Portland Area Theatre Alliance Fertile Ground Portland Oregon
September 2018
Portland Center Stage at the Armory Nassim Portland Oregon

Art Harvest Studio Tour of Yamhill County reaps as it sows

Given the confluence of autumn colors and great art, it’s tempting to employ hyperbole when talking about Yamhill County’s Art Harvest Studio Tour, but I’ll spare you a Thesaurus Drop and just lay out the facts. The 26th annual event includes 40

Comedy tussles with drama in NDP’s ‘Room 4,’ ‘Carmen’

The premise of Sarah Slipper’s new dance Room 4, which opened Thursday in the Newmark Theatre and is continuing its premiere production through Saturday night, is quirky and appealing, in a how’s-she-going-to-do-that? way: to cross the cryptic playwright Harold Pinter with the

DramaWatch: In the wake of words with Will Eno

“People talk about matters of Life and Death. But it’s really just Life, isn’t it. When you think about it.” So says Guy, the main character in the Will Eno play Wakey, Wakey, which on Saturday opens the 2018-’19 Portland Playhouse season.

Eleanor O’Brien’s naked truth

Eleanor O’Brien is a visionary: the leader of a movement, a prophet of her own religion. She is a theater artist yet theatre is almost secondary to her mission, a tool in her toolbox, a means to an end. Starting Monday and

Indian Summer

Two recent concerts of Indian classical music—one presented by Kalakendra, the other by Dance Mandal and Michael Stirling—made a good contrast in listening experiences. One was a family affair, local vocalist Stirling accompanied by his friend Joss Jaffe on tabla and his

Artists Rep picks J.S. May as new managing director

Artists Repertory Theatre, trying to navigate a time of both turbulence and promise, has hired a steady hand to guide the ship. Portland’s oldest and second-largest theater announced Tuesday afternoon that J.S. (John Stuart) May, a respected figure in non-profit management in

Autumn Leaves: PDX Jazz’s fall season

by ANGELA ALLEN  Sold out. It’s no surprise that the piano-driven Tord Gustavsen Trio’s Sept. 30 concert sold out weeks ago. But you still have more chances to catch cutting-edge jazz in Portland this fall, courtesy of PDX Jazz. Gustavsen and his

Witnesses in a churning world

The idea of art as a pristine thing, separated from the hurly-burly of the everyday world and somehow above it all, is a popular notion. But a much stronger case exists for the idea of art as the expression of the roil

MusicWatch Weekly: centennial celebration

Has any musician ever had a year like Leonard Bernstein did between November 1943 and December 1944? The 25-year-old wunderkind won national fame for fill-in conducting the New York Philharmonic on short notice in a nationally broadcast concert from Carnegie Hall, conducted

Judy Cooke: The birth of an artist

Since her first exhibitions here 45 years ago, Judy Cooke has been a leading artist in the realm of “painting” in Portland, though paint is just one aspect of her materials palette. All of her works in the current exhibition Conversation: Aluminum,

Cappella Romana: unexpected sounds

Story and photos by FRIDERIKE HEUER “On second thought, maybe I should go to the concert. Even if it is church music played in a church. Or maybe because it is church music played in a church – time to stretch yourself.”

Purple is the color of hard-won joy

The Color Purple looms large in America’s literary (and cinematic) canon. Beloved and controversial, Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about an African American woman living in the early 1900’s has touched millions. Unsurprisingly, it’s not an easy story. The hardships that the

‘Ann’: sketchy portrait

Holland Taylor’s one-woman tribute, Ann, which Triangle Productions is staging through September 29, brought back memories of a politician I both criticized and admired. I covered Ann Richards and Texas politics during her last term as elected state treasurer and through her successful campaign

Shoring up Toledo’s Centennial Celebration Mural

This seems to be the season for kids and art — a topic that naturally came up earlier this month when the Newport Performing Arts Center celebrated its 30th anniversary. Talk of old times (and new) called to mind for many all

More than a feeling of “Ordinary Days”

Feelings can be sneaky things. For instance, as I sat through the Broadway Rose production of Adam Gwon’s musical Ordinary Days, the first tear that came coursing down the side of my nose took me entirely by surprise. Nothing tragic or especially

Painting the town in Newberg

Those of you in Portland lucky enough to live within a few blocks of an awesome mural have to understand: We don’t have as many artists in Yamhill County as you do. Or as many walls. But give us some credit; we

NW amble: high style in the Gorge

Essay and Photographs by K.B. Dixon The Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum (which has branded itself with the stuttering acronym WAAAM) sits right next door to the Hood River Airport. It is one of the Columbia Gorge’s newer treasures. Housed in

Oregon Symphony’s diversity deficit

by DAMIEN GETER The Oregon Symphony opens its 2018-19 Classical Series Sunday with a musically diverse program and a glittering star — Renee Fleming. As varied as the concert selections are, though, they all have one thing in common: they were all

Imani Winds: unapologetically bold

What’s special about Imani Winds, besides their overall badassery as a woodwind quintet, is that the group boasts two composers—horn player Jeff Scott and flutist Valerie Coleman. Although Coleman is taking a break from performing with the group, her presence (physical and

DramaWatch: “Ordinary Days,” “Color” ways and other plays

Isaac Lamb is among the most versatile, widely accomplished of Portland-area theater artists, but he believes he’s found a particular niche with his work for Broadway Rose. Amid the crowd-pleasing classics, nostalgic tributes and revues, there’s room for what we might call

DanceWatch Weekly: Embracing Odissi in the Age of Trump

Since Donald Trump took office, I have been watching and admiring artists all around the world react to his words and policies and have been wondering how I should respond myself. Last October, I began seriously studying the dance form of Odissi

Innkeeper by vocation, actor by avocation

I met Sue Neuer some years ago at the front desk of a favorite Cannon Beach hotel. She knew me as the writer frequently on the road for work. I knew her as the innkeeper who tried to accommodate my need for

MusicWatch Weekly: time of the season

Yes, the Zombies no doubt played their iconic 1967 hit at Monday’s show at Revolution Hall, but there’s more seasonal music in the air this week. One of those iconic Portland fall traditions is to bring the family and some blankets and

Order up! “Waitress” hits the spot

It’s amazing that Waitress, the tiny little indie film from 2007 about a pregnant pie-making server in a bad marriage, ever became a Broadway musical. That this story – a rather intimate tale about a simple Southern woman’s life and love –

Accessible Arts 1: restrictions may apply

By DAVID MACLAINE The system finally caught up with us, right when we were getting comfortable. “Sorry, no seats in that section,” the helpful fellow at Portland’s Newmark Theatre box office told me. The moment we had finally gotten over our anxiety

Zombies rising at Linfield Theatre

George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead turns 50 on Oct. 1. This Thursday, the Linfield College drama team raises the curtain on Lori Allen Ohm’s stage version of the 98-minute black-and-white horror flick shot on a shoestring outside Pittsburgh in 1968.

Theater review: Blood in the snow

“Snow in Midsummer,” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, adapts a 13-century Chinese classic to show ageless grief in modern times.

Andy Akiho: systems within systems

In the midst of a five-week music festival, a weird mid-week show starring composer-performer Andy Akiho felt like a village gathering. Akiho’s music, after all, is geared towards pretty specific tastes: challengingly colorful modern classical music, complex rhythmic grooviness and modern sonorities, rooted

Picturing Oregon: wide open space

On a recent Saturday afternoon I dropped in to the Portland Art Museum and immediately encountered a crowd at the entrance, lined up waiting to get in. That’s odd, I thought. Nice, but odd. Then I heard a bit of chatter in

Home, bittersweet home

Opposites repel, and a room in a retirement home becomes contested ground in “Ripcord,” a rip-roaring comedy at Clackamas Rep.

Love, labor, loss

The dedicated auto workers in Artists Rep’s “Skeleton Crew” have lives on the line and hard choices to make when their plant faces closure.

Cascadia Composers at ten

After Dan Brugh came back from music school, whenever he’d be back on Mount Tabor, near where he grew up, “I always wanted to play music there and bring in other composers,” the Portland composer remembers. But back then, there was no

Artist Deborah Horrell, 1953-2018

Word has arrived that the longtime Portland artist Deborah Horrell died on August 24 after a six-year battle with lung cancer. She was 65. Her obituary is here. “It is with heavy hearts that we inform you that our dear friend and

Rothko: a tunnel runs through it

The journey of the embattled Rothko Pavilion has taken a short cut – straight through the Portland Art Museum’s proposed link between its poorly connected north and south buildings. When the project went public in 2016 the glassing-in of what is now

‘Tango of the White Gardenia’: breaking the code

by ANGELA ALLEN For know-it-all critics and discerning music-goers, “community opera” can be code for bad music, lousy singers and shabby production. Not this time. Tango of the White Gardenia, a collaboration of Cascadia Chamber Opera (previously Cascadia Concert Opera) and Lincoln City

DramaWatch: the Mary Mac Monitor

Mary McDonald-Lewis, one of Portland theater’s most influential voices, directs “The Tempest,” supports the union and much more.

MusicWatch Weekly: voicing identity

When making the transition to align their bodily appearance with their true identities, transgender women must learn to deal with the fact that their old voices don’t transition biologically, even with hormone treatment. One of them, New York composer Sarah Hennies, turned

DanceWatch Weekly: The street dances inside

I LOVE watching freestyle street dancers perform/improvise. It’s like all of their pent-up emotional stuff is forcing its way out of their bodies and they are fighting to control it, to redirect it, and shape it into something beautiful and meaningful. I

America, from inside out

In 1974, nearly a year after Sacheen Littlefeather spoke at the Oscars on behalf of indigenous people, the German Conceptual artist Joseph Beuys flew into New York City and was met at the airport by assistants who wrapped him in felt and

In Newport, 30 and going strong

I discovered Newport in 1993, a fluke visit on our way home from Portland to the southern reaches of the state. I stayed in Nye Beach at a hotel that no longer exists, just a few steps from the Performing Arts Center,

Chamber Music Northwest: music of defiance and transcendence

Chamber Music Northwest celebrated Bastille Day 2018 with music by two of France’s greatest composers and two of the myriad composers they inspired. The first program featured mostly music by Stravinsky, who spent many of his most creative years in Paris, with a

Checking the Percussive Pulse of Eugene

Story and photos by DANIEL HEILA Percussion music and world music rose to prominence in America around the same time at the end of the last century. Recent concerts by the Eugene-based Beta Percussion International Institute (featured in this article by Gary

PHAME: The Dignity of Risk

“I used to voice a tentative I’d like; now it is a firm I want.” This statement, told to me by Anne-Marie Plass during a conversation about the challenges of living with developmental or intellectual disabilities, registered deeply. The difference in wording

Bonnie Bronson 2024 Fellow Wendy Red Star Reed College Reception Kaul Auditorium Foyer Portland Oregon
Kalakendra Indian Classical Instrumental Music First Congregational Church Portland Oregon
Portland Center Stage at the Armory Nassim Portland Oregon
City of Hillsboro Walters Cultural Arts Center Tony Furtado Hillsboro Oregon
Maryhill Museum of Art Goldendale Washington
Portland State University College of the Arts
Portland Chamber Orchestra A Feast of Beethoven Kaul Auditorium Reed College Portland Oregon
PassinArt Theatre and Portland Playhouse present Yohen Brunish Theatre Portland Oregon
Golden Road Arts Grey Raven Gallery Near the Reser Beaverton Oregon
Triangle Productions presents Eleanor starring Margie Boule Portland Oregon
Pacific Maritime Heritage Center Prosperity of the Sea Lincoln County Historical Society Newport Oregon Coast
Newport Performance and Visual Arts Centers Newport Oregon Coast
Portland Art Museum Virtual Sneakers to Cutting Edge Kicks Portland Oregon
Portland Area Theatre Alliance Fertile Ground Portland Oregon
Northwest Dance Project Sarah Slipper Newmark Theatre Portland Oregon
High Desert Museum Sasquatch Central Oregon
Oregon Cultural Trust donate
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