Center's University Playwrights Festival and Marin Theatre Company. It will premiere at the Humana Festival this March. Other plays include Len, Asleep in Vinyl (Juilliard), The Delicate Business of Boy and Miss Girl (2006 New York International Fringe Festival) and Bradshaw (Lorring Dodd Drama Prize).

Our outstanding cast includes:
Mario Calcagno, Drew Danhorn, Michael O'Connell, and Ana Reiselman

Oops! I Did It Again...

2008-02-16T23:35:00.000-08:00

I am so sorry to you my devoted readers (KXS and Dr. Phun) that I have not written a blog posting in forEVER...omg I have been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Work (which is also bleeding into my social life, but so it goes in theater) has been busy busy and of course I'm not one to slow down.

NOW HEAR THIS
I totally missed the opportunity to blog about MEASURE FOR PLEASURE by David Grimm, which took place last month on the main stage. The play fit in nicely with our current main stage shows: THE BEARD OF AVON by Amy Freed and TWELFTH NIGHT by William Shakespeare, because it was also a contemporary restoration piece and it was a huge hit. People laughed hard and loud. Even though it lasted longer than we anticipated people were loving it.

February 23rd we will be reading ALL HAIL HURRICANE GORDO by Carly Mensch. It will premiering at the Humana Festival March 13-30th. I'm really excited to read this play because I think it will be a change of pace from our other readings. It is a beautifully intimate piece. Carly is someone who I have just discovered and I look forward to finding out more.

HOLY OPENINGS BATMAN!!
We had three opening nights right on top of each other...THE BEARD OF AVON by Amy Freed, directed by Chris Coleman and then the following weekend we had TWELFTH NIGHT by William Shakespeare, directed by Jane Jones. Both had wonderful openings and are very popular. I would recommend however, seeing BEARD before TWELFTH NIGHT because I think when you see BEARD first it illuminates things you might not have paid attention to before in TWELFTH NIGHT...but this might just be me. Both are strong solid productions.

Then we had our FADE TO BLACK night, geared at getting younger audiences to the theater, the Tuesday after opening for TWELFTH NIGHT. It was amazing because we played Guitar Hero all night. I'm pretty much obsessed with the game. It's a sick sick addiction and I love it.

A few weeks later we had A FEMININE ENDING opening. This production was a part of co-production with South Coast Rep. I am proud that the production is returning home. As you may or may not know, A FEMININE ENDING by Sarah Treem was part of JAW 2006. It certainly captured the hearts of the audience then and it continues to do so now. I highly recommend seeing this show. And check out more of Sarah's writing on HBO's new night series IN TREATMENT. She writes the script for the character Sophie.

COMMUNITY ARTISTS LABS
Sarah Treem and Amy Freed both came to PCS. During their time here they were able to host playwriting workshops. I attended both of them and even though I am not a playwright. They were very inspiring and both had different things to say. Sarah's workshop was about finding inspiration and your voice as a playwright. Amy's was more about how to "unstuck" or "unblock" yourself when you get blocked. My respect for playwrights grew immensely after attending these workshops.

MEANWHILE ON PLANET MEGAN...
I spend my weekends reading JAW scripts, scripts for the reading series, catching up on sleep, seeing shows and grocery shopping for the week. It's pretty pathetic but it's also so me and what I enjoy. Don't worry about me though, because I get my movie and guitar hero time in and keep up on my project runway and Britney gossip. I hope my friends forgive me for the lack of time I spend with them...I do worry about my room...does anyone want to come and clean if for me?

thanks kxs!

Snakes and Monkeys Oh my!

2008-01-03T20:28:00.000-08:00

The following is a story written by my father about his experience on set in Morocco.

"On December 9, 2007 my fellow co-actor Bob McKeehen, (cast as General Godweiler) & I arrived after 16 long hours in the air from Portland, Oregon to Marrakech arriving at 12 noon their time & 4 am Portland time. To say the least I was exhausted. Instead of going to the Ryad Omar (hotel) & sleeping we decided to tour the Medina (the main shopping & site seeing plaza) where I tried to take a picture of some cobras when the snake handler said, "I will take picture ...FREE NO Money". Ok I said, and after five pictures of me holding snakes I asked for my camera back, as he returned the camera I heard his broken English chant of "pay me, pay me". So much for free.

Feeling threatened, now surrounded by three more of his associates all poking, and getting too close for comfort, I reached into my pocket & took out the newly exchanged $300 American dollars to local currency (2100 dirhams) a $7 to 1 dirham ratio, (a value that escaped me at this time due to exhaustion, and the desire to rid myself of these aggressive snake handlers), all in 200 dirham denominations. As I peeled off my 1st 200 dirham note and gave it to the snake charmer (not realizing it represents $30) I heard the phrase "more" & then another 200, then "more," another 200, on and on till I peeled off 1000 dirham or $150.

Walking away dazed, confused, and truly hustled, I turned around and the monkey handlers now waiting their turn, grabbing my camera as they placed two smelly, large hairy beasts on each shoulder, proceeded to take two pictures before I could retrieve my camera and stop the madness. Another 400 dirham later and I am into the whole experience for $210, or 1400 dirham.

To say the least I took grief all week long during the filming, from not only the cast and crew, but now the hotel staff joined in and would smile and point at me as I came and went.

Fast forward to the following Friday, as the crew and actors are filming on location four hours outside of Marrakech, I decide I've had enough and take a walk back to the Medina looking for snakes. I spot a police car close to the plaza and decide to tell my story to the local police, hoping they don't arrest me for stupidity. Between my limited french and their limited english, one of the three officers leads me into the center of the plaza pointing at any and all snake charmers we encounter saying, "this one", this one" asking me to identify the snake hustler, who I'm sure at this time had retired with my money to the nearest beach community. Now every merchant, snake, and monkey handler, are looking at me as I walk back to the police car. After more discussion the police officer asks me to retrieve my camera with the pictures of the incident from my hotel and return to him with the evidence, in five mega pixels of digital photos.

As I head back from the hotel, camera in tow, I am approached by four men dressed in robes with hoods, but thank God or Allah, no snakes, instead they are here to solve my problem. The youngest of the four says, "Mister... please no police we will take care of this ourselves". Speaking flawless English the young man, Karman, (twenty-ish) asks to see the pictures, apologizes for my encounter, and explains that the elders will give me back my money if I don't involve the police. Upon review of the pictures he tells me they know of this snake handler, and one of the elders peels off 1000 dirham and places it in my hand. Also Karman tells me that they will return my 400 dirham from the monkey fiasco later in the day. A man of his word later that afternoon as I walked through the plaza with gifts for the family with my new found money, Karman approaches me with the three elders at his side and gives me the 400 dirham from the monkey people as he had promised earlier. My faith in mankind restored, faith in the good people of Marrakech to do the right thing prevailed.

The moral of this story is when visiting other countries sleep first, then take in the sites.

Terry Ward (cast as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan)

Megan's Bourgeois Popsicle Stand

2007-12-20T00:40:00.000-08:00

Portland Center Stage’s

Now Hear This

invites you to a concert reading of

Maria/Stuart

A play by Jason Grote

December 29, 2007

Noon to approximately 2 pm

@ Portland Center Stage

128 NW Eleventh Avenue (between Couch & Davis)

Admission is free, but space is very limited, so RSVP

Please call Megan Ward at (503) 445-3845 or e-mail meganw@pcs.org

to reserve your seat

-----------------------------

If you came to JAW last year, you’ll remember Jason Grote as the provocateur who brought us Box Americana. Jason writes smart, funny and imaginative dialogue that creates a world in which these vivid characters can play. His other plays include 1001, This Storm Is What We Call Progress, and Hamilton Township.

Maria/Stuart is a wild ride with a fabulously dysfunctional family. All families have secrets, but this one includes an inherited shapeshifting spook who faxes in unpleasant truths and has an unslakable thirst for soda. Grote uses Friedrich Schiller’s Maria Stuart as his inspiration, but the play is hardly an adaptation; it jumps off the deep end immediately to veer into terra incognita. Trust me, it’s a comedy!

Our outstanding cast includes:

JoAnn Johnson, Sharonlee McLean, Sarah Lucht, Karla Mason

Julie Jeske Murray, Chris Murray

Stage Directions read by Stefan Kay

The Writers Strike

2007-11-28T00:51:00.001-08:00

So I'm sure you are following the writers strike or know something about it, but in case you are somehow missing this important event in history, here are some videos that I think you really really need to see. Writers are so important and their job is harder than it looks. I truly respect the work they do and believe they should receive appropriate compensation. (And if I was a better writer this would be more interesting to read)
Ok now watch the videos and then visit the official blog of the site and read more...

NOT the Daily Show strikes (And see if you notice Rachel Axler who is a writer for The Daily Show and was one of our Commission! Commission! writers last year. She's awesome.)

The Colbert Report responds

The Anthem of the Strike

Bringing it Home

Same Old Story

And now seriously go to their website or click here to find out more about why and how to should send pencils to the media moguls and watch this last (I swear!) video...

Domesticity sets in

2007-11-23T12:35:00.001-08:00

For those of you that know me, know that I can't cook or bake. Being in a kitchen too long stresses me out and if I can't make a meal in 30mins or less I rather go out. However, something has been happening lately. I'm making an effort in the kitchen. I started looking up recipes on Williams-Sonoma and then my boyfriend sent me a link to a blog that teaches you how to make bread from scratch. Now I am crazy in the kitchen.
Making bread from scratch really is easier than you think, but it does take a long time. But seriously check out my skills...and if I can do this, than so can you!

It's All about ME!

2007-11-13T23:44:00.000-08:00

Yes. Yes it is. And if you are not hip to that than me and my fabulous bag are going to knock you over. OMG...look at my FABULOUS bag. You could have one like this (only not as fabulous because it's not me...) if you get Gwenn Seemel to make you one. Go to her website (www.gwennseemel.com) and buy one. NOW. Because it doesn't get more designer than this...

NOW HEAR THIS

2007-11-13T23:08:00.000-08:00

This Saturday (November 17th) at 12 noon I will be producing my very first reading in our brand new reading series: NOW HEAR THIS at Portland Center Stage. This is something we have been looking forward to because it is allows us to try out scripts that we might be interested in for upcoming seasons and to get some audience feedback. Also it just feels good to share all the wonderful scripts we read with the community. So many benefits so little time!!

If you are in the pearl on Saturday, (please consider this a personal invitation as a subscriber of my blog) come check out BINGO WITH THE INDIANS by Adam Rapp. He is an amazing playwright and I think more people in Portland need to be familiar with his wonderful work. He is currently directing this script in New York at the Flea Theater. If you are in NY you should go check it out, but come see the reading first!

More info below:

NOW HEAR THIS

Portland Center Stage's monthly reading series
invites you to a concert reading of

BINGO WITH THE INDIANS

A play by Adam Rapp

*

November 17, 2007
Noon to approximately 2 pm

@ Portland Center Stage
128 NW Eleventh Avenue (between Couch & Davis)

Admission is free, but space is very limited, so reservations are vital -- please call Megan Ward at (503) 445-3845 or e-mail meganw@pcs.org to reserve your seat.

-----------------------------

Bingo with the Indians is about Wilson, Dee and Stash, a trio of desperate downtown theater geeks who travel to an upstate rural community with the aim of knocking over a bingo parlor. In this way they plan to fund their next black box show, but the cooler-than-thou thespians don’t reckon on the local yokels: terminally teen-aged Steve, his raving sapphist girlfriend, and his checked-out mom.

This play is a rarity among Rapp’s scripts in that it is an out-and-out comedy, but it has all the razor-sharp insight of the bleaker plays for which he is better known, such as Red Light Winter, Blackbird and Nocturne.

Our outstanding cast includes:
CHRIS MURRAY, PAUL GLAZIER, BEN BUCKLEY, AMANDA JENSEN, AMY NEWMAN & SARAH LUCHT

PLEASE READ THIS: Bingo with the Indians refers to sexual
situations some may consider unsavory, and it contains language that will make your hair stand on end. Do not bring the kids.

Child Wrangling

2007-11-13T22:38:00.000-08:00

Yes. This is a real term. All LORT theaters are required to have a "young actor monitor" or a "child wrangler" present whenever children are in a show. I was the child wrangler for PILLOWMAN, FENCES and in JAW last year. Each time it was for one or two children, but now for CHRISTMAS CAROL there are five kids. All the kids are wonderful and professional, but there are still more of them than there is of me.
My responsibilities include but are not limited to: helping with homework, taking them to get lunch, meeting them when they arrive at the theater and staying with them until their parents pick them up, taking notes, playing hide and go seek, making everyone happy, getting them to their costume fittings, and most importantly making sure they know what they are being asked to by the director.
Because I am also the Artistic/Literary Assistant, taking on child wrangling means working seven days a week and when the show goes into tech and performance my days get long, long, long. So another woman will be taking over for me starting this week. Although, this should make me happy, I am sad that I will not be seeing the kids everyday. I know so much about them and really care about them. It can be really tiring running after five children, but it is always a joy to see them and hang out with them. They make me laugh. I will miss them, but I'm sure I'll see them around real soon.

Fall of the House Season 2

2007-10-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

Action/Adventure brings you the second season of FALL OF THE HOUSE: The House Strikes Back, directed by Tamara Carroll. There are a few old faces and some new ones too.

I saw this show last night and was blown away. I saw only one episode last season and was impressed with this improv theater soap-opera thing. It was new, it was exciting and each night it was different. What a concept! Fresh theater every night coming to you live. This show captures communal living at it's worst and at it's best. If you live in SE or know someone who does you will definitely relate to these characters. It will make you laugh and it will make you cry. It is soo good you hardly know it's improv, by this I mean no one looks lost or stuck on stage. Actors are smart and well directed. They clearly know their intentions and tell a tight, touching, and hilarious story along the way.

I highly recommend this production and seeing as many episodes as you can. It plays for four consecutive weekends in the late night spot (after Profile Theater's SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION) in Theater! Theater! (3430 SE Belmont). For more information check out Action/Adventure's website and to make reservations e-mail: reservations@actionadventure.org or call 503-358-8646.

Curtain @ 10:30pm
Show is one hour long

Episode 1: October 18, 19, 20
Episode 2: October 25, 26, 27
Episode 3: November 1, 2, 3
Episode 4: November 8, 9, 10

Tickets: $10 for 1 Episode
$24 for a 4-week pass
$2 off or every previous episode seen
Thursdays are always "Pay What You Will"

To hear what other people are saying about this phenomenon, check out The Portland Mercury's review.

Snow Falling on Cedars

2007-10-15T01:13:00.000-07:00

I met up with my friend Lora for breakfast this morning. Lora and I went to Santa Clara together and then the both of us transfered to other schools. It was really nice to catch up with her. After breakfast we walked around and tried to find the theater. It was a really good thing we took the time to search because it was difficult to find.

Book-It Rep lives in Center House Theatre, which is located right behind the Experience Music Project in Seattle Center. SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS was adapted and directed by Kevin McKeon. The stage had cedar sod on the ground, which when the actors played around in it you could smell it. I love the smell of cedar. It reminds me of my dogs because their doggy beds were full of cedar. The court room was located upstage and just behind the courtroom window you could see the shadows of a cedar forest with snow falling steadily.

I really enjoyed this show. It was 2 ½ hr show but it kept me entertained the entire time. I feel like I have to say that I went into the show having never read the book or seen the movie, so I had no idea where it was going. As you might remember it takes place in a court room, but what was especially lovely is that the person on the stand never just sits there and talks about what happens. Their testimony and back story is played out in front of courtroom. This keeps the story moving and made it worth sitting through. Also it was fun to see our friend Eddie Levi Lee in the cast. He was part of JAW last year in Jason Grote's BOX AMERICANA and in David Adjmi's MARIE ANTOINETTE.

And to my surprise my train left on time and even got in a little early. I got to see the most beautiful sun sets. Unfortunately my camera didn't quite capture them well enough, but you can still tell they were beautiful.

Female Directors: Take Two

2007-10-13T01:47:00.000-07:00

In AMERICAN THEATRE Magazine this month, there was a series of articles about different directors around the country called "Inside the Mind of A Director". They included three female directors: Anne Kauffman, Maria Mileaf, and Rebecca Bayla Taichman.

I had never heard of any of these woman and yet as soon as I read their article I knew that they were exactly the inspiration I was looking for. All of them have directed some amazing plays, (plays that I would like to direct now and probably wouldn't be able to) and work with the top playwrights. My favorite include, but not limited to: Adam Rapp (who also has an article in this months AT), Adam Bock (I Assistant Directed his show THE THUGS @ PCS, which won several Drammy Awards), Sarah Ruhl and Anne Washburn. The major difference between them and me is the age factor. These women made it to the big leagues but they are more than ten years my senior. It was mentioned that Maria Mileaf even had two kids and a husband in the business (scenic designer Neil Patel). The fact that this was mentioned made it sound like this was a rarity in the business. If that is true, then more for me to tackle, but it makes sense because the business is very demanding of our time.

Well, this really put things in perspective for me. I've got time and I have my work cut out for me. I am the type of person who pushes them to achieve a goal and once I get there, it's not enough; it's on to the next challenge. Always improving. Often times this causes me to be impatient with the pace of life. This is what I get for being the oldest child.

What I really loved about this series of articles was how each directors' skill was highlighted. Each approach was different and it was also their strength. This is inspiring stuff to a female director just starting out. The only thing that worried me is that it seemed that all of the women had gone to graduate school and that this excelled their career. Graduate school is great, but I was hoping that this wasn't the "path" to becoming a great director. I love learning and I'm sure they learned more, but the thought of spending more money and becoming further in debt is a little frightening. I want to go to graduate school because it interests me and I want to go, not NEED to go in order to advance my career to the next level. Does that seem silly?

My First Business Trip!

2007-10-13T00:34:00.000-07:00

I am off again—this time to Seattle. Our poor Mr. Mead was really sick, so I went in his place on a trip to Seattle to scout out some new plays that are being produced up here. Often times theater companies will see each other's work to see if it is a script that they would like to consider for their upcoming season. That was the mission of my trip. As a representative of Portland Center Stage and specifically the Artistic and Literary department, I am constantly seeing shows in Portland to support local theater companies and to get to know the people and the work that is going on in town. I’m also interested on a personal level because I hope to direct someday for these companies. How lucky am I that both my work and personal life overlap in this way?

For of those you who have taken the train from Portland to Seattle and back again, you know that the train is never ever on time. This time I was lucky, we only waited an hour in Portland for a connecting bus before taking off. I’m sorry but can’t we put those people on the next train? Just because their bus is late, why am I supposed to suffer? I got here on time expecting my journey to take off on time and it NEVER does. Why is this allowed to happen? Whatever, bitching aside, I got to Seattle with enough time to check into the hotel, get some food, and catch a cab to my first show: CRIME & PUNISHMENT adapted by Marilyn Campbell & Curt Columbus based on the novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Theater Under Ground produced it at the Capitol Hill Arts Center, which is also an event venue. The show was held in the basement, which only added to the fringe/exciting edgy theatre feel. The place was full, mainly due to the fact that two professors had brought their beginning acting classes from Seattle University to see the show. Oh young theatre people, doesn’t that just inspire you?

I had read this play last year when it was submitted to us for consideration and really liked its pace. For an adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s novel, it moved well. This production honored the script in this way. The transitions and use of the space was excellent. The director Sheila Daniels, who is also the Co-Artistic Director of Theatre Under Ground, chose to stage it in traverse (also known as Lane) seating arrangement. Shocking! The last time I saw a production staged this way was in college. I know for me this was not long ago, but still it is very rare to see a theater outside of college use the space this way. Whether or not this was her choice or the space commanded it to be this way is up for debate. I suspect it was her choice. Hats off to you Sheila.

As we walked into the space and chose our sides, we could hear a pre-recorded Raskolnikov reciting his writings. Two burlap curtains hung on either side of the stage in front of the audience platforms. Fences on the edge of these platforms automatically gave the audience a separated or judging feeling. On the short side of either side of the stage were three staggered burlap curtains, which was where characters were able to enter and exit. The audience curtains were pulled back and forth by characters to denote a scene change. The sound of the rings on the steal rods made a very jarring sound like that of prison shackles, which helped to create an anxious feeling. In fact of the sound ques were done live. And the only draw back from the space, was that during very intimate moments on stage, loud crashing and stomping sounds would come from the upstairs bar area. It seemed like they knew exactly when the actors were having a quite and intimate moment and chose it as the perfect opportunity to start a mosh pit or some sort of fight/wrestling match upstairs. Props to the actors for keeping it together during these unexpected and additional sound effects.

In the program was an advertisement for Portland own Hand2Mouth Theatre. They are coming to Seattle November 1-4 and performing at On the Boards. How exciting! Congratulations guys!

Seeing the show tonight was helpful. You may think you had a good sense of how to stage a play (or at least see how it might be done) after reading a script, but it is another thing to see how the play makes sense out loud. I'm really enjoying my trip and looking forward to my show tomorrow: SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS adapted and directed by Kevin McKeon at Book-it Rep. Co-Artistic Director Jane Jones will be directing our production of TWELFTH NIGHT which will be done in rep with BEARD OF AVON by Amy Freed. Jane is an amazing director and I can't wait to see her work at PCS. In fact, Jane and Chris are in New York right now to finish casting both shows.

Friday~Food Day

2007-09-29T14:37:00.000-07:00

Yeah for sleeping in after a crazy night!! I got up at 2pm! After breakfast we both needed to go shopping. Margot and I were going to her and her uncle's birthday celebration. I wanted to go crazy and buy up everything I saw, so I decided to walk away and just explore the city by myself(margot had to go meet her dad to buy her new computer). I think the Belgian people are very pretty: classic looking. The women don't wear much make-up. For the amount of bread and cheese in the country most people are very lean. Incredible. While I was walking around I ran into Pauline and Hester with some friends-This is how small Antwerp is-I'm here for a week and know 5 people and I run into two that I know-kinda like Portland. No wonder I feel so at home.

Tonight we went to celebrate Margot and her Uncle Jean's birthday with her grandmother. Jean is Elly's brother. We went to this really wonderful restaurant, Kleine Zavel. We started at 8pm and after six bottles of wine and seven courses we finished at 12:45pm. The meal was amazing and went like this:

Aperitif:
Eel with Salmon Roe on Avocado.
Tuna Roll
Oyster

Appetizer 1:
Salmon Lox over Shrimp Tempura with Crab/Lobster meat in between

Appetizer 2:
Raw Tuna with soy sauce & bits of avocado

Appetizer 3:
Scallop with truffles smothered in truffle sauce

Main Course:
Pigeon in Cherry Sauce

Dessert 1:
Poached Figs in Marzipan Cream

Dessert 2:
Nut Brownie

It was kinda ironic that all this great food and the main course is pigeon. PIGEON! Seriously. It was not bad it just wasn't amazing. It tasted like a "low rent" duck. Very dry and grimy...the cherry sauce really helped.

All throughout the dinner they spoke in Flemish. I tried desperately to follow along. Margot and I would talk in English and every now and then the conversation would stop to acknowledge my presence: "Do you understand?" then someone would translate the gist of the conversation. The Roolants would always boast, "Megan is learning. She has a very good ear. She listens and then writes it down. Her pronunciation is really very good." Everyone would nod in appreciate of my effort. Sometimes I could follow. If I could figure out one word then I would know what they were talking about. By the end of the night the Roolants were referring to me as "Our Megan". Even though I barely understood the conversation I was and felt very included.

Thursday~Student Day!

2007-09-27T04:20:00.000-07:00

I got up this morning feeling horrible again. I went to take a shower hoping that would help clear my sinuses, but for the second time this trip I got a cold shower. The veins in my hands turned bright blue. The more time I spent awake, the better I felt. I guess the bouillabaisse did help last night. It was my first time eating it, I think. Pretty good. Margot's parents showed me the proper way to eat it: by putting the sauce on the crackers and let the soup soak it up. Look at me trying to fit in!
Pauline and Hester came over today and we went to the South side of Antwerp to have lunch. We took the tram there. It was quite the adventure because it was super packed. Lunch was nice. I ordered a BLT, which in Antwerp means smoked ham with rocket lettuce on a baguette. It was good despite it not being what I expected.

We noticed that there were a lot of students running around. Then Pauline remembered that it was student day, where all the students get the day off and there is a party in one of the town squares. We walked down there and sure enough, there were bands, games, beer, booths, and tonnes of people. It was the same as freshers fair in England, but this was for all the universities. In England they are set up by each university. Here all the students of all ages came down to the fair. Around the square were booths, where information was passed out about museums, theatre, student events, hair school, make-up school, and music concerts. In the middle were all these games. There was bull riding, obstacle courses, concert stage, and football games.

I notice that there were all these people around with sashes and flags. I asked Margot what these people were doing. She explained that they were part of a fraternity. But not like American fraternities, even thought the more she explained it the more they sounded like the American kind. Apparently in Belgium any one can join, but they have to go through a initiation ritual as well called "dopen".

An example of someone covering up their vomit from their initiation or dopen.

These go on for days, usually with a lot of drinking, kinda like hazing. Then there are crazy tasks they might have to carry out, like walking through Antwerp with your finger in the train tracks. The way you join is through your university and they are major specific. These groups put on parties and they try to get everyone to get to know each other. It's like a mix between link crew and honor societies. In Belgium everyone is allowed to go to University, but they make the first year really had to weed people out. Education is pretty much free; you just pay for registration fees.

Tonight we went clubbing with Pauline, Hester, and Charlotte. DJ Jazzy Jeff was at Stereo Sushi. There was a 15euro cover, but we decided to go since we haven't been out out yet. I was still feeling sick, but I rallied. I had such a good time. Once I got there and hear the music, I felt like myself. Margot and I drank apple Geneva (like schnapps) all night. They taste like cinnamon apple juice.

Proper attire to such clubs usually require heels. I didn't bring any because I forgot this rule, so I had to borrow some from Margot. I chose these really cute black and gold shoes. Margot warned me that they are super painful, but I thought since I'm experienced with painful heels, that I could handle it. Oh I was wrong. I held out pretty long, but in the end I HAD to take them off.My feet were all black and sticky when I got home, but I had successfully avoided glass! People kept coming up to me and telling me to be careful. I didn't care as long as those devil shoes were off.

Wednesday~Rain Rain go away

2007-09-26T07:39:00.000-07:00

This picture is of the most famous bakery in Antwerp, which is just two doors down from Margot's apartment.

Today was Samantha's last day. The internet was still not set up, so Margot took my computer to the coffee shop to finish it. Samantha packed and we had breakfast while the Roolants ran errands. Upon Margot's return we went out to coffee and Belgian waffles (the thin kind) and then took Sam to the Metro. It was hard to say goodbye but I knew I would see her soon. She has plans to come DJ in L.A. so we'll meet up some way or another.

Today Margot and I spent the entire day inside because it was raining so bad. She had to set up the internet and her dad put up lights (I helped) and her mom used Margot's birthday vacuum cleaner to clean the apartment. I worked on the play I want to direct when I get back and blew my nose every ten minutes. At least it's coming out!

Margot speaks more and more in Flemish, which makes sense, but she is also forgetting some English words. She did this in London but it's more apparent now.

Flemish words I know:

ashtray: Asbak

Thank You: Dank u Well

Please: Alstublieft (sounds like ashubleef)

Water: water (sounds like waater)

Right: rechts

Left: links

Beautiful: mooi (sounds like moy)

mini vacuum: kruimel dief (sounds like cremel deef)

sleep: slaap

cozy, atmosphere: gezellig (sounds like he-zellick)

what's up: hoe is het (slang: hoe ist? Sounds like Whoe-ist)

Tuesday~Amsterdam...Not!

2007-09-26T06:14:00.000-07:00

Amsterdam! or so was the plan until I woke up with a sore throat and could hardly swallow. Then Samantha got up and didn't feel like going. She wanted to take it easy, so we had a Roolant breakfast for hours and looked at pictures and talked. Then we finally got our act together and showered for the day, which it was now 1pm. I felt weak and tired but had to do something since I wasn't going to Amsterdam.

We went to an internet cafe since Margot wanted to download something for work and Samantha wanted proper coffee. When you go to a proper shop it is good and very frothy. I had taken a sudafed and some cough drops before we went and that combined with the coffee made me hyper but also so spacey and high. At least it kept me up for the conversation. I started to feel weak and Margot had to walk back for the internet man and to write her directing proposal. Sam decided to walk around and look at the shops.

I came home and passed out. I woke up at ten to six to Margot freaking out. She had to write her proposal in Flemish. And although she spoke Flemish in her home growing up, she went to school in English and therefore she was not sure her writing is good. Her dad was trying to proof read it but she needed to get the boss by 6pm and she had left it until late. And the internet man didn't actually set up anything and told her that there was no signal and it would be working tomorrow after she set it up herself. I remember this problem in England too. They just come to check that the line is working and then send a signal to it. Meanwhile, she couldn't go to an internet cafe to send it because they had all shut. Luckily her boss said she could send it tomorrow morning. Sleeping was so helpful but my throat still killed.

The Roolants took Samantha and me out to an amazing dinner down by the water. As usual, I had a hard time deciding. Despite my illness, I felt like oysters. I got lamb for a main course but couldn't finish it all so I asked for it to take away. The waitress looked confused and shocked. Hours later after dessert (I asked for a hot toddy, which no one knew the Flemish equivalent so we had to describe the ingredients. Don't worry they got it right), the waitress brought back my lamb in a little plastic tuber ware container. It looked like she had to clean out one they in the kitchen. It was embarrassing because I guess you don't ask for a doggie bag. opps! The bathroom at the restaurant was amazing! When you flushed the seat rotated so it could be cleaned. It was amazing!

When we got home, Margot, Samantha and I made a huge bed on the floor in the living room, watched a movie and fell asleep.

Monday~Leaving Knokke

2007-09-26T05:49:00.000-07:00

Margot had to get up early and go to a meeting at work in Gent. Samantha and I woke up late and had a lovely Roolant breakfast and then took the train to Antwerp. On the long train ride we were able to catch up. It was so lovely just chatting with Sam. We phoned Sam Man, who was unable to come to Belgium and the last minute. Awww I miss him and that bastard made me cry on the phone. Totally breaks my heart that I wasn't able to see him. Aaron also called because he is recording some stuff for Samantha and we were able to talk as well. I was sad when he couldn't come either.

When we arrived in Antwerp, Sam and I went shopping. We spent a lot of time at H&M and Sam helped me pick out a cute outfit. When I first came to London I had no, and I'm talking NO sense of style. The more time I spend in America the more I loose of the sense of style I picked up while in London. I miss Europe fashion, however this new rave fashion is all the rage. I'm not a fan. All the shops shut at 6pm, so Sam and I went to get a latte (which really means a shot of espresso and you can add your own milk and sugar) before meeting up with Margot at the apartment.

Margot has a work internship where they have just asked her to direct a commercial for a restaurant. Their tag line is "Animals would kill to get in here." Kinda funny kinda freaky. When she first described it I thought it was for the preservation of animals not about cooking them! She has to film and edit it. It is so exciting and a really big break for her. However, she is soo stressed out because she has to learn more about animation editing. But I have faith. She'll be great!
A dinner we trashed talked about life, uni, and friends (past & present). I miss friends like this. Friends who saw you grow up.

Margot's Birthday~Lazy Sunday

2007-09-23T07:53:00.000-07:00

We got up around noon. I discovered that I had several mosquito bites. I haven't seen any all summer and I come to Belgium and get attacked! Gross.
We had a real Belgium breakfast. I love the breakfasts at the Roolant house. They always put out a nice spread. Fresh bread, ham, Parma ham, bologna, pate, liver, mini shrimp, crab salad, chicken curry salad, and Gouda and butter of course! So Belgian! I stick to break cheese and ham because I'm not so sure about the crab or shrimps.
Margot opened her presents and answered all her phone calls to wish her happy birthday from all over the world. We then spent the rest of the day lounging around and watching "Oliver Twist" on TCM.
Samantha arrived later that night. We had left overs and we sat on the couch and looked through all my pictures and caught up while Margot and the Roolants went to sleep. It was so nice that she was so interested in the year she missed. We picked up right where we left off. Good friends are like this, not even the distance can separate us.

Margot's Birthday Party

2007-09-23T06:31:00.000-07:00

Whoa What a night! I slept until 4pm and then some of her friends picked us up and took us to Knokke. Knokke is the prettiest and most expensive beach town in Belgium. Margot's family has a house here where she used to come every summer. When we got to Knokke (an hour and a half car ride from Antwerp) we got dressed for her bling bling birthday party. Her mom and dad were in the kitchen preparing the food. They had only arrived the day before from Thailand and they were already put to work. It was so nice to see them again.
Then we all had drinks outside until we were good and sauced. Dinner was served much later (European style) but of course I still have no concept of time. I'm just glad I'm up and hungry at the correct time. Dinner was amazing! Better than any restaurant. There was beef and chicken and salad and grilled mushrooms and som tum (spicy Thai mango salad)...all amazing. Then there was dancing in the living room and cake later! Chocolate Raspberry deliciousness. Such a fun fun night. We stayed up until 5am, which doesn't mean anything to me because I am on some in between time. I'm so excited I'm up and not tired.
I'm picking up some Flemish and trying to use what little French I know. People have said that my accent is pretty good in both...yeah!! I know most of Margot's Belgian friends from a couple of summers ago and the new ones I meet are so much fun and I love them immediately. Marie went back to France and Louise went back to Sweden, but I know that if I'm in either country I'll have a friend to see. I'm falling in love with Europe!

Arriving in Belgium

2007-09-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

Today I got up at 6:00am (omg way WAY too early for me!!) and traveled to see my bestest friend Margot for her birthday. We went to uni together in London and during that time we were pretty much inseparable. We could communicate without even finishing our sentences. Full conversations could go on with just "umm, yeah....you know that thing" "Yeah totally, didn't like that". A Super girl skill that only happens between the best of friends. She just moved to Antwerp, Belgium to work. Although she is Belgian she spent her whole life in Thailand. She has a whole slew of International friends and I love meeting them because they are all always down for whatever and super friendly and open-minded. Today I met Louise, at the airport (she's from Sweden but like Margot has been all over and now has returned to her "country") and Marie (from Ghana and ALL over who now lives in Paris) and tomorrow for her actual b-day party I will meet tonnes more! It is so fun to get together with a group of girls and go out for dinner and drinks. And that is pretty much what we've done all day. And I'm so lucky that I can come back to Europe and see Margot.

Oh P.S. The blog page is all in Flemish which sometimes makes it difficult...

T.B.A. Second Weekend-GATZ

2007-09-17T01:39:00.000-07:00

Home stretch! Above is a picture of me enjoy my dinner break picnic in my car during Gatz.

Claude Wampler: I really liked her video instillation. It looked like ghosts playing, such a cool effect. I thought it went on a little long and there were so many plants that I felt like I was not invited to the party. I felt left out. Maybe that was what I was supposed to feel.

Ten Tiny Dances: What a treat. I had never seen them before, but I'm hooked. I thought everyone did such a nice job and I can't wait until next time.

Elevator Repair Service-Gatz: Amazing. Totally totally amazing. It really is incredible that an audience will sit through a 7 hour show. I was exhausted afterwards but I it was engaging the whole time. I never got bored or tired. That says a lot about Fitzgerald's writing and ERS's performance. The man who played Nick had the perfect speaking voice for the part. Even when it was just him on stage he was magnificent. So different than books on tape, a real theatrical experience. If you get a chance to see them you totally should.

What a fabulous festival...I'm totally inspired.

Nature Theatre of Oklahoma: A Conversation with Kristan Seemel

2007-09-15T15:17:00.000-07:00

I got the only pink and red Nature Theater of Oklahoma shirt that Pavol made for himself...but he couldn't fit in it because it's a girls medium so he sold it to us. Look at how wonderful!! I loved their concept of using the transcript from a phone conversation as their script. Copying is the best form of flattery so I decided to record my conversation with Kristan Seemel verbatim and post on my blog.
P.S. We are exhausted from seeing so many shows and staying up late and we are drinking.

K: So we are just hitting recored and seeing what happens. Umm

M:We are going to talk about NTO.

K: Ok

M: So, so far it’s kinda been the most inspirational piece. Not the most inspirational because I have to say that the Suicide Kings was pretty emotionally inspirational. But as far as for a theater performer, the work they are doing is fresh and exciting and cool experimental theater

K: I think part of what makes it particularly evocative for us is that it umm he doesn’t, Pavol doesn’t umm think of it as theater. He is a theater artists and he works text based a lot umm but as soon as he works within a ensemble generated, all of his ensemble generated work has been considered dance. I mean he declares it as dance.

M: Right and like the piece we saw last year, um Poetics…

K: Ballet Brute

M: Ballet Brute, umm is was incredibly dance oriented…like it was all a dance. It took it was dance for the non-dancer. It took the average dance move and umm …you can have some of mine if you want…and then but..

K: we’re looking for beer…

M: and umm… (giggle) but what was different about this year is that there is very little dancing. I kept waiting for the dance. I mean yes, they were doing…umm systematized movements ugh when they were talking. Especially the guy in the cowboy hat, what’s his name?

K: (silence)

M: Anyway, umm they were doing those movements like just kinda unrelated umm to what they were saying so it was kinda a dance in a way but like the real break out dancing with music and all that didn’t happen until..

K: the intermission and the end of the show

M: spurts. Well you know and right before the intermission…oh yeah you said

K:yeah right before the intermission. they used it as act closers more than anything else.

M: Yeah

K: UMM. But I think that it was, for ME for what I think of dance. I mean we’ve had this WE have had a little bit of this conversation before specially talking about MAP ME. But umm I think of it very much as dance. Um it actually is so systematized that really the only, there is so much improve in it that a lot of what would be considered a traditional theater directors work becomes choreography. It’s a system it’s a system in which or a modern dance choreographers choreography like he, they were allowed positions that they could take. there is not a specific place that certain people have to be on stage. all of the staging is reduced to a choreographic system. instead of so people are wandering around people like when they want to there’s certain position they are allowed to occupy on stage. And they move to those positions they don’t they don’t have to move to another position they don’t have to be in this place. I mean some of the parts are like very more much more systematized so you will be far away from this person. But theres like three different spots you could pick.

M: right, up at the proscenium. back. middle.

K: (overlapping ) and there were very there were there were probably about twelve positions on stage they were allowed to use and within each of those twelves positions they were three general like orientations towards the audience that they were allowed to use and after that they had a system of choreography within specific positions that they had to that they were allowed to use. In fact they were only allowed to use it in position one when they were facing the audience. Otherwise they didn’t do any choreography while they were facing away in general

M: well…

K: but they could. I mean I don’t I don’t know. I didn’t I didn’t notice that.

M: The one that seemed to be doing the most choreography was…the one with his shirt off that was uh at the at the desk that (sigh) umm kinda cowboy looking guy, what’s his…

K: whenever he was sitting yes

M: yes whenever he was sitting. And kind of facing the audience

K: whenever they were talking about work.

M:Yeah

K: And he had a very that was clearly and that’s where like I talk about a choreographic system but theres also like theres dynamics in that systems. So it’s like when you are sitting at talking about work you will do more choreography. And I don’t know what you do with a performer like that . like if you. you can stress it but I don’t know if you stress it and then you let it be. And let the performer sort of gage it cause it’s still heavily improvised. Or do you do you really say when you are at your desk you must work very intensely with our choreography. And I think I suspect that’s what Pavol did. I suspect that's what the choreography of the piece is. That when they are sitting at the desk they do more much more.

M: Or facing the audience

K: or talking about work

M:work yes

K: work was a big keynote specifically because ultimately the system of symbols that they had are physical choreographic...individualize choreographic moves that they were allowed. There's really only about twenty of them at most and not even that many. In fact I could probably recreate many of them that's how frequently they repeated themselves.

M: absolutely. yeah I agree.

K: which is wonderful actually in a lot of ways because it it it had. for me it had an alienating effect. It pushed it it reminded you constantly that there is a dance going on. It was the thing that kinda gave them a little bit more permission. maybe. If I if I were to like hazard a guess of theory wise of how it works. why the piece cause the piece. we can both agree that the piece works.

M: umhm.

K: It works by it is the work. it imitates and borrows everything from the the worst theater worst..

M: Dinner theater.

K: melodramatic dinner theater you have ever seen in your life. And yet. it works.

M: right.

K: and...

M: and that was the inspiration for it.

K: and that's the magic the magic of it the thing that is inspirational. well the thing that's inspirational for us watching it is like its totally works, in spite of it being the worst kind of theater you can imagine. It borrowed so heavily from it that it totally imitated it. It's pretty amazing what is achieved using all the signs and symbols of bad theater intensely and committing to them 100%. And I really wonder as a dramaturg, I'm looking at like three or four different things that help them to do that, but I don't know what the answer is. And it's kinda special when the magic, when all the pieces, when you can't figure out all the ingredients is in this beautiful dish you are eating, that looks like pizza, looks like white trash pizza but like tastes like gourmet brilliant food. like the best like something you've ever tasted before and is amazing to your pallet and you want to eat it forever more. Like you have to try, like the first thing as a dramaturg is oh what are the magic ingredients? and you try to solve it, but I don't have solution. I just guess but it like totally worked. I mean it was like brilliant. I think they are...methodologically intense. Theres, they are very rigorous. I don't know how you can be that rigorous and still be fresh.

This is just 8 mins of an hour conversation...man can we talk.

T.B.A. Monday thru Friday-I'm a sexy Robot

2007-09-14T15:46:00.001-07:00

After a fabulous weekend I was looking forward to seeing more!

Las Chicas 3.5 Floppies: Fabulous acting. Both of the women were very believable. You felt for them and at the same time you wanted to find a way out for them. I wanted them to make the right choice, but in the end they were replaced by two women just like them. The never ending cycle of poverty and desperation. This story isn't just about two women and their relationship, its about the larger issue and the play does a great job of bring their story to life.

Kassys: Something's rotten in the stage of Denmark-OK...NOT Denmark but that line just comes to mind when I think back to the performance. The characters begin by putting on a play in which Holden has died and they are all grieving together and exhibiting odd behavior, like shredding plants. They play ends and we see behind the scenes and into the actors lives. I could feel their desperate loneliness seep off the screen. But also funny funny!! This is the last time I saw Marc Acito at the festival. We had been following each other from event to event, but this is the last one we were at together.

Nature Theater of Oklahoma: I want to run away and join your company!! OMG I LOVE THEM! Really amazing well executed, fresh and honest experimental theater. More on this later...check out my next blog when Kristan Seemel and I record our conversation about them.

Teeth: Visually very interesting. The group with "plaque" all over them were the best. They brought a sense of comedy to the piece. I do not recommend seeing this performance if you are easily upset by loud noises and bright flashing lights.

Young Jean Lee: I was excited to see this play because of her review in American Theater magazine. If I ever got in American Theater magazine I would probably pee my pants. And I dunno, but after seeing Jean Lee's Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, I don't think Jean Lee knows what's she wants to say or how. I found out later that she admits to this in AMT, so I guess it's no secret. She did have some wonderful moments in the script, so I know she has talent and an interesting perspective. I just wish the play had looked a little more rehearsed, but maybe that's the quality she was going for; but if this is the case I don't get it.

Zoe Scofield & Juniper Shuey: Wonderful. Very athletic. The costumes were gorgeous as well. I really enjoyed that all of the dancing was partnered and developed on this theme. Dances were choreographed together and then one or two dancers would break apart and build on the previous choreography. I just think it is so beautiful when people dance in unison. It takes great focus. I would definitely love to see more of their work, which I think is doable because they are a Seattle based company.

And that ended our week...