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

Posted using ShareThis

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

, , ,
* 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

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

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.