Storm Large’s one woman show about her effed up childhood, Crazy Enough, opens tonight at Portland Center Stage. Storm told me that the show hasn’t changed too dramatically since she debuted it at JAW over the summer, save that David Bowie’s people wouldn’t give her the rights to “Rock n Roll Suicide” (I’m a little disappointed about that; it was a highlight). I wondered, too, if she’d be encouraged to clean up her pottymouth a bit, but she assured me that there’d been “no censorship” of any kind. (She also mused that there is “something so profoundly gay about musical theater,” which, when I found it in my notes just now, made me feel a little bad about overpolicing the “homo” tag earlier.)
Public Playhouse opens bobrauschenbergamerica tonight, a sort of theatrical collage about the life of the artist Bob Rauschenberg, by theatrical open source proponent Charles Mee (read the script here). This is the third show from a company that thus far has produced very straightforward material—I’m interested to see them tackle something a little more offbeat. This little company has really done a great job creating a welcoming, comfortable atmosphere around their shows; I hope they can continue to let us drink free beer and sit on couches while tackling more challenging shows.
To Lindy West’s hilarious Stranger article The Different Kinds of People That There Are, I would add: People who constantly explain how nerdy/fat/unpopular they were in middle school in order to highlight how attractive and well-adjusted they are now. Which is kiiiind of what Mortified is like, only curated. And funny. That’s tonight and tomorrow at the Someday Lounge.
More listings here.