Lemon Andersen: The Beautiful Struggle

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

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...

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!

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

MIMESOPHOBIA (JAW 2004) PRODUCED IN PORTLAND

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DUTCHMAN

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...

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

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* 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!