DramaWatch: Back in the saddle again
October 7, 2021
As the stage world begins to bustle, Marty Hughley rides herd on the scene, from Shakespeare to Bojangles.
As the stage world begins to bustle, Marty Hughley rides herd on the scene, from Shakespeare to Bojangles.
Out of the Covid crisis rises the captivating specter of François Villon, a wild 15th century poet for our times.
Covid clipped the new company’s wings as it was taking flight. Now it’s back, with a set of six filmed shows.
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival meets the times with a hybrid season of new and old: video now, maybe onstage later.
Fertile Ground 2021: Sue Mach’s “Madonna of the Cat” fills in the 16-year gap in Shakespeare’s “Winter’s Tale.”
In his final days, designer and artist Tim Stapleton hosted a free flow of friends. Now, his final artwork is on view.
The well-loved Portland designer, writer, visual artist, and actor dies from the effects of ALS.
Unit Souzou live-streams with “The Constant State of Otherness.” Plus: what isn’t happening in theater.
“The show must go on…unless it shouldn’t.” What’s up and what’s off in theater amid COVID-19.
From “Hair” to “Hedwig,” a broad range of stories populates Portland Center Stage’s 2020-’21 season.
As a new season begins, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s new leader talks about expanding a legacy of inclusion.
Ashland opens its 85th anniversary season; new shows across Portland, the dark side of “West Side Story.”
Darius Pierce nails it in a riveting play for Corrib Theatre. Plus: new awards, hires, seasons, and shows.
Two women, in love — kissing even! “Indecent,” “Pipeline,” measuring “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”
“She’s crazy. Always has been. Always will be.” Imago’s “Special K” drinks deep of theatrical madness.
Clown CoHort cavorts through Romanticism’s fertile ground; openings & closings dot the theater calendar.
Fresh voices, surprising ideas emerge at Fertile Ground – and the theater week stays busy elsewhere, too.
Christopher Acebo stages Lynn Nottage’s timely look at labor for Profile. Plus, a burst of new shows.
The week in theater offers more Christmas shows than you can shake a candy cane at!
“Melancholy Play” is a whimsical reminder that sometimes you feel like a nut. Plus: holiday treats and Portland theater Christmas stuffing.
The week in theater features OSF actors with the Oregon Symphony, sketch comedy, social commentary, and other experiments.
Some thoughts on theater etiquette, on ideas about race and cultural preference, and on what shows to see this week in Portland.
Romance, race, genealogy clash in “Redwood” at Portland Center Stage; weekly tips on Portland theater.
Reflections on the end of Bill Rauch’s tenure at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; plus the week in Portland theater.
“Women of Will,” a season-highlight at Portland Playhouse, charts Shakespeare’s growth through his female characters.
A fresh look at “A View From the Bridge” highlights a busy theater week, along with musicals, Greek epics and scary Halloween treats.
Tragedy strikes Center Stage (that’s a good thing), Broadway Rose sells out, Shaking the Tree goes Greek.
“The Wolves” highlights a theater week that also includes the Mueller Report on stage and a Vertigo dark comedy.
Corrib looks at a “medieval” Irish scandal; Triangle makes a Darcelle musical; a pirate for the kids.
In her new book, Susan Banyas takes a kaleidoscopic look back at a landmark school desegregation case.
Portland’s theater week: the dystopia of “1984,” Fake Radio recreating the ’40s, Shakespeare in the house.
“Queens Girl” draws us in and charms us, then brings us on a journey of surprising scope, depth and, yes, universality.
The fall theater season kicks into gear with musical panache at PCS, dystopia at Artists Rep, and much more.
Ex-“Live Wire” star Sean McGrath puts some sketch in his comedy. Plus “Hair” and other openings.
A reading of the veteran actor/writer’s “The Best Worst Place” highlights the Proscenium Live showcase.
“And remember your main relationship to everything you bring is that you’re gonna have to carry it, so choose wisely.” That sounds like a good bit of practical travel advice. But because it is a line from a play, it also has
Once upon a time I had a dream about the Drammys. I don’t mean dream as in a sleepytime movie, but rather a hope, a wish, an ideal of a future. When I first began to care about the Drammy Awards, the
The annual Drammy Awards ceremony, which celebrates outstanding work in Portland-area theater, is a warm and welcoming event. How welcoming? Well, so much so that, after one acting award was announced, the evening’s host, Carla Rossi, observed, “That is the only instance
Around 2002 or 2003, not long after Storm Large had moved to Portland and started to establish herself as a local cultural phenom, several friends told me I had to go to the Old Town nightclub Dante’s to hear this amazing rock
Jason Glick and Danielle Weathers, artistic leaders of Chapel Theatre Collective, appear to have a keen eye for stage literature. The company’s debut production, Anatomy of a Hug by Kat Ramsburg, paired a dramatically potent premise (a mom, released from prison because
Stepan Simek is a professor of theater at Lewis & Clark College, a director, and an accomplished theatrical adapter and translator. Now he’s also a real estate developer. Well, in a manner of speaking. Simek recently opened a small studio space for
“Conceived and organized by the Portland Area Theater Alliance, Fertile Ground is a new, 10-day, city-wide festival dedicated to the creation and promotion of original works for the theater. Home-grown and wide-ranging, it both reflects and nurtures the creativity, aesthetic diversity and
For many years, J.D. Stubenberg and Lisa Boyle were mainstays of the great Portland music club Jimmy Mak’s, in their own ways as vital to the place as the hotspot’s founder/owner Jimmy Makarounis and the musicians who lit up the stage there.
Richard of Gloucester was a dick. At least that’s impression we’re given by Shakespeare in his history play Richard III, in which this man (among many) who would be king is presented as deformed, less so for his hunchback than for his
“The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you,” the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson tells us. But you — by which I mean we humans — are under an obligation, or at least a compulsion, to make sense of the
Imago Theatre has built much of its reputation on an evolving series of family-friendly mask-theater shows such as the ever-popular ZooZoo, which it brings back for another holiday run through Jan. 6. But after decades presenting that show, its much-lauded predecessor Frogz,
“Ye think sin in the beginning full sweet, Which in the end causeth thy soul to weep, When the body lieth in clay.” — from The Summoning of Everyman: a treatise how the high father of heaven sendeth death to summon every
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! If you’re into that sort of thing. Tradition holds that the next few weeks will be dominated by Christmas cheer — and likely by Christmas hype, Christmas stress, and when it comes to the
“It’s an English teacher’s remit to analyse language, but pick apart every word of Shakespeare and you’ve dissected the butterfly – pretty in parts but a nonsensical whole and certainly unable to fly.” — Mark Powell, associate director of Salisbury Playhouse, in
“People like they historical shit in a certain way. They like it to unfold they way they folded it up. Neatly like a book. Not raggedy and bloody and screaming.” Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks isn’t big on folding things up neatly. And despite
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