NOW HEAR THIS SEASON FINALE

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

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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

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

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.