3rd Floor, The 3rd Floor XXVI
Sketch comedy troupe the 3rd Floor seems particularly in synch with the zeitgeist at the moment (zeitgeistal? can you make it an adjective?)—they favor jokes about spaceships and superheroes, and lately everyone and their mom is reading Watchmen (not to mention compulsively rewatching the Star Trek trailer. Blogtown is Nerdtown lately, has anyone else noticed?). If their website doesn’t make you want to go see their show, I do not know what is wrong with you.
Fuse Theater Ensemble, TRAGEDY: a tragedy
Ready for the obligatory quote that must be invoked when discussing Will Eno? “Mr. Eno is a Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation,” Christopher Isherwood, The New York Times. I’m not familiar with the script, and Fuse is a new company, but here’s a review of the piece that makes me want to see it.
Portland Center Stage, The Importance of Being Earnest and How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found
The more I think about How to Disappear, the more I liked it—and I liked it a fair amount to begin with. I don’t really ever want to think about The Importance of Being Earnest again and I can’t in good faith encourage anyone to actually pay for it, but that’s there too. It’s not bad, it’s just… meh.
Tickets to both shows are spendy, but if you keep an eye on their blog, PCS is really fantastic about offering deals and whatnot (plus it’s good reading—PR wizard Trisha Pancio has a thoughtful post up today about self-reinvention in the digital age). And $10 rush tickets before shows, don’t forget.
Portland Playhouse, Mauritus
Only the second production from this company; their first show was a pretty solid production of After Ashley. (I just want to take this moment to apologize to anyone who actually reads theater reviews [hello?] for using the phrase “Portland Playhouse is a promising addition to the local theater scene” in that review. It must have been a rough deadline day or something.) Anyway, “Mauritius is a thriller about stamp collecting,” says New York Magazine. And their show space has couches and there’s free beer.
Tin Pan Alley, Bare
This is a musical about high school. Sounds vaguely familiar somehow… but whatever, I kind of really want to see it. Check the character descriptions:
JASON – handsome golden child of St. Cecilia’s senior class
PETER – introspective, Jason’s clandestine boyfriend
IVY – pretty, popular, insecure
NADIA – Jason’s pudgy, sardonic twin sister
MATT – studious, pious, Jason’s academic rival
LUCAS – The school’s fun-loving purveyor of altered reality
TANYA – African-American, Lucas’s girlfriend
KYRA – African-American student, sexy
DIANE – Asian student, very naive
RORY – student, sarcastic
ZACK – student, jock type
ALAN – student, nerdy
CLAIRE – Peter’s mother
SR. CHANTELLE – African-American nun, wise, no-nonsense
PRIEST – St. Cecilia’s headmaster
Awesome, right? Yes.
That’s just the tip of the proverbial; there’s a ton going on this weekend. (Super Project Lab! Wicked! Neil Simon!) Visit our theater listings for more.
Seeing as it’s Cat Friday, some posts about cats would be nice. Bonus points for pictures of cats. Thank you for your time.
Seeing as it’s Cat Friday, some posts about cats would be nice. Bonus points for pictures of cats. Thank you for your time.
Why does the Merc hate Portland Actors Conservatory and never list their performances? Weird. They’re doing a performance of Brighton Beach Memoirs right now that’s quite good. You should check it out this weekend.
The first half of How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found was fantastic. Then something happened and it seemed to fall apart. Lead was fantastic, however, throughout.