DramaWatch: Chicken, biscuits … and what?
Marty Hughley
September 30, 2022
Portland Playhouse opens a comedy set at a funeral in a Black church. But does the play move beyond sitcom platitudes?
Portland Playhouse opens a comedy set at a funeral in a Black church. But does the play move beyond sitcom platitudes?
Fleming and baritone Rod Gilfrey help open a promising symphony season with a musical tale of Georgia O’Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz.
Spooky books and sweet books to help set an autumn mood; a festival in Cannon Beach; readings to write home about.
Classical mainstays move into their seasons, a choir dissents, new music sounds out, electronica and rock get experimental, plus jazz and post-punk.
A charming gay romantic comedy tops the week; Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline team up smartly again.
As dance presenters Walter Jaffe and Paul King move into their 25th season of running White Bird, the elite company they founded, they prepare to pass the torch.
Photographer Julie Keefe explores community-building in a time of social distancing with “Love Letters.”
The self-guided tour over two weekends includes 49 painters, sculptors, book and jewelry makers, ceramacists, and fabric artists, among others.
How Elizabethan: The new and old of Nashville Ballet’s “Black Lucy and the Bard” on PBS’s Great Performances.
A PSU choir’s link to Leonard Cohen’s most famous song; a Covid cancellation; Afro-Topia Pop-Up; remembering Hilary Mantel & Louise Fletcher; Corey Brunish & “The Music Man.”
When lead actor Richie Stone in Broadway Rose’s musical “The Evolution of Mann” is sidelined by Covid, director Isaac Lamb takes the stage for opening night.
The beloved Happy Valley festival returns.
Marilyn Monroe and David Bowie get unconventional biopics that are catnip for their fans; five Saturdays of Bogart; “Mighty Victoria” kick-starts Latin American film fest.
LaMotte and the conductorless Amadeus Chamber Orchestra will perform with CMNW in September.
File this one under “to see”: Director J. Rick Castañeda and Portland-based composer Nick Jaina talk with Marc Mohan about their new film comedy.
About half of the 61 banners hanging from Newport lampposts – and to be auctioned in November – sport blue and yellow colors.
The show, now open at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at PSU, presents food-related works from Schnitzer’s impressive collection. The result is a sumptuous feast (for the eyes).
New artistic director Jeanette Harrison brings a commitment to a diversity of voices to Portland’s second largest theater company.
Emerging from the pandemic and into its second half-century, Eugene’s summer music extravaganza pulled off worthy concerts while seeking new artistic leadership.
Chasse Davidson at the Newport Visual Arts Center and India Downes-Le Guin at the Hoffman Center
for the Arts tout the sense of community at their coastal centers.
Whet your appetite for the upcoming OSO season with this carefully orchestrated crossword puzzle.
CoHo Clown Festival gets down with some feisty physical comedy; “The Hombres” land at Artists Rep; “tick, tick” heads for its final boom; the enduring wit of Louise Brooks.
Southworth is the namesake of Waldport’s newly announced park. Pete Helzer’s life-sized bronze portrait will celebrate and pay tribute to Southworth and his remarkable life story.
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland will celebrate organist and Canon for Cathedral Music Neswick with a Retirement Evensong service this weekend.
A rigorous and revealing three-hour look at what’s made the movies the movies; the story of an irascible insider who helped shape a golden cinematic age.
The Nov. 5 festival, presented by Literary Arts, is back to full in-person programming with 80 writers and presenters.
The French director, who never stopped reinventing forms and challenging beliefs, changed the face of cinema, Marc Mohan writes.
“In My Own Little Corner” immerses viewers in an autobiographical exploration of past and present. Jennifer Rabin reviews.
Evan Baden’s photobook publishing venture is a passion project two years in the making. Blake Andrews visits Baden in his Corvallis garage, the home of Push Pull Editions, to discuss process and motivation.
Singer and Aquilon Music Festival founder Anton Belov joins with seven-string guitar duo for a series of Romani, Jewish, and Eastern European folk music concerts.
Either way, seismic concerns are pushing a decision. A recent tour of Oregon’s biggest performance hall demonstrated the building’s need and its untapped potential.
Xuan Cheng, principal dancer for Oregon Ballet Theatre, is the new principal dancer and ballet mistress for Hong Kong Ballet. She’ll split the next year between Hong Kong and Oregon.
PICA’s experimental extravaganza hits the boards again. Plus openings, from sci-fi to farce to ghosts, pajamas, book clubs, stony hearts, midsummer dreams and a mushroom hunt.
Multi-week Siletz Bay Music Festival brings classical, jazz, hip-hop, and a relaxed vibe to Lincoln City Cultural Center.
Choirs around Oregon prepare their fall concerts, featuring single-composer premieres, newly-scored old movies, and more.
A contemporary riff on Fassbinder, the private life of a classic suspense writer, and a host of good revivals: It’s a movie week for looking back.
The Portland author says he was surprised to find himself writing about Moms Mabley and Minnie Pearl as he chronicled influential women comedians.
OrpheusPDX closes its inaugural season with chills and goosebumps.
Dmae Lo Roberts talks in her new podcast with the creators of Portland Opera To Go’s new opera for young people, about the pioneering Portland Black leader Beatrice Morrow Cannady.
Photographer K.B. Dixon continues his series of portraits with musicians Marv and Rindy Ross, artist David Eckard, actor Maureen Porter, and writer Todd Schultz.
A deep visit with the expanded garden and with the Japan Institute’s first artist in residence, Japanese glass artist Rui Sasaki.
Art for Labor Day, remembering writer Barbara Ehrenreich and actor Gary Brickner-Schulz, Profile Theatre’s post-theft helping hands, a final week for the biennial.
Singer/actor Susannah Mars and friends are creating a film that explores grief, loss, love, and the connections they forge.
“When theater becomes just about plays, only fans of plays come. We’re going to bring a variety-show mentality and challenge forms. And we’re going to be trying to incubate new forms.”
At Historic Alberta House, 60 of the master maskmaker’s artist friends explore hidden and revealed identities – and Fuemmeler unmasks a change of his own.
Waterfront festivals, touring jazz giants, and local musicians transmute summer into fall.
Major milestones for White Bird, BodyVox, and TBA, plus a season packed with contemporary, modern, and classical dance performances from across the cultural spectrums.
PICA’s Time-Based Art Festival is the marquee event in the September art scene, but there are plenty of other offerings from watercolors to pen-and-ink drawings to multimedia cairns.
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