Artslandia at the Performance September/October 2015

SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2015 · VOL. 2 ISSUE 1 · THE HOMECOMING ISSUE

AT THE PERFORMANCE OUT THERE

The Smallest Art Gallery In Portland is THIS BIG

WHO'S WHO AT ARTS HUB?

Most Old School, Most Loyal, & more

(REALLY!)

MARGARET CHO

picks our next President

PAST PERFORMANCES

Bag&Baggage’s Scott Palmer relives his College Daze

PLUS!

David Stabler sticks to THE CLASSICS

Home design

K R WO OP SH kitchens for the obsessivore

Topics include: Kitchens for: Bakers, Picklers, Braisers, Barbecuers; Appliances for the Home Professional; Maximum Storage, Maximum Style

Oct. 7 th

6:30 pm

Ea s t b a n k Appliances

cost: $20 at door or mention Artslandia when you RSVP to rebecca@arciform.com by Sept. 30 to attend FREE.

Photo by Blank Eye / Patrick Weishampel WA ARCIFL*910KJ OR CCB#119917

ARC IFORM.C O M

(503)

493-7344

OYSTE R PERPETUAL MILGAUSS

rolex

oyster perpetual and milgauss are

速

trademarks.

Photo: Michel Gibert. Special Thanks: TASCHEN, Camille Stoos. 1Conditions apply, contact store for details. 2Program available on select items, subject to availability.

Manufactured in Europe.

Mah Jong modular sofa system upholstered in Rockford rug, design for Roche Bobois.

Mah Jong cocktail tables, design Roche Bobois Studio.

Doc pedestal table, design Fred Rieffel.

, design Hans Hopfer.

PORTLAND - 1025 SW Washington Street - Tel. (503) 459-0020 - portland@roche-bobois.com

∙ Complimentary 3D Interior Design Service ∙ Quick Ship program available (1)

(2)

l’art de vivre by roche bobois

Date: July 16, 2015

Artslandia

coming home to the best seats in the house

FURNITURE & HOME DECOR | DESIGN SERVICES | RUGS | LAMPS & LIGHTING | GIF TS

award winning design services

223 NW 9th Avenue, Portland, OR 97209 503-222-5337 | bellacasa.net

Passionate about VolVos for oVer 55 years

Stockholm Visitors Board – Christer Lundin Göran Assner/www.goteborg.com Stockholm Visitors Board – Christer Lundin Göran Assner/www.goteborg.com

Jonas Ingman Jonas Ingman

OUR IDEA OF LUXURY THE ALL-NEW XC90

ROUND TRIP FOR TWO INCLUDED. DISCOVER VOLVO OVERSEAS DELIVERY. ROUND TRIP FOR TWO INCLUDED. DISCOVER VOLVO OVERSEAS DELIVERY. Take a trip overseas where your custom-built souvenir is part of an unforgettable Take a trip overseas where your custom-built souvenir is part of an unforgettable experience. Along with generous savings, complimentary round trip tickets for two, experience. withsouvenir generous complimentary trip tickets for two, Take a trip overseas where yourAlong custom-built is part ofsavings, an unforgettable experience. Alonground with generous savings, complimentary VIP delivery at the home of Volvo in Sweden, home shipment services and more.

Take a trip overseas where your custom-built souvenir is part of an unforgettable experience.

Along with generous savings, complimentary ROUND TRIP FOR TWO INCLUDED. DISCOVER VOLVO OVERSEAS DELIVERY. round-trip tickets for two, VIP delivery at the home of Sweden, home shipment servicesshipment and more. Tooservices good to be true?

Not with the VIP delivery atdelivery the home ofVolvo Volvo in Sweden, home and more. round-trip tickets for two, VIP at the home of Volvo Sweden, home shipment services and more.

Too good to be true?

Not with the Overseas Delivery Program.

TakeVolvo a trip overseas where your custom-built souvenir isOverseas part of an Delivery unforgettable experience. Along with Too good to be true?

Not with the Volvo Program.

Volvo Overseas Delivery Program.

Too good to be true?

Not with the Volvo Overseas Delivery Program. generous savings, complimentary trip tickets forJim two,Fisher VIP delivery at Call the home of Volvo in Sweden, Enjoy around lifetime.

Start at 503-295-5571 or visit home Enjoy the vacationthe of avacation lifetime. Startof at Jim Fisher Volvo.

Call 503.295.5571 or visitVolvo. www.jimfishervolvo.com Enjoy the of a lifetime.

Start at Jim Volvo.

Call 503-295-5571 or visit Enjoy the vacation of more. avacation lifetime.

Start at Jim Fisher Volvo.

Call 503.295.5571 or visitOverseas www.jimfishervolvo.com shipment services and Too good to be true?

Not with theFisher Volvo Delivery Program. Enjoy the www.jimfishervolvo.com shervolvo.com vacation of a www.jimfi lifetime. Start at Jim Fisher Volvo. Call 503-295-5571 or visit www.jimfishervolvo.com

Round tRiptRip foRfoR two included. discoveR volvo oveRseas deliveRy. Round two included. discoveR volvo oveRseas deliveRy.

FIRST FIRSTSTEP STEPVOLVO. VOLVO.NEXT NEXTSTOP STOPEUROPE. EUROPE.

StartatatJim JimFisher FisherVolvo.

Volvo.Call Call 503-295-5571 503-295-5571 or www.jimfishervolvo.com Start or visit visit www.jimfishervolvo.com StartatatJim JimFisher FisherVolvo.

Volvo.Call Call 503-295-5571 503-295-5571 or Start or visit visit www.jimfishervolvo.com www.jimfishervolvo.com look for the famous blueHours: volvo sign Hours: 21st and West Burnside ROUND FOR TWO INCLUDED. volvo DISCOVER VOLVO OVERSEAS DELIVERY. Hours: 21stTRIP and West Burnside Hours: overseas delivery Hours: 21st and West Burnside Weekdays: 8:30–7:00 Weekdays 8:30-7 ROUND TRIP FOR TWO INCLUDED. DISCOVER VOLVO OVERSEAS DELIVERY. Hours: 21st and West Burnside volvo overseas delivery

Weekdays Weekdays: 8:30–7:00 Weekdays 8:30-7Volvo. For life 21st & Westsouvenir Burnside, Saturdays Portland 9-68:30-7 and Saturdays: 9:00–6:00 Take a trip overseas where your custom-built is Saturdays part of an unforgettable Weekdays 21st & Westsouvenir Burnside, Portland Volvo.

For life Saturdays 9-6 and 9-68:30-7 and Saturdays: 9:00–6:00 Take a trip overseas where your custom-built is part of an unforgettable VOLVO 503-295-5571 Sundays 11-5 Sundays: 11:00–5:00 Saturdays 9-6 VOLVO Sundays 11-5andtickets for two, 11-5trip experience. Along with generous complimentarySundays round Sundays: 11:00–5:00savings,503-295-5571 11-5trip tickets for two, experience. Along with generous savings, complimentarySundays round VIP delivery at the home of Volvo in Sweden, home shipment services and more.

VIP delivery at the home of Volvo in Sweden, home shipment services and more.

Too good to be true? Not with the Volvo Overseas Delivery Program.

Don’t forget to specify who gets it in the will.

F u rn i t u re Fo r L i fe

Handcrafted in Portland • Guaranteed for Life Downtown Showroom at 922 SW Yamhill Street • Showroom & Woodshop at 4804 SE Woodstock Blvd • 503.788.8547 • thejoinery.com

FEARLESS IS BEATING YOUR OWN PATH

Save with Medicare Advantage plans from the name trusted for more than 70 years. Including $0 monthly plan premiums, $0 primary care copays and $0 deductibles.

regence.com/medicare Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon is an Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon is an HMO/PPO plan with a Medicare contract. You must continue to pay your Medicare Part B premium. The benefit information provided is a brief summary, not a comprehensive description, of available benefits. For more information, contact the plan. Limitations, copayments and restrictions may apply. Benefits may change on January 1 of each year. Enrollment in Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon depends on contract renewal. Y0062_ORAEPAD2 ACCEPTED

R E P E R T O R Y

T H E A T R E

Photo by Owen Carey

A R T I S T S

THE UNDERSTUDY Theresa Rebeck by

directed by

Michael Mendelson

SEP 8 - OCT 4 Vana O’Brien

•P O R T L A N D P R E M I E R E •

CUBA LIBRE featuring music by

Tiempo Libre Carlos Lacámara

book by

BROOMSTICK John Biguenet by

directed by

Gemma Whelan

OCT 27 - NOV 22 • NORTHWEST PREMIERE •

music and lyrics by

Jorge Gómez

DANCE W

ITH US!

IRRESIS

directed by

Dámaso Rodriguez choreography by Maija Garcia

MUSICA

TIBLE

L JOURN

EY

OCT 3 - NOV 8 at the Winningstad Theatre

• B ROA DWAY-SCA L E WO R L D P R E M IE R E M U S ICA L • THREE-TIME GRAMMY-NOMINATED BAND ON STAGE EVERY NIGHT!

SUBSCRIBERS SEE PLAYS FOR JUST $35 EACH ANY PACKAGE. ANY SERIES. ANY NIGHT.* *PREVIEWS/STUDENTS $25, OPENING NIGHTS $43, CUBA LIBRE $45

503.241.1278 artistsrep.org

SEPT OCT 2015

Welcome to Artslandia at the Performance—a city playbill and performing arts magazine.

ENJOY THE SHOW.

I N THIS ISSUE 24

40

Art critic David Stabler remembers the first time Schubert made him swoon, and resolves to bring fresh ears and eyes to the coming season’s classics.

How small, and how portable, can an art gallery possibly be?

One wry performance artist pushes the envelope by “hosting gallery shows” in a plastic ID badge he’s wearing.

30

44

UNDYING LOVE FOR THE CLASSICS

COVER STORY

GROUP DYNAMICS AT THE ARTS HUB

OUT THERE: ALBATROSS GALLERY

NOT GOING ANYWHERE

Most Loyal. Most “OldSchool.” Most Likely to Do Anything. In the spirit of back-to-school, Artslandia offers a yearbook-style sendup of the Arts Hub.

Near the Keller Auditorium, The Veritable Quandary has served a lot of performing arts crowds and withstood many neighborhood changes. Their story, with a side of short ribs.

36

50

Before he founded Bag&Baggage Productions, Palmer tried his hand at some epic, risqué college Shakespeare at OSU. He reminisces over one of his favorite photos.

The beloved comedian gets real about North Korea, Bill Cosby, and the upcoming presidential election. Donald Trump makes her laugh...for all the wrong reasons.

PAST PERFORMANCES: SCOTT PALMER

24

26 THE LEAD: MATTHEW KERRIGAN This prolific local actor has a (literal) cross to bear this year, playing Christ and then carrying a one-man show.

Next role? Hopefully, Hamlet or Dracula. No pressure.

THE LAST LAUGH: MARGARET CHO

I N E V ERY IS SU E 16 21 26 36

Out & About From the Editor-at-Large The Lead Past Performances

46 47 48 50

Fun Facts Tag. You’re It. Crossword Puzzle The Last Laugh

Think you have arts smarts? Test your knowledge in our new W W W. A R T S L A N D I A .COM

CROSSWORD PUZZLE!

30

ON THE COVER: HAND2MOUTH THEATRE. PHOTO BY JASON QUIGLEY.

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

13

®

AT TH E P E R FO R M A N C E

What show are you most looking forward to this year?

PUBLISHER + FOUNDER Misty Tompoles Oregon Ballet EDITOR-AT-L ARGE Barry Johnson

Theatre’s Amore Italiano

Third Angle’s ASSOCIATE EDITOR Frozen A.L. Adams Music

OPERATIONS Nina Chomak COPY EDITOR Kristen Seidman DESIGN Zelda Burk Lisa Johnston-Smith Heathers the Musical ADVERTISING at triangle ACCOUNT productions!

EXECUTIVE Steven Sturgeon

The Book of Mormon presented by Broadway in Portland

Asking For It at Boom Arts

Cuba Libre at Artists Rep

MEDIA DIRECTOR Chris Porras PUBLISHING COORDINATOR Bella Showerman CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Barry Johnson David Stabler Matt Stangel

Portland Center Stage’s Great Expectations

Michelle DeYoung, CONTRIBUTING “opera’s radiant ILLUSTRATOR mezzo soprano,” presented by Carolyn Main Friends of Chamber Music

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Jason Quigley Raina Stinson

W W W. A R T S L A N D I A .CO M

for A Magazine ts! their Paren

Fun Kids and

14

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

Have you picked up your issue of Artslandia Kids yet?

Our newest magazine is full of exciting content for fun kids and their parents! Visit www.artslandiakids.com for more information.

SEPTEMBER

THE UNDERSTUDY

ARTISTS REPERTORY THEATRE

Behind every great actor, there’s another actor, just waiting for the first one to fail. Pulitzer finalist Theresa Rebeck exposes behind-the-curtain bickering among crew members, actors, and their understudies that most theater audiences don’t see.

SEPT. 8–OCT. 4; ALDER STAGE, ARTISTS REP

FALL FESTIVAL: PASSION PLAY

PROFILE THEATRE

Lauded playwright Sarah Ruhl offers three views of the Crucifixion. Matthew Kerrigan, who’ll play Christ, explains: “The play is in three parts, each set in a different time period under a different ruler: Queen Elizabeth, Hitler, and Reagan.” (Read more in

The Lead, pg. 26) SEPT. 9–13; MORRISON STAGE, ARTISTS REP

THE BEST OF EVERYTHING

BAG&BAGGAGE

Move over, Mad Men. Secretaries and editors in a 1950s publishing house struggle to manage various issues—including pregnancy, stalking, alcoholism, ambition, and getting along with each other.

SEPT. 10–27; THE VENETIAN THEATRE

OUR TOWN

PORTLAND CENTER STAGE

Thornton Wilder’s 1938 classic waxes nostalgic as it pioneers “metatheater.” Wistful ghost Emily longs for the sensory splendors of her sleepy hometown, while a character called The Stage Manager conjures country scenery from thin air.

SEPT. 12–OCT. 11; U.S. BANK MAIN STAGE, GERDING THEATER AT THE ARMORY

POKÉMON: SYMPHONIC EVOLUTIONS

OREGON SYMPHONY

“Is Pokémon a famous composer?” you ask. Nope. This Symphony concert features music from the Pokémon games you already know, chock-full of cartoon characters with special powers.

MUSIC

DANCE

ONE NIGHT ONLY!

FAMILY SHOW

DAVID SCHIFF 70TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION FEARNOMUSIC

For his 70th birthday, FearNoMusic will regale Portland-based composer David Schiff by performing music he’s penned over the years in a range of genres from modernist to jazz.

SEPT. 20; KAUL AUDITORIUM, REED COLLEGE

PIPPIN

BROADWAY IN PORTLAND

A troupe of players acts out the story of a prince facing Faustian choices, with knowing glances all around. The great Bob Fosse, who directed the original show, wrote parts of the libretto.

SEPT. 22–27; KELLER AUDITORIUM

THOMAS LAUDERDALE

WALTERS CULTURAL ARTS CENTER

More than merely the bandleader of the world-renowned Pink Martini, Thomas Lauderdale is also a virtuosic pianist and a rarified raconteur.

Rendezvous in Hillsboro with one of Portland’s most sparkling personalities.

SEPT. 25–26; WALTERS CULTURAL ARTS CENTER

ALLAN HARRIS

WITH THE MEL BROWN QUARTET

TWYLA THARP 50TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR WHITE BIRD DANCE

The legendary choreographer who pioneered the “crossover ballet” celebrates a half century of running her eponymous company. Her selection of music rings with the fanfare of many trumpets.

OCT. 14; ARLENE SCHNITZER CONCERT HALL

PDX JAZZ

Two top-shelf jazz talents converge in a small Portland club on a Wednesday like it ain’t no thing: Harlem-based composer/ guitarist/singer Allan Harris, and living Motown legend Mel Brown. Don’t miss it!

SEPT. 30; JIMMY MAK’S

HOW WE GOT ON

PORTLAND PLAYHOUSE

Fresh Prince, anyone? Idris Goodwin sets his intro to hiphop in the land of amateurs: a mostly-white Midwest suburb circa 1988. As Black teens stage rap battles at the mall, a “theater DJ” schools characters and audience in the art form.

SEPT. 30–OCT. 25; PORTLAND PLAYHOUSE

SEPT. 17; ARLENE SCHNITZER CONCERT HALL 16

THEATER

Photo by Ruven Afanador.

OUT & ABOUT

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

OCTOBER CUBA LIBRE

ARTISTS REPERTORY THEATRE

Keeping perfect time with world affairs, this contemporary musical set in both the U.S. and Cuba gets a Portland premiere.

Grammy nominated band Tiempo Libre joins a 21-member cast for a Broadway-scale show at the Winningstad Theatre.

OCT. 3–NOV. 8; WINNINGSTAD THEATRE

MOMIX

WHITE BIRD DANCE

Moses Pendleton and company transform the elements of earth, air, fire, and water into pure kinetic energy and ethereal, mind-bending visions in Momix’s latest work, Alchemia.

OCT. 8–10; NEWMARK THEATRE

ROPE

BAG&BAGGAGE

In Patrick Hamilton’s dramatic thriller loosely tied to the famous real-life Leopold and Loeb murder, two college students kill a peer for what they consider to be an intellectual exercise.

OCT. 8–NOV. 1; THE VENETIAN THEATRE

AMORE ITALIANO

OREGON BALLET THEATRE

Napoli Act III, choreographed

by August Bournonville to the music of Holger Simon Paulli, is hailed as a “sunny spectacle,” while Sub Rosa, a world premiere, is choreographed by James Kudelka and features the music of Carlo Gesualdo.

OCT. 10–17; KELLER AUDITORIUM

SEX WITH STRANGERS

First Thursdays: Sept. 3 and Oct. 1 Stroll through the Pearl District and get an eyeful of new art!

SPONSORED BY THE PORTL AND ART MUSEUM

Anish Kapoor

Eyebeam in Objects

Portland Art Museum Anish Kapoor's best known for large public works like Cloud Gate, a massive futuristic sculpture in Chicago's Millennium Park that seems to hover above the ground, its curved, silvery surface reflecting a warped Chicago skyline. The artist's prints are similar in many ways: bold, non-narrative, and inviting reflection. (portlandartmuseum. org; 1219 SW Park Ave.)

Upfor Gallery New York based art center Eyebeam is dedicated to finding and supporting artists whose vision incorporates the tools of emerging technologies. Eyebeam residency director Roddy Schrock has asked some of the collective's star artists to submit physical objects that encapsulate their conceptual explorations—and hopefully pique your sense of possibility. (upforgallery.com; 929 NW Flanders St.)

THROUGH OCT. 25

TBA Festival

Fallen Fruit Portland OCT. 24–JAN. 17

SEPT. 3–OCT. 10

TOM TIT TOT

SEPT. 10–SEPT. 20

Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) | other locations Always hotly anticipated and ardently analyzed, PICA's festival of avant-garde “Time-Based Art” turns 20 this year. In addition to all manner of performance art, visual arts exhibitions will emerge throughout the city, from the farnorth Disjecta to the down-south Reed College, and at many contemporary art flash points in between. (pica.org; 415 SW 10th Ave.)

Portland Art Museum | other locations Fallen Fruit is an LA-based art collective that contemplates both horticulture and human culture.

With a residency at Caldera Arts Center in Sisters, Oregon, Fallen Fruit will map and plant fruit trees in the Portland metro area, and will present Paradise, an exhibition of art works hand-picked from Portland Art Museum's permanent collection. (fallenfruit.org, portlandartmuseum.org; 1219 SW Park Ave.)

OCT. 5–DEC. 6

Yale Union Contemporary Poet, installationist, and published collage artist Susan Howe has a career spanning more than 50 years, yet this will be her first solo exhibition. Fittingly, a book of her rectilinear poems, TOM TIT TOT, is Yale Union's first official book release. Howe gives a live performance Sunday, Oct. 6. (yaleunion.org; 800 SE 10th Ave.)

Sally Cleveland and Sara Siestreem; Jim Riswold, Eva Lake, and Takashi Murakami SEPT. 3–26; OCT. 1–31

Augen Gallery In September, Augen Gallery will juxtapose Sally Cleveland's industrial and rural realism with Sara Siestreem's vivid, scribbling abstraction. In October, the space will be overtaken by advertising-trained pop-art provocateur Jim Riswold, feminine-mystiqueexploring collage creator Eva Lake, and fanciful cartoon lithographer Takashi Murakami. (augengallery.org; 716 NW Davis St.)

ABOVE: Anish Kapoor (British, born India 1954), Burgundy Red from the series Shadow IV,

2011, Etching, 28

18

PORTLAND CENTER STAGE

STUMPTOWN STAGES

He’s an avid young blogger, and she’s a floundering midcareer novelist. They find themselves (and each other) in a snowbound bed and breakfast—and, naturally, they find ways to stay warm.

Stephen King’s iconic thriller featured a bucket of pig’s blood and a thwarted prom queen who could move objects with her mind. The musical also has all that—plus singing and dancing!

OCT. 10–NOV. 22; THE ELLYN BYE STUDIO, GERDING THEATER AT THE ARMORY

GALLERY GUIDE

x 37

inches, © Anish Kapoor and Paragon | Contemporary Editions Ltd.

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

CARRIE: THE MUSICAL

THE NATION LIVE!

LITERARY ARTS

Celebrate The Nation (Magazine) turning 150!

Guests are Ursula Le Guin, Sherman Alexie, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Naomi Klein, Walter Mosley, Dave Zirin, and Zoe Carpenter; hosted by John Nichols.

OCT. 13; NEWMARK THEATRE

L-E-V

WHITE BIRD DANCE

Led by Batsheva alumna Sharon Eyal and arts producer Gai Behar, this riveting Israeli company will make its White Bird debut with Sara and the evocatively-named Killer Pig. OCT. 15–17; LINCOLN PERFORMANCE HALL

BEETHOVEN AND DVORAK

WITH THE OREGON SYMPHONY

45TH PARALLEL

Classical and Bohemian tastes converge for this special evening—but wait: Does that mean Beethoven and Dvorak, or the Oregon Symphony and 45th Parallel?

Works either way.

OCT. 19; THE OLD CHURCH

NEW, NOW, WOW!

NORTHWEST DANCE PROJECT

NW Dance Project, a prolific presenter of new work, kicks off each season with signature fall showcase New Now Wow! This “all-European” installment features Ihsan Rustem’s Mother Tongue and world premieres from Felix Landerer and Jirí Pokorny.

OCT. 22–24; LINCOLN PERFORMANCE HALL

OCT. 22–NOV. 8; BRUNISH THEATRE

SPELLBOUND

PORTLAND STORY THEATER

As Halloween approaches, you know Portland Story Theater’s got some good ghost stories. Settle in for an evening of spooky tales, suspense, and surprise.

OCT. 24; ALBERTA ABBEY

JUNIE B. JONES: THE MUSICAL

OREGON CHILDREN’S THEATRE

Barbara Park’s lovably idiosyncratic children’s book heroine Junie B. Jones springs to life—and into song—in this engaging kids musical. Her message?

“First grade is hard!”

OCT. 24–NOV. 22; NEWMARK THEATRE

AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’

PORTLAND CENTER STAGE

This Tony Award-winning revue celebrates the songs of Fats Waller and the Harlem Renaissance, offset by the ominous specter of World War II. OCT. 24–NOV. 29; U.S. BANK MAIN STAGE, PCS

THE CLASSICAL CONCERT

PORTLAND GAY MEN’S CHORUS

Portland Gay Men’s Chorus begins the 2015–16 season with a matinee of elegant classical music and welcomes the Portland Boychoir—the group that David York, the chorus’ former conductor, is now directing.

OCT. 25; KAUL AUDITORIUM, REED COLLEGE

SEEING NATURE LANDSCAPE MASTERWORKS FROM THE PAUL G. ALLEN FAMILY COLLECTION

October 10, 2015 – January 10, 2016

This exhibition is co-organized by Portland Art Museum, Seattle Art Museum, and the Paul G. Allen Family Collection

Thomas Moran, Grand Canyon of Arizona at Sunset, 1909, Oil on canvas, Paul G. Allen Family Collection

portlandartmuseum.org

contributors AMANDA VALLEY has been performing for over 20 years on stage, film, and TV. Locally she has performed at Broadway Rose, Clackamas Repertory Theatre (CRT), Northwest Children’s Theatre, and Lakewood. She is also the interviewer/online personality for Artslandia. You can catch her on stage this summer at CRT in How to Success in Business Without Really Trying and around town hosting events and, in general, making mischief.

CAROLYN MAIN is an illustrator and Portland native with a penchant for the absurd.

She utilizes wild lines and color to depict the humor in everyday life. She’s currently writing a graphic novel and designing too many video games, along with one great card game. She’s also way into singing Billy Joel songs and wearing jumpsuits.

SUSANNAH MARS is thrilled to be a part of the Artslandia family. Based in Portland, Oregon, for over 25 years, Susannah is an award-winning actress who has appeared in more than 100 productions, concerts, and recordings around the country. She is a resident artist at Artists Repertory Theatre. Find out more about Susannah at www.susannahmars.com.

DAVID STABLER is a household name in Portland after 29 years as The Oregonian’s classical music critic and an arts and feature 20

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

writer. He’s also a Pulitzer Prize finalist. His other car is a bike, and his other keyboard is a piano. He’s excited to explore new writing adventures.

MATT STANGEL is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. His articles and essays have appeared in UTNE Reader and Portland Mercury, and online at IntoTheWoods.TV and Oregon ArtsWatch. His poems have been published by Sonora Review, & Review, Poictesme, and more. He composes music as “import/import” and performs with a band called No Phone.

RAINA STINSON is a Portland-based fine art and commercial photographer who specializes in conceptual photography. She enjoys creative collaborations with her clients that result in artistic portraits that not only capture and document significant times in their lives but render beautiful pieces of art to last for generations.

JASON QUIGLEY is a southern Oregon native and University of Portland alumnus.

He discovered his passion for photography documenting the early years of Portland’s PDX Pop Now music festival and published a coffee table book of Portland concert photos, then expanded his focus to include weddings, events, portraits, and families.

Photo courtesy of ArtBuilt Mobile Studios.

Creating Space Will rising rents in Portland force artists into uncharted territory?

VISITORS TO THE QUEENS MUSEUM IN NEW YORK CITY encountered a very small, 150-square-foot “studio” near the museum grounds this summer. Inside it, artist Patrick Rowe had created a People’s Design Laboratory and an open invitation to the public to leave drawings of their favorite things in the surrounding Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

It was a popular attraction, and Rowe is turning the drawings into screen-printed designs, which he will use to make signs to help people navigate the park—from the location of bathrooms to the rainbow that appears in late afternoon at the fountains of the Unisphere, one of the park’s primary attractions.

The tiny workspace, officially an ArtBuilt Mobile Studio, cost $13,000 to build from off-the-shelf parts, according to the nonprofit website Next City. It can run on grid power, biodiesel, or solar, and it can be towed by a regular pickup truck. The two nonprofits that designed and built it think of it as a partial solution to a problem that’s reaching crisis proportions in cities across the country: Having led the resurrection of many American cities, artists and creative economy workers of all sorts are finding themselves priced out of the neighborhoods they helped build.

I immediately thought of the idea in terms I understood. Instead of a food cart pod, I imagined art studio pods—a sculptor here, a choreographer nearby, a musician practicing away at another. That would be a gas! But

the problem of space, specifically empty lots, is only going to get worse in Portland, so I then started to think in terms of the project at Queens Museum. What if various city facilities “sponsored” an art cart, and they were spread all over town at schools, hospitals, group homes; the artists trading services, perhaps, for the space to park their studios?

That tied in neatly with another much-praised project in New York—the Seniors Partnering with Artists Citywide (SPARC) program, which hooks up participating artists with a stipend and access to senior center workspaces in exchange for providing arts programming for seniors. Spreading that style of program to other facilities is recommendation number one from the Center for an Urban Future’s Creative New York report, issued in June, which advocates “providing affordable work and rehearsal spaces for artists.” The report makes many other great suggestions, from “appoint a chief creative officer in the mayor’s office and take other steps to coordinate investments in the creative economy as a whole” to, yes, “develop affordable housing for artists.”

That problem is far worse in New York than Portland—though it’s pretty terrible here, too.

The report says that when P.S. 109 in East Harlem was redeveloped into affordable artist housing, more than 53,000 people applied for 89 affordable rental units. Back in February, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a plan to build 1,500 units of affordable housing for artists during the next 10 years, though clearly that won’t be enough.

SW 6th between Oak & Pine hours MON–FRI 11:30am–Midnight SAT & SUN 5:00pm–Midnight reservation 503.688.5952 littlebirdbistro.com 215 SW 6TH AVE. PORTLAND, OR 97204

CONTINUED ON PAGE 49

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

21

OPEN House MIND OPENING SINCE 1869

Grades Pre-Kindergarten to 5 (parents)

Wednesday, Oct 14, 2015 6:00 – 8:00pm

Grades 6 to12 (parents and students)

Sunday, Oct 25, 2015 1:00 – 4:00pm Our Pre-K to 12 day and boarding programs give future global leaders the skills and confidence to succeed in an ever-changing world.

Pre-register and view Open House schedule and details at www.oes.edu/admissions.

Financial Aid: need-based award program available.

Oregon Episcopal School

© 2015 OES

6300 SW Nicol Road • Portland, OR 97223 (503) 768-3115

www.oes.edu

Without reasoning, without considering, only entirely surrendering FEATURE

to an attraction the truth of which consisted in its own strength, a strength which he had never experienced before, Vasili in one radiant second realized that here in this room with that view, beautiful to the verge of tears, life would at last be what he had always wished it to be…

This is Schubert’s gift: Life as we wish it to be.

Old music gets a bad rap these days. Symphony orchestras and opera houses perform the same old stuff. Superstars play a perpetual glamour game of greatest hits. Jet streams of Vivaldi circle the globe.

The music doesn’t wear out but our capacity for awe does. So here’s a radical thought: Let’s reclaim it. But how?

The old-fashioned way. Not with YouTube or a touch screen, but with our hearts and imaginations.

Some classics are still worth swooning for

BY DAVID STABL E R

I

’m going to faint.

We’re standing like cattle in a holding pen at the back of Vienna’s gilded concert hall, the Musikverein. As lowly students, too broke to buy seats, we crane our necks, shoulder to shoulder, breathing air that is hot and lifeless.

But from the stage, miracles float our way.

We are following Schubert down long winding paths, transfixed by the pianist Alfred Brendel—jutting chin, black curls atoss— throwing light and shade over the composer’s last three monumental sonatas.

24

And then, a woman actually faints. It’s a little hard to tell at first; we’re standing so tightly that she remains upright for a while. But we’re definitely all slumping while Schubert’s beauty runs over us. Schubert!

Brendel’s thundering chords and death-still tone are devastating, humbling, exhilarating.

Despite the heat and slumping, Schubert and Brendel show me possibilities of music—and more than music—the way Nabokov’s Vasili Ivanovich describes in the short story Cloud, Castle, Lake:

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

The trick to recapturing awe is to imagine you’re hearing something new—to get past the marketing buzz and the personalities, and savor as if for the first time a melody, a line, a harmony. A phrase, a crescendo, a repetition.

Listen for a story, a narrative. An intention.

Yes, new music nourishes us, too. Oregon composer Robert Kyr’s haunting oratorio, A Time for Life, is a profound plea to heal the earth. It’s of-the-moment, yet it synthesizes modern and ancient modes with tender, rapturous lyricism. John Luther Adams astonishes audiences with his lush, 40-minute seascape, Become Ocean, which won last year’s Pulitzer Prize. Portland composer Kenji Bunch riffs on Americana rhythms and textures that hurtle us out of our seats with delight.

These works feel fresh, vital, and mavericky, and our culture prizes fresh, vital, mavericky stuff. We covet the latest gadgets and devour new books, plays, films, art, and dance. We train our gaze ever forward. And yet, while the rush of the new can seem overwhelming, orchestras and their stars are overplaying the most mainstream of the standard repertoire.

Beethoven has become a commodity, to be bottled and sold. I, too, roll my eyes at yet another Ninth Symphony. But its magnificence can still astonish. The first six seconds of Mozart’s Porgi Amor from The Marriage of Figaro, in which a wife mourns her broken heart over her unfaithful husband, still stops me cold.

FEATURE

Why do we need Mozart? Because he expresses extremes of life—affirmation, despair, delight, emptiness—sometimes in a single phrase. The slow movement of Piano Concerto No. 21 (“Elvira Madigan”) lulls us into a trance. The finale of the “Jupiter” Symphony surges in triumph.

We still need lulling and surging.

What fills me with awe is when a pianist, such as Mitsuko Uchida, plays “the thoughts within the notes,” as pianist and writer Jeremy Denk says, “…shading a picture in sound so finely in color and intensity, it forms a landscape in the middle distance.”

Schubert invites us to slow down, to ponder a melody reflected by a dozen different harmonies that change our perception of a tune. He is the music you will hear when you die, Uchida says.

A life in all its possibilities.

In our sharp, quick, Instagram lives, we still crave mystery and miracles, and these guys give them to us! Embrace them. “We are broadened, not narrowed, by our fandom,” writes Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker.

What a composer is really saying in music is, “Has this ever happened to you?”

Leonard Bernstein wrote. “Haven’t you experienced this same tone, insight, shock, anxiety, release?” And when we “like” a piece of music, we are simply saying to the composer, “Yes.” Late Beethoven—stone-deaf Beethoven—takes us inside a secret. The rise and fall of single notes in the opening of the C-Sharp Minor String Quartet feel like he is revealing something new and hard won. “An unsuspected possibility of the mind, hardly connected to anything we’ve experienced before,” writes the renowned Beethoven writer J.W.N. Sullivan in Beethoven: His Spiritual Journey. Even after multiple hearings, the revelation shakes us, welcome as it is.

At that Schubert marathon nearly 40 years ago, Schubert gave me the moon, with its wavering reflections of mystery and light and love, as well as fear and sorrow and grief. It helped set me on a life in music and taught me how to stay upright, even when life felt like I was standing in a crowded cattle pen.

Listen anew. Listen afresh. The music deserves that.

“The past is never dead,” William Faulkner said. Let’s believe him. .

HERE’S A CHALLENGE.

As you take your seats for plays, concerts, and dance this fall, see if you can enjoy your old favorites as if for the first time.

By all means, find opportunities to hear new work of our own time, but as you greet these dear old friends, ask yourself why they pull you back, time and again.

In OUR TOWN at Portland Center Stage, Sept. 12–Oct. 11, Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer-prize winning play about ordinary lives in a small New Hampshire town reminds us how young people grow up, fall in love, and find their way in the world. After tragedy strikes, a young woman returns from the dead and finally understands what it means to appreciate life.

The exciting MONTROSE TRIO, which includes the brilliant Canadian pianist Jon Kimura Parker, plays a jaunty Haydn trio (piano, violin, cello) and Mendelssohn’s rapturous, turbulent Trio in D Minor on the Friends of Chamber Music series on Oct. 5 and 6.

Oregon Symphony performs BEETHOVEN’S

EROICA, Oct. 10 and 12. It is the first piece

Shape Up with barre3

Barre3 offers highly effective 60-minute workouts designed to lift the entire body.

Join us in studio and online at barre3.com

barre3 Pearl District • 1000 NW Marshall Street barre3 N Williams • 4015 N Williams Avenue barre3 Southeast • 2523 SE 22nd Avenue barre3 Cedar Mill • 11805 NW Cedar Falls Drive #113 barre3 Lake Oswego • 201 B Avenue #101

of Beethoven’s that has a profound spiritual content. For length, thematic development, and emotional power, it broke new ground.

Beethoven preferred it to the volcanic Symphony No. 5.

The Oregon Ballet Theatre premieres Act III of NAPOLI by 19th century Danish choreographer August Bournonville (La Sylphide), Oct. 10–17. The third act of Napoli is known for its challenging male solos and lively tarantella.

Lang Lang performs GRIEG’S PIANO

CONCERTO with the Oregon Symphony,

Oct. 15. The Chinese superstar plays a work of sweeping Romanticism, inspired by Nordic folk music and Lisztian flourishes.

BACH’S BRANDENBURG CONCERTO NO. 1

performed by Portland Baroque Orchestra, Oct. 16–18, is Bach in high style: relentlessly rhythmic, melodically inventive, endlessly enjoyable.

The up-and-coming French pianist Lise de la Salle makes her Portland and Portland Piano International debut with two programs of German/French masterpieces, Oct. 24 and 25. I’m inclined to the second program because of Robert Schumann’s powerful Fantasy and its achingly beautiful slow movement.

Remember to breathe.

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

25

Matthew Kerrigan

THE LE AD

Actor Matthew Kerrigan is staring down a full season. Currently portraying Christ in Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play, he’s also preparing to carry Dario Fo’s irreverent one-man show The Dissenter’s Handbook in December.

THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHRIST

It’s a bizarre thing playing the role of Christ.

I’m a very visual person, so I’ve been looking at as many images as I can, seeing how different generations view him.

The play is in three parts, each set in a different time period under a different ruler: Queen Elizabeth, Hitler, and Reagan. So you get to see how people’s perception of Christ is influenced by the political climate they’re living in, and how the world’s rulers—who are some of the world’s best actors—align themselves with the figure of Christ.

I was raised Irish Catholic, and my mom and dad are very excited that I’m playing Christ.

But they’re not pushy-religious; they’re happy to let everyone find their own faith.

DREAM ROLES

Dracula. He’s a character we think we’ve understood for so long, but...I read him differently than most people do. I see him as desperate and just trying to survive.

Hamlet, of course. In your lifetime, you have a window of time when you can access the kind of energy that role demands...and I’m there right now. I’m in my Hamlet age, headed for my Gertrude phase.

All the roles in The Dissenter’s Handbook. I get to play around 20 different parts, including a tiger, Mary, God, two “stinkers,” Adam, the Devil, and a baboon. That show is basically, “How long can Kerrigan talk?”

GOODBYE CRAFT, HELLO ART

I’ve worked as a jewelry maker for Betsy and Iya (a local jewelry and clothing company) for the last four years, and I just quit to give this whole “starving artist” thing a go. Crafting has helped me so much in my understanding of space and shape. It’s been a huge inspiration.

Catch Matthew in parts 1 and 2 of Passion Play at Profile Theatre’s Fall Festival, Sept. 9–13 and part 3 at Shaking The Tree, Sept. 25–Oct. 24. See him in The Dissenter’s Handbook at Shaking The Tree, Dec. 4–26.

26

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

BONA FIDES

Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship winner, Dell’arte International graduate, lead roles in Portland productions of The Dissenter’s Handbook, In The Next Room (or the vibrator play), One Flea Spare.

FAVORITE PLAYWRIGHTS

Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and lately, Sarah Ruhl

OFFSTAGE INTERESTS

Running…my therapy, my time for dreaming, my release. Making, crafting, and refurbishing furniture and jewelry. There’s so much that I can find a new purpose for that I used to regard as trash.

Tattoos…finding a roadmap on my body, minimalism, discovering the weight of simple shapes.

WE WANT TO CELEBRATE OUR NEW MAGAZINE WITH YOU! ARTSLANDIA KIDS LAUNCH PARTY Sunday, October 4th 2pm–4pm The Historic Dance Pavilion at Oaks Park Open to the Public GREAT PRIZES! FOOD! ENTERTAINMENT! CRAFTS! DISCOUNTED RIDE BRACELETS!

RSVP NOW!

RSVP NOW to events@artslandia.com First 100 to respond get an Artslandia Kids Expedition Club Bag filled with tools to explore.

Want to receive our Artslandia Kids e-Newsletter?

Sign up at artslandiakids.com

ARTSLANDIA KIDS PUTS THE BROADEST RANGE OF AGE-APPROPRIATE CULTURAL AND ARTS OPPORTUNITIES RIGHT AT FAMILIES’ FINGERTIPS.

2015

SEPT. 24 – OCT. 10

WORLD TRADE

CENTER THEATER

“exhilarating and heartbreaking.”

TICKETS ON SALE NOW VISIT WWW.LIVEONSTAGE.US

- NEW YORK TIMES

1992 Tony Award Winner Best Book of A Musical Best Original Score

SPONSORED BY:

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

27

Rewards careful viewing

Artslandia 1/3 sq - 4.65x4.75: Lang Lang

Runs: Sept/Oct 2015

Maloy's offers a fabulous selection of antique and estate jewelry and fine custom jewelry, as well as repair and restoration services.

Let’s Talk

about your Perfect Home.

Lang Lang Thursday, Oct 15 | 7:30 pm Paul Ghun Kim, conductor • Lang Lang, piano Offenbach: Overture to Orpheus in the Underworld • Grieg: Piano Concerto Dvorˇák: Symphony No. 8, G major

With its explosive opening, Grieg’s powerful piano concerto is a perfect fit for the fiery Lang Lang.

H. DWAYNE DAVIS Principal Broker

OrSymphony.org | 503-228-1353 | Groups save: 503-416-6380 A r l e n e

28

S c h n i t z e r

c o n c e r t

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

h A l l

Why driving smart makes sense.

new 2016 prime new 2016 proxy

smart center of portland smartcenterportland.com Š 2015 Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC

Diane Nguyen 503.382.2013 dnguyen@lithia.com 1605 SW Naito pkwy Portland, OR 97201

ou’re probably familiar with the Artists Repertory Theatre (or Artists Rep)—either as the big red building that spans from Morrison to Alder on Southwest 15th, or as the theater company by the same name that’s headquartered there. But did you realize that the same big red building also accommodates—count ‘em—nine more arts groups besides Artists Rep? Individually welcomed into the space and collectively emerging as “the Arts Hub,” these groups fill the building with a world of activity, a slew of shows, and plenty of characters. “There’s someone in every corner of the building at all times,” notes Artists Rep company member Amy Newman.

To kick off the 2015-16 performing arts season, Artslandia asked the Arts Hub to go “back to school,” playfully posing as clubs and “most likelies” from an imaginary yearbook. Let’s see who’s who. BY A. L. ADAMS. PHOTOS BY JASON QUIGLEY. 30

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

ARTISTS REPERTORY THEATRE

VALEDICTORIAN, CLASS OF 1982 With the most seniority and a consistent run of diverse, provocative contemporary plays, Artists Rep the company permanently presides over Artists Rep the theater space, and is playing gracious host to the other Arts Hub companies.

Call it a mutual vote of confidence: Artists Rep’s partner theaters rely on it to accommodate their creative needs and keep the lights on, while the newcomer groups’ mere presence “makes the building feel really alive!”

PORTLAND SHAKESPEARE PROJECT MOST “OLD SCHOOL”, CLASS OF 2011

Portland Shakespeare Project has a knack for finding new approaches to the Bard while dusting off other time-honored canonical works and even some obscure “deep cuts.” Though the material’s often familiar, it’s always a new challenge, says Artistic Director Michael Mendelson, to translate Shakespeare’s “big themes, big ideas, and big images” into an intimate experience. As the company turns 5, they’ll be experimenting with (Gasp!) a few new works and “newly imagined classics,” but they won’t get too carried away. They’ve always kept Shakespeare at the center, and, says Mendelson, “we always will.”

PROFILE THEATRE MOST LOYAL, CLASS OF 1997

While most theater companies flirt with several playwrights each season, Profile is a serial monogamist, giving total devotion to a single playwright for a whole year at a time (for 2015, the lucky object of Profile’s affection is Sarah Ruhl) and hosting the In Dialogue Series to encourage healthy communication around the works. Further demonstrating true-blue, come-through loyalty, Profile invites staff who have kids to bring them to the office while they work—meaning the company retains qualified women it might otherwise lose. “That’s something I’m committed to,” says Artistic Director Adriana Baer.

Of course you are.

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

31

ELLYN BYE

BRIAN BURGOYNE

BERRY MEDIA WORKS

ROBERT CONKLIN

THE RESNER FAMILY

THE GORHAM FAMILY

TIM AND PATTI SCHWANKE

PRESENTS

EQUIVOCATION

Create a legacy.

Or sustain one.

by Bill Cain directed by paul angelo

September 5th thru October 4th

Cultivators and stewards of philanthropy. Whether you want to create a legacy or support an existing charitable fund, The Oregon Community Foundation can help you achieve your goals. We will work with you and your professional advisors to ensure your charitable gifts have maximum impact and we provide related administrative services so you can enjoy unburdened giving. To learn more, call us at 503.227.6846 or visit www.oregoncf.org.

“Lie, Die or Equivocate”

Mural: Giacinto Gigante (1806-1876) View of Naples from Fosillipo | Dancers: Kelsie Nobriga and Chauncey Parsons. Photo by Yi Yin.

OREGON BALLET THEATRE PRESENTS

NAPOLI ACT III (OBT Premiere) August Bournonville / Holger Simon Paulli

SUB ROSA (World Premiere) James Kudelka / Carlo Gesualdo

PLUS Special appearance by Portland violinist Aaron Meyer and his 6-piece band!

OCT. 10-17, 2015

Keller Auditorium | Tickets start at $31 Groups of 10 or more start at just $15!

obt.org | 503.222.5538 SPONSORED IN PART BY

32

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

1 6 6 6 S E L a m b e rt S t r e e t P o rt l a n d

ARTS HUB CONTINUED

RISK/REWARD FESTIVAL

MOST LIKELY TO DO ANYTHING, CLASS OF 2008 This phrase from Dead Poets Society strikes us as the only apt title for a group that hand-picks the most avant-garde, no-holds-barred contemporary performances it can find. Don’t mistake their party-animal appearance here as mainstream; R/R’s curators of independent performance art are pretty far-out. Shadow puppets, garbage bags, and even a sea cucumber costume have figured prominently in past shows—but so have thoughtful monologues, gorgeous music, and graceful movement. “When we first started here, people thought it was a weird fit,” admits Producing Artistic Director Jerry Tischleder. Yet as big theater companies in other cities have begun to host more independent performance art, a precedent’s been set, and the self-described “small and scrappy” group feels more at home. Ultimately, the Arts Hub partnership enables Risk/Reward to bring groundbreaking performers, who might otherwise hide out in studios and warehouses, into a space where a mainstream audience can feel just comfortable enough to enjoy them. Now, what’s next? Who knows.

PORTLAND AREA THEATRE ALLIANCE

MOST ORGANIZED/SECRETARY-TREASURER CLASS OF 1987 Known to its friends as PATA, this is the organization (in all senses of the word) that keeps tabs on much of Portland’s theater community, collecting membership dues from individuals and groups in exchange for maintaining a database of theater pros, scheduling citywide general theater auditions, and opening the coffers of the Valentine Fund to serve members’ most urgent needs. PATA has just added two major events to its annual roster: citywide dance auditions and regional Shakespeare auditions co-run with Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The next mission? Reaching out to represent more of the city’s indispensable independent theater-tech talents. May we draw your attention to the folks behind the curtain?

HAND2MOUTH THEATRE PEP SQUAD, CLASS OF 2000

If you go to a Hand2Mouth show, you’re almost guaranteed to leave uplifted. One minute, they’re playing a rock band singing power ballads about love; the next, they’re impersonating a group of sports coaches motivating a weary team to try again. Self-described as “collaborators through and through,” this charismatic collective devises their own performances, writes original music, and uses increasingly novel staging and costumes to play with “themes that feel exciting to us!” Their “in-residence” status with Arts Hub paradoxically means they’re headquartered offsite in a mixed-use performance space called (What else?) “Shout House,” but they rehearse at Artists Rep and enjoy the general benefits of being team players. They also tour, bringing the show Pep Talk (no, really) to some especially tough rooms like school gymnasiums and a women’s prison. You can do it!

We believe in you!

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

33

ARTS HUB CONTINUED

STAGED!

PORTLAND REVELS

FRESHM AN GLEE CLUB, CLASS OF 2005

RENAISSANCE ROLE-PLAYERS, CLASS OF 1994

Turning 10 this year and casting performers around the same age, Staged! fills its shows with energetic young up-and-comers who pose the classic “triple threat” of singing, dancing, and acting—but they ain’t no Pollyannas. “We do serious [musicals] for serious actors,” declares Associate Artistic Director Paul Angelo. “We’re not big on ‘jazz hands.’” With an educational edge, Staged! puts on a full season of musicals plus a Summer Stock series. Artistic Director Chanda Hall describes the kids as “courageous and accepting—willing to try anything,” and adds that their rehearsal energy is inexhaustible. Look out, world [jazz hands]! No, seriously [intense stare]. Look out.

For 21 solstices now—and the last decade at Artists Rep—Revels has been donning elaborate historical garb, singing era-specific music, and re-enacting Yuletide traditions from around the world in a sparkling series of family friendly holiday pageants. Carefully researched and meticulously rehearsed (and, we should note, not exclusively Renaissance), with huge (50+) multigenerational casts of volunteer performers, these shows consistently brighten what, as Executive Director Jenny Stadler reminds us, is otherwise “the darkest time of the year.” Bring a torch, Jeanette, Isabella!

GEEZER GALLERY

SENIOR ART CLUB, CLASS OF 2006 If their gallery name throws you, you might try calling this group of senior-aged visual artists “vibrant elders”—for their bold artworks, and for their ability to keep up with the ebb and flow of shows in the Arts Hub. “We change out the artwork [in the lobbies and bar] to correspond with the theme of each Artists Rep play,” explains Executive Director Amy Henderson, adding that they’re also starting to partner with Profile Theatre. Some abstract works have a multishow run in the space, and one Geezer art piece—a mobile by Candyce Scott—has even become a permanent fixture in the Alder lobby, bought and gifted back to Artists Rep by a patron. In addition to running the onsite gallery, Geezer also coordinates art therapy outreach to community seniors, and has recently partnered with OHSU to conduct art therapy research. “It’s really a full circle,” says Scott.

Not P ictured

THE AUGUST WILSON RED DOOR PROJECT HONOR ABLE MENTION, CLASS OF 2012

Though they opt out of official membership in the Arts Hub, the August Wilson Red Door Project is another group that shares the Artists Rep space, and its contribution to local theater can scarcely be overlooked. Their valuable work includes mentoring young Black actors and expanding the audience for Black playwright August Wilson, as well as facilitating the Portland Equity in the Arts Consortium (PEAC).

34

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

DISCOVER A WORLD OF DANCE Brazil Cuba Spain Israel Canada France United States

whitebird.org

Photo by John Kane

TICKETS NOW ON SALE MOMIX OCT 8-10 TWYLA THARP OCT 14 L-E-V OCT 15-17 BALLET BC NOV 18 NOCHE FLAMENCA DEC 3-5 HERVÉ KOUBI JAN 28-30

UP NEXT

Adapted from the novel by Virginia Woolf

[ 11.5.15 – 11.22.15 ] Tickets at profiletheatre.org 503.242.0080

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

35

PA S T P E R F O R M A N C E S

B AG &B AG G AGE

Artistic Director Scott Palmer of Bag&Baggage in Hillsboro

BAG&BAGGAGE’S SCOTT PALMER Romeo and Juliet at Oregon State University, July 2006

As Bag&Baggage Productions turns nine, Artistic Director Scott Palmer shares a pre-B&B photo from his time at Oregon State University.

This was July of 2006. I was a visiting instructor at Oregon State University, then I became the artistic director of OSU's "Bard in the Quad" program. Romeo and Juliet was the first of these outdoor shows, and they were box office records. The program is still running every summer.

ROMEO IS BURNING

Brandon Robinson (pictured), who played Romeo, had just had his chest waxed for the role. His football nickname was “The Vanilla Gorilla,” due to his very hairy chest. To make Romeo a little less “macho,” we asked Brandon to get his chest waxed. Massive welts broke out all over. Poor thing. Brandon was fairly new to theater; he'd been a student athlete for a long time and had suffered a knee injury, so he decided to try acting. He was fearless, physically and emotionally.

36

ADAPTATIONS WERE MADE

Our Juliet, Marza Warsinske, was a 16-yearold high school student at the time of this show. Arin Dooley (pictured) was “Benvolia.”

The script was—in my signature style—a major adaptation of Shakespeare.

I didn't do “your mama’s Shakespeare” in Corvallis, as I don't do it in Hillsboro now.

We cut the Nurse, made Benvolio a woman, added a character called “the Voyeur,” and basically accused the audience of being complicit in the suicides of the two main characters every night. It was pretty controversial for Corvallis, but both Brandon and Arin were troopers, as was the whole cast.

Oh! And Brandon had to strip naked for one scene with Juliet and have his shadow projected about 60 feet high onto the stone columns of the Memorial Union.

The majestic OSU space encouraged me to go big, go grand. We made use of the naturally occurring locations in the quad. The uplights, already in place as architectural

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

lighting for the building, became lighting for the show. It encouraged me to think about how to use the same space—like the Civic Center Plaza in Hillsboro—differently each year.

A few of the actors started to lose their voices. I have a passionate conviction that outdoor Shakespeare should never, ever, ever be mic’d, so I spent the next few years learning more about voice and projection so that I could be a resource to future outdoor performers.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Brandon has been involved in theater, film, and television work since he graduated in 2007, and we're still in touch. The photographer, Casey Campbell, became Bag&Baggage's resident photographer.

BAG&BAGGAGE IS MOVING!

From Hillsboro’s Venetian Theatre, into the former Wells Fargo building. Visit www.bagnbaggage.org to read about the monumental move or to lend your support.

Portland’s Finest Real Estate

Sassy, endearing, and wonderfully funny!

NNING T

A WA

I -W

OCT 24– NOV 22

H

TER EA

RD

503 242 9000

Adapted from the Junie B. Jones series of books by Barbara Park.

NEWMARK THEATRE

www.octc.org

oregon arts commission

Book online at kevinkiggins.com Located in the Gotham building 2256 N. Albina Avenue Suite 175 Portland, OR 97227

834 SW St Clair Avenue, Suite 103 Portland, Oregon 97205

www.laurieholland.com

Kevin Kiggins Massage Therapy

p: 808.280.0882 e: Kevin@KevinKiggins Oregon MAT #18145

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

37

The Second City’s A Christmas Carol:

TWIST YOUR DICKENS*

By Peter Gwinn and Bobby Mort On the U.S. Bank Main Stage December 9 – December 31, 2015

ANNOUNCING THE 2015-2016 SEASON! OUR TOWN

By Thornton Wilder | On the U.S. Bank Main Stage September 12 – October 11, 2015

SEX WITH STRANGERS

By Laura Eason | In the Ellyn Bye Studio October 10 – November 22, 2015

AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’

By Murray Horwitz and Richard Maltby, Jr. On the U.S. Bank Main Stage October 24 – November 29, 2015

THE SANTALAND DIARIES*

By David Sedaris; Adapted for the stage by Joe Mantello In the Ellyn Bye Studio December 2 – December 27, 2015

GREAT EXPECTATIONS Adapted from Charles Dickens by Lucinda Stroud On the U.S. Bank Main Stage January 16 – February 14, 2016

FOREVER

By Dael Orlandersmith | In the Ellyn Bye Studio January 30 – March 20, 2016

EACH AND EVERY THING

By Dan Hoyle | In the Ellyn Bye Studio February 6 – March 27, 2016

STUPID FU**ING BIRD

By Aaron Posner | On the U.S. Bank Main Stage February 27 – March 27, 2016

THE PIANIST OF WILLESDEN LANE Based on the book The Children of Willesden Lane by Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen. Adapted and directed

by Hershey Felder | On the U.S. Bank Main Stage April 2 – May 1, 2016

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

By Tennessee Williams | On the U.S. Bank Main Stage May 14 – June 19, 2016

Visit www.pcs.org for tickets! *Special engagements at Portland Center Stage (Twist Your Dickens and The Santaland Diaries are not part of a season ticket package, but season ticket holders get special pricing!)

Photography by Patrick Weishampel. Left to Right: Lexi Rhoades, David Jennings and the cast of Dreamgirls, Nick Ballard and Carol Halstead in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.

Gerding Theater at the Armory 128 NW Eleventh Avenue

503.445.3700 pcs.org

Chris Coleman Artistic Director

2014–2015 Season

OUR HILARIOUS HOLIDAY SHOWS RETURN! For tickets, visit pcs.org, call the box office at 503.445.3700 or drop by at 128 NW Eleventh Avenue.

Above: Jaime Moyer in The Second City’s A Christmas Carol Twist Your Dickens. Below: Darius Pierce in The Santaland Diaries. Photo by Patrick Weishampel/blankeye.tv.

PCS-14/15-holidayshows_artslandia-8.375x10.875.indd 1

17/8/15 6:12 PM

OUT THERE

All the world's a stage!

"OUT THERE" spotlights off-beat

performance styles and surprising or unusual arts happenings.

TOP LEFT: A piece from A.C.M. Lorish's Histrionic Harmony, Albatross's August 2015 exhibition.

TOP RIGHT: One of Timothy Scott Dalbow’s works from Eternal Return.

BELOW: Albatross Gallery, and the man behind it, at the Oregon Coast.

The Smallest Gallery in Portland Performance artist Michael Reinsch wears Albatross Gallery as a badge. Literally.

BY MATT STANGEL

W

& A.L. ADAMS

HETHER HE’S POPPING OUT OF A GIANT BIRTHDAY CAKE

NAKED or half-heartedly attempting to hang himself with an insufficient cluster of helium balloons, Portland performance artist MICHAEL REINSCH can be relied upon for wry, self-aware humor. His newest project, Albatross Gallery, is a so-called “exhibition space” composed of a 3"≈4" plastic sleeve clipped to a lanyard and worn around the artist’s neck.

Laugh if you want, but Reinsch is giving his neckwear the full gallery treatment, booking artists to be shown in the space for months to come. Reinsch has committed to wearing his lanyard/gallery, filled with artists’ work, to First Thursdays and other arts-related events. He’s even invited the public to create art for his appearance at Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s Time-Based Art Festival (TBA), where he’s promised to wear all the 3"≈4" submissions he’s received at once (creating, if you will, a group exhibition).

The gallery as performance is familiar and sincere territory for Reinsch: For his 2011 TBA contribution, Gallery Walk, he climbed inside a portable white cube fashioned with 40

built-in recesses for artwork and complimentary snacks. With an appointed “gallery attendant” strolling by his side, Reinsch traversed Portland’s inner Southeast like a mascot of an art gallery, reciting a flarf poem* composed of found artist statements and gallery missions.

Gallery Walk challenged “International Art English” in a time before that phrase was coined, questioning the cultural function of the language that arts institutions and academia choose to use. (Sure, it sounds

Laugh if you want, but Reinsch is giving his neckwear the full gallery treatment, booking artists to be shown in the space for months to come. authoritative, but what does it all mean?)

Members of the art world use language to prove their own art-world literacy, marketplace viability, and community membership, but also to elevate a creative endeavor to the status of art. Gallery Walk, therefore, was a spectacle about how the art world talks about art.

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

Albatross Gallery, on the other hand, is a hidden-in-plain-sight statement about how gallery spaces legitimize the art they contain.

“The challenge I set up for artists is to create a piece that transcends the apparatus I’ve set up for the display of their work,” Reinsch writes on the Albatross blog, “to not rely on the walls of an established ...white cube to make their work automatically art.”

He continues: “Success, in this particular regard, is measured [by] how much I’m asked about the performance of Albatross, versus how much I’m asked about the art [I’m] showing.” In other words, Albatross Gallery as a live performance by Michael Reinsch naturally competes for attention with the work that the chosen artists create within the miniscule space. How are the artists handling that?

For the month of June, 2015, Johanna Robinson was inspired to create Identity Weavers by a more familiar use of the 3"≈4" plastic sleeve: as a holder for identification. Consisting of “seven consecutive paintings that explore the idea of the constructed image,” the series used sheets of mylar increasingly obscured by vellum. In the first piece, viewers could see their own reflection in an empty silhouette

of a person’s head. Over subsequent pieces, the reflective head silhouette was designed to disappear behind a tie, a rope, a ribbon and stalks of wheat. According to Robinson, the incremental obfuscation of the viewer “questions the interplay between objective and subjective perception.” Essentially, she asked her Albatross Gallery audience to consider how people see themselves and one another.

Other artists who’ve been or will be featured at Albatross include Wilder Schmaltz, T. Nikolai, and Jen Delos Reyes. Each will get a chance to “transcend the apparatus” Reinsch has provided, though even if an artist’s work garners a level of interest that exceeds that of the gallery (which is framed as a contest of interest), it’s debatable what exactly that achievement would prove.

“SOME OF THE BEST DANCERS YOU WILL EVER SEE” – CALGARY HERALD

2 015 – 16 S E A S O N NEW NOW WOW! OCT 22 – 24 / 2015

IN GOOD COMPANY DEC 17 – 18 / 2015

LOUDER THAN WORDS MAR 17 – 19 / 2016

SUMMER SPLENDORS In the final piece from Johanna Robinson's IDENTITY WEAVERS series, the shape of a head that started with a mirror surface is almost entirely obscured.

Clearly, Reinsch isn’t trying to draw statistically significant conclusions from his process. He has no controls, no repeat trials, no hard data to speak of—and that’s just as well.

Unquestionably, his presence as the vehicle for the gallery skews how the project is perceived; colleagues and peers already aware of Reinsch’s canon of work are primed to approach his performances from the niche in which he dwells. But holding Albatross to the standards of the scientific method likely misses the point.

Looking past the contest of interest, Albatross is an opportunity to observe the many ways that exhibition spaces bring validity to art.

For instance, Reinsch says has begun to travel with the gallery, allowing artists to beef up their resumés by citing “solo exhibitions” in non-native locales. Sneaky? Sure—but the goal isn’t to get one over on the arts audience. By personifying the institution that legitimizes works of art, Reinsch hopes he’ll encourage true art lovers to see right through it. .

JUN 9 – 11 / 2016

FIRST CHOICE | BEST SEATS | LOWEST PRICE NO SERVICE FEES | SPECIAL INVITES

SUBSCRIBE NOW

nwdanceproject.org 503.828.8285

NEW NOW WOW!

OCT 22 - 24 / 7:30PM

LINCOLN PERFORMANCE HALL

WORLD PREMIERE - JIRÍ POKORNÝ WORLD PREMIERE - FELIX LANDERER MOTHER TONGUE - IHSAN RUSTEM

TICKETS nwdanceproject.org 503.828.8285

*"Flarf poetry" is an avant-garde form of composition that often uses internet searches to generate surprising word association.

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

41

Uterine fibroids are no party.

Excessive or prolonged periods? Pain or a feeling of fullness in the legs or pelvis? Constant fatigue? You could be party to Uterine Fibroids. But there is a reason to celebrate—thanks to Uterine Artery Embolization (UAE) you can rid yourself of symptoms with a less invasive, uterus sparing alternative to surgery.

The UAE procedure is performed through a tiny catheter threaded into an artery. Microscopic particles are then injected into the uterine artery, blocking essential blood flow, causing fibroids to shrink and dissolve. You are in and out of the hospital in less than 24 hours, with minimal discomfort and no major surgery downtime.

You’ll be back to the party in no time.

For more information contact Dr. Mary Costantino, Interventional Radiologist at 503 535 8314 or at www.epicveins.com Dr. Mary Costantino

Custom Design RINGS SET WITH SAPPHIRES, RUBIES, 18K WHITE GOLD & PLATINUM

503.636.4025 VANDENBURGHJEWELERS.COM 27 A AVENUE, LAKE OSWEGO | TUESDAY–FRIDAY 10:00–5:30, SATURDAY 10:00–4:00

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

43

or a 44-year-old restaurant with a name that teases fate, Veritable Quandary’s faced surprisingly few dilemmas. Staff turnover is unusually rare there—the newest employee’s put in five years; the chef, Annie Cuggino, has devoted 20; and the owner, Dennis King, has hardly missed a day since the restaurant opened, spending his mornings balancing the books and his afternoons doing the landscaping.

In 1999, when the building suffered a fire, King and crew had the place rebuilt in just 85 days.

As the World Trade Center, the Keller Auditorium, and various hotels gradually transformed the west end of the Hawthorne Bridge from a huddle of condemned, empty buildings to a high-powered hub of arts and politics, VQ withstood a major shift in clientele. The old “regulars” were King’s fellow Portland State University students and activist friends, while the newer visitors were international businesspeople via the Trade Center, tourists from the hotels, and showfolk spilling out of the Keller in search of post-show dinner and drinks.

In any case, no stripe of famous guest could faze them.

“Tony Curtis walked in the front door,” King recalls, “with an ascot and a silk handkerchief sticking out of his blue blazer. And he just announces, ‘I’m here!’

Everyone turned and looked, then went right back to what they were doing.”

In an ever-more-cosmopolitan location, VQ increasingly stood out as the sole locally owned fine dining spot, a green-lawned oasis. But that lawn actually belonged to the county. And the foreshadowed quandary was coming.

DENNIS KING, OWNER OF VQ.

Not Going ANYWHERE Veritable Quandary, a staple for “showfolk” and the arts, resolves to ride out the new construction in its backyard.

BY A.L. ADAMS. PHOTOS BY RAINA STINSON.

44

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

Last fall, King got a phone call inviting him to the county building on Southeast Hawthorne, where officials informed him that his site was under consideration for a new courthouse. While the county doesn’t own the VQ’s land, it could claim the garden just beyond the restaurant’s patio—the same garden King had been tending every afternoon for more than three decades.

In what he describes as a “back slap” agreement with a county official, King had originally promised to keep the space beautiful if the county would leave it alone.

But, apparently, that deal had expired.

“It’s been a funny year,” he understates. “And that was a difficult conversation. I don’t think anyone’s been as fortunate as me...but my first response was, ‘My passion is being stripped away!’”

King can’t help but see the county’s plan as symptomatic of a greater Portland value change—of urban density and development taking precedence over the city’s beauty and balance, and a new generation rejecting an old-fashioned move to the suburbs in favor of staking smaller, closer-in spaces. Patches of greenery, he fears, are no longer a priority. Still, the Quandary remains a tough nut, refusing to be crushed.

After much discussion, including a rejected buyout offer and a hearing where VQ employees and customers voiced their adamant support, the county has decided to build around the restaurant, constructing an L-shaped structure that will, as general manager Erin

Recipe

BRAISED BEEF SHORT RIBS in RHUBARB GASTRIQUE Makes 6 entree portions

VQ’S PATIO IS A FAVORITE AMONGST SHOWGOERS.

Hokland puts it, “encase us.” VQ will lose its lawn, its view of the Hawthorne Bridge, and much of its natural light.

“Is it going to be as beautiful as the new Federal Building [facelift], where the walls are integrated with greenery? Or are our customers going to be looking in the windows and seeing people being cuffed, frisked, metal-detected?” wonders Hokland. “We don’t know! But every day we come here and put a smile on our face, and reassure each customer that we’re not going anywhere.”

New courthouse construction is scheduled to begin in 2016 and finish by 2020, and the county is reportedly factoring protection of VQ and the adjoined Jefferson Station, a historical building, into discussions with contractors. Early reports suggest the county may try to mitigate the impact of construction by completing some assembly on a nearby Southwest Madison Street lot.

Whatever happens to the restaurant’s exterior, VQ plans to keep its bar and dining room intact and continue to display King’s collection of Oregon esoterica, including artworks by Tom Hardy and Kelly Keetel, a ship’s figurehead from a Clint Eastwood movie filmed in Oregon, cast iron building facades recovered from the rubble of a nearby collapse, and a gold record from ‘80s pop band Nu Shooz, a member of which bartended at VQ. They’re still envisioning what to add when the lawn becomes a courtyard: A fountain? A fireplace? Tuscan remnants that make it feel “Italian-y?” With unknowns come options.

“I took the line ‘veritable quandary’ from a novel about King Arthur,” King explains.

“Guinevere’s trying to decide between Arthur’s wisdom and Lancelot’s strength.”

Sounds like that’s at least one compromise the idealistic, intrepid VQ won’t have to make. .

VERITABLE QUANDARY, 1220 SW 1st Ave, Portland, OR 97204. www.veritablequandary.com

Veritable Quandary chef Annie Cuggino finds her style of cuisine harder to describe than to cook. “American?” she begins, then admits the term carries a diner connotation that doesn’t fit. Her roots and her study with Emeril Lagasse would suggest Italian, while a stint in New Orleans has added a southern twang—but of course, “culinary training is always French.” Call it what you like, Quandary food follows its own strict guidelines.

Everything but some Ken’s Artisan bread is made from scratch in-house, and the menu changes daily to reflect seasonal availability of fresh local produce.

INGREDIENTS Six 1-pound, bone-in beef short ribs

1 quart rhubarb, sliced

Canola oil

2 quarts chicken stock

Salt Black pepper 1 large onion 2 carrots 2 ribs celery 1½ cups sugar 1 cup red wine vinegar

In this spirit, Cuggino’s short rib prep and pairings change with the seasons. She’ll serve these rhubarb ribs in late spring or early summer with grilled Broccolini tossed with toasted pine nuts and fregula, pictured. By midsummer, cherries flavor the gastrique and pea tips or snap peas are the side. Mushrooms earthen the dish up in the fall, with southern-style white cheddar corn spoonbread on the side. And if any of those crops don’t come in? “Our sous chef, Victor, has wonderful dried chilis!”

A GASTRIQUE is a sweet-and-sour sauce at its simplest, made from caramelized sugar (or sometimes honey) combined with vinegar, reduced slightly to make a tart, slightly thickened syrup.

2 cups red wine ½ teaspoon whole cloves 2 whole star anise ½ tablespoon fresh garlic, minced 1 bay leaf Pinch red chili flakes

Preheat oven to 250 F. Season ribs generously with salt and black pepper, and sear in canola oil on all sides until they’re a nice dark brown. Place in a deep roasting pan and set aside. Slice celery, carrots, and onions, and brown over low heat. Add to the pan with the ribs.

CHEF ANNIE CUGGINO

Caramelize sugar until deep brown.

Add red wine vinegar and sliced rhubarb (or seasonal substitute). Be careful; the mixture may spatter! Simmer the gastrique until sugar is fully melted, and then pour sauce over the ribs. Braise the ribs in the preheated oven until tender, which may take up to 6 hours.

Remove the ribs from the pan, and strain the remaining sauce through a sieve.

Heat the sauce to a rapid boil to reduce to the desired consistency. Pour the thickened sauce over the ribs, and serve with a seasonal side.

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

45

FUN FACTS The phrase “hold a candle” comes from an Italian tradition: Young couples were chaperoned on their dates by a matron whose only official job was to hold a candle between them. Now, the idiom has come to mean harboring romantic feelings for someone you can’t have.

AMORE ITALIANO

Oregon Ballet Theatre [October 10–October 17 ] UNDERSTUDY IS A PRETTY THANKLESS ROLE IN MOST PRODUCTIONS, BUT OCCASIONALLY A STAR’S MISFORTUNE GIVES AN UP-AND-COMER A BIG BREAK. IN 1967, LAWRENCE OLIVIER HAD TO DUCK OUT OF NATIONAL THEATRE’S DANCE OF DEATH AND IN STEPPED HIS UNDERSTUDY: ANTHONY HOPKINS.

THE UNDERSTUDY

Artists Repertory Theatre [September 8–October 4 ]

Before Stephen King’s fictional Carrie, there was Nina Kulagina, a real-life Russian woman famous for her alleged powers of telekinesis (moving objects with her mind). During the Cold War, she starred in several black-and-white Soviet films, appearing to move objects on a table without touching them.

CARRIE: THE MUSICAL

Stumptown Stages [October 22–November 8 ]

The word “or” is very similar in several languages. In Spanish and Italian, it’s “o.” In German, it’s “oder,” and in French, it’s “ou.”

OR,

Third Rail Repertory Theatre [September 18–October 10]

46

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

TAG

D R A M MY E D ITI O N

Tag. You’re It. Artslandia’s twist on the timeless chasing game of “tag” is a pay-it-forward series of compliments between members of Portland’s performing arts community, championing good work and generating good will at every stop.

This summer, Artslandia sent performer-about-town SUSANNAH MARS to the Drammy Awards to ask, “Who’s a colleague you admire and why?”

ERIC NORDIN

SEAN MCGRATH ON KAY OLSEN

(PIANIST, VOCALIST AND MUSIC EDUCATOR) ON

(AVID THEATERGOER/ VOLUNTEER EXTRAORDINAIRE)

SEAN MCGRATH

(SKETCH COMEDIAN AND ACTOR)

Mr. Sean McGrath is one of the funniest men I know. Absolutely. He has a quicker wit than... at least everybody in this room, but probably in this entire city! We’ve done officially one show together, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson at Portland Playhouse, but I see him around town all the time. He inspires me by his quickness, especially when he’s improvising. Being a jazz musician, I can riff off of that easily.

Kay is the heart of Portland theater, and she’s been at every show since...

I think 1906. She’s amazing. She’s into wheat germ and brown rice.

You don’t have a show unless Kay Olson has seen your show; it’s the mark of a bona fide theatrical performance. If Kay Olson can’t come to your show, then it really doesn’t count. Also, Kay Olson—although she doesn’t market herself as this—is one of the best theater critics in town. She will tell you the whole truth and nothing but.

She’ll tell you every show that wasn’t worth your time from the last year. There’s no B.S. with Kay Olson. Again, same thing with Eric Nordin. No B.S. That’s why I like them.

KAY OLSEN ON KATE MURA

KATE MURA ON KRISTEEN CROSSER

(FUSE THEATRE ENSEMBLE)

Kristeen does designs so beautifully! I’ve worked with her in a designer-designer relationship as well as an actor-designer relationship.

Her ability to paint pictures with light and sets, and to listen to everyone in the group and change and flow with everyone else, is phenomenal.

Kate is one of the most exciting and experimental puppeteers in Portland. Her pieces show humor and touch on all aspects of simply being human.

KRISTEEN CROSSER

ON

A MUSICAL COMEDY PARODY OF FILM NOIR MYSTERIES

KAYE BLANKENSHIP

Photo by Timothy Park.

(THEATRICAL DESIGNER)

Adrift in Macao

Music by

peter MeLniCk

(SCENIC LIGHTING AND PROP DESIGNER)

Kaye is a phenomenal scenic lighting designer and prop designer. We’ve primarily worked together on props design, and our closest relationship as designers has been when she’s been designing props on the shows where I’m designing sets. Kaye is one of the most detail-oriented prop designers in the world. We designed Gideon’s Knot together for Third Rail Rep. All of the set dressing was under Kaye’s responsibility. We had so much fun creating the other students in the classroom (a set from the play) and what kind of personalities they had. We dressed the set with student papers and projects that Kaye made [pretending to be] a fifth grader.

Book and Lyrics by

SEP. 24

Christopher Durang

THROUGH

OCT. 25

BROADWAY ROSE NEW STAGE, TIGARD

FOR TICKETS & INFO

broadwayrose.org•503.620.5262

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

47

C

R

O

S

S

W

O

R

D

1 2 3 4 5 7

Think you got ‘em all right?

Find the answers to this crossword puzzle on our website!

6

8 9

10

11 12

www.artslandia.com

13 14 15 17

18

21

24

19

16 20

22

23

25

26

DOWN 27 28

29

30

ACROSS

1. The Price playwright.

2. Delibes’ opera Lakmé is set in this country.

6. Captain Walker, The Acid Queen and Cousin Kevin can all be found in this musical.

7. A literary advisor for a play or script.

11. The area of a Greek theater where the chorus is situated.

12. The Peter character in Peter and the Wolf is represented by this family of instruments.

13. King Lear’s daughters: Regan, Goneril, and .

17. The Romeo character in West Side Story.

18. This make of string instrument is known for its superior quality.

20. This famous opera opens in a square in Seville.

48

21. Konstantin is a young playwright with an actress mother in this play.

23. The sackbut is an ancestor of this modern instrument.

26. The time at which each individual actor is expected to be at the theater.

28. The highest ranking title for a female ballet dancer: Prima Ballerina .

29. Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony is also known by this name.

30. This Shakespeare play is superstitiously not to be mentioned by name or quoted in a theater.

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

1. Man of la .

3. Movin’ Out choreograper Tharp.

4. This was the nickname for Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

5. Sky and Nathan are to guys as Sarah and Miss Adelaide are to this.

8. This play was turned into the movie His Girl Friday.

9. Les Misérables premiered in this city.

10. Beethoven’s Bagatelle in A Minor is more commonly known by this name.

14. Modern dance school formed by Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis.

15. In La Cage aux Folles, “La Cage aux Folles” is this.

16. The play was written in 1979 and the movie was released in 1984. Both share a title and are about the same composer.

19. Handel’s Messiah was first performed in this city in 1742.

22. This Ancient Greek playwright acted in his own plays.

24. The Pirates of .

25. This type of voice’s vocal range lies between bass and tenor.

26. The fifth movement to Beethoven’s Op. 130 Quartet.

27. In music, the abbreviation “Op.” is short for this.

CREATING SPACE, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 21

City Commissioner Nick Fish handles the arts portfolio in Portland, and he’s concerned about the housing and workspace problems, too. When I asked him what was going on, he wrote back: “Last fall, in my capacity as Arts Commissioner, I convened a group of advocates and developers to discuss artists’ housing,” he wrote, and named an auspicious group of arts people and developers that included Al Solheim, Brad Malsin, Ken Unkeles, and Eloise Damrosch, among many others. “Some of the models we discussed include Milepost 5 and the Falcon Art Community.”

“It’s a real challenge in a very tight rental market,” he continued. “Artists are typically priced out of market rate rentals and may not qualify for traditional ‘affordable housing’ for families at or below 60 percent of the median family income (currently $44,100 for a family of four). The challenge becomes how we fill this gap with the resources we have available (which are limited) and our existing toolkit.”

He also said that the city “does not currently have specific arts-related building subsidies” for developers, although the strategy for the Lents Urban Renewal Area Plan, for example, includes provisions for “community-based and culturally-specific organizations.”

Still, when I asked Fish if the city understood that the renovation of existing space into arts facilities is a public service and should be encouraged actively, he answered succinctly.

“Probably not.” In exchange for help over zoning hurdles, artists could propose community-beneficial services, à la, “Approve my theater renovation, and I’ll enlist area puppet theater companies to provide Saturday morning programming for neighborhood kids.”

Ultimately, this issue is more critical than maybe it looks from the outside. The Creative New York report quotes John Alschuler, chairman of HR&A Advisors, an economic development and real estate consulting firm: “Our core competitive advantage as a city is our ability to exploit the economics of creativity. Creativity in all kinds of different sectors is what drives New York.”

ALEXANDER LINGAS | Founder and Artistic Director Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil (“The Vespers”): September 12-13 Cyprus: Greek East and Latin West: November 14-15 Epiphany: Medieval Byzantine and Old Roman Chant: January 2-3 Passion Week by Steinberg: February 13-14 New Mystics from East and West: May 14-15 “simply beautiful” – the new york times

Of course, New York operates on a much larger scale than Portland, but the description fits both cities. The health of the economy here depends increasingly on our high concentration of artists and designers—and our creativity, in turn, spirals upward the more artists there are per capita.

Losing that concentration? Well, at this point it’s unthinkable. .

BARRY JOHNSON is the editor of Oregon ArtsWatch, and the Editor-at-Large of Artslandia.

cappellaromana.org

503.236.8202

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

49

LAST LAUGH THE

Considering that she’s currently on a tour called There’s No I in Team But There’s a Cho in Psycho, we didn’t know what to expect from a conversation with MARGARET CHO. What we got was a sensible take on a variety of political topics.

ILLUSTRATION BY

INTERVIEW BY AMANDA VALLEY.

CAROLYN MAIN

ARTSLANDIA: You’ve got so many hats that you wear: comedian, activist, actor, writer, musician, designer, burlesque performer... In your perfect world, how would you reshuffle all those titles that you have?

MARGARET: I’ll always be a comedian, and

that’s the first thing I identify as, and what everything is filtered through—all my writing, all my music, and I use my writing as part of my activism as well. But they’re all definitely things that I love doing. It’s great. I have a lot of energy, and that’s really good, but it’s also that I’m very passionate about everything.

A: So you recently participated in the David Thorpe documentary Do I Sound Gay? M: It was fun, and it really is an interesting

topic, you know? Why do we qualify masculinity through sound of voice? What does it matter? What does it mean to sound gay?

So, I enjoyed the project, and I think it’s a cool movie.

A: You’ve played both Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un on 30 Rock. Are you going to add North Korean peacemaker as well?

M: That’d be good; that’d be great. That’s

what’s needed—at least a way for us to figure out what’s happening in that country. It’s very separate and far-off. Half my family is still in North Korea, but we’ve been separated for 65 years, so we don’t know what’s going on.

It’s very strange.

A: Amid more Bill Cosby rape accusations, you’ve recently introduced the hashtag #isurviveandTHRIVE. Is there anything you want to talk about as far as that’s concerned?

M: Well, I can’t believe that it’s taken 40 years

for us to be able to hear these women. It’s frustrating because he won’t be in prison for this, I doubt. When a woman is raped, we don’t have a natural statute of limitations; we live with that forever. The language around it is important to me: we’re not victims; we’re

survivors. It’s important to consider yourself a survivor.

A: The 2016 elections are coming up. Are you ready to endorse Mike Huckabee?

M: Oh, God. He’s really crazy! He’s literally insane. I don’t exactly know what his function is in terms of this race? I don’t even know. I’m really very fond of Bernie Sanders. It would be great if he ran with Hillary; I like her too.

She’s already been president for eight years, so she knows what she’s doing. I know her personally, and I think she’s great, but I like Bernie Sanders a lot.

A: Who makes you laugh, Margaret?

M: Donald Trump. It’s funny. It’s so bizarre.

He’s the worst for so many reasons. We’ll see what else happens, but I think he’s going to be the most entertaining. .

Catch Margaret Cho at Revolution Hall on October 25!

50

ARTSL ANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE • SEPT | OCT 2015

WHERE PORTLAND GOES FOR ALL THINGS MUSIC, DANCE AND THEATER. the RESOLUTIONS ISSUE

MUSIC | DANCE | THEA TER

AT THE PERFORMANCE JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2015

THOMAS LAUDERDALE

on the arts, politics and the future of Portland

P. 16

PAST PERFORMANCES

CHORAL ARTS ENSEMBLE FROM THE DESK OF

MARCELLA CROWSON PARTNERS ONSTAGE AND OFF

An Interview with Skinner/Kirk

P. 35

FERTILE GROUND

A

GOOD DEEDS:

SHORT & SWEET

Launching this fall!

P. 27

Sensory-friendly concerts

for Theatre POR

P. 30

TLA ND’ S PER FOR MIN G ART S ANN UAL 2 0 1 5 - 2 0 16

Artslandia15-1

• OUR FIFTH ISSUE

6_Pages1-19.i

ndd 1

8/17/15 2:14 PM

ARTSLANDIA KIDS A complete arts resource where parents and kids can learn about performances, classes, camps and more.

ARTSLANDIA AT THE PERFORMANCE

ARTSLANDIA ANNUAL

A bimonthly playbill-integrated magazine with original stories exploring music, dance, and theater in Portland.

A complete directory of an entire season of music, dance and theater: arts group profiles, performance dates, and more.

WWW.ARTSLANDIA.COM

HAMMERANDHAND.COM PORTLAND 503.232.2447 CCB#105118 SEATTLE 206.397.0558 WACL#HAMMEH1930M7

Karuna House, designed by Holst Architecture and built by Hammer & Hand 2013 AIA Portland Design Award, 2014 National Institute of Building Sciences Beyond Green Award