This six-hour ambling little thing was engaging enough for a while, but I don’t think it fully shows off the “groundbreaking” aspects of experimental theater maker Tim Etchells. The premise: Etchells and two other dudes sat in a room with some Christmas lights strewn around and stacks of paper with thousands of questions written on […]
Justin Wescoat Sanders
Posted inTBA
Tim Etchells: Sight is the Sense that Dying People Tend to Lose First
I think people at this year’s TBA festivities have been spoiled by the likes of Mike Daisey, Daniel Beaty, and other folks who, while certainly subversive and cutting-edge and blah-de-blah-blah-blah, also offer up plenty of good old fashioned straightforward entertainment to keep you engaged. How else to explain why more than a dozen people simply […]
Posted inTBA
The Electric Mike Daisey in Monopoly
Last I saw the storyteller Mike Daisey perform was the last time he came to Portland: for a run of the monologue that put him on the map, 21 Dog Years, at Portland Center Stage. 21 Dog Years was entertaining enough, if on the fluffy side. It found Daisey wandering about the stage, waxing about […]
Posted inArts
The Yes Men: KEEP IT SLICK
Pullout: The Mercury’s Essential Guide to TBA:08
Culture jamming with the Yes Men.
Posted inArts
Mike Daisey: MONOPOLY! and IF YOU SEE SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING
Pullout: The Mercury’s Essential Guide to TBA:08
The monologue stylings of Mike Daisey.
Posted inArt
T:BA Day by Day
The Mercury‘s Daily Picks for This Year’s Time-Based Art Festival
Last week, somebody asked us the somewhat surprising question, “What, exactly, is the Time-Based Art Festival?” (TBA). This caught us a little off guard, as we’re more accustomed to the perennial question, “What looks good at TBA this year?” Fortunately, we have answers to both those questions. Put simply, TBA is 11 straight days of […]
Posted inBooks
Suzan-Lori Parks
In the year 2002, dramatist Suzan-Lori Parks had a slight problem. Not yet 40 years old, she’d already published 11 plays, with a novel on the way—Getting Mother’s Body. She’d worked on screenplays for Spike Lee and Oprah, and in 2002, she had become the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama, […]
Posted inBooks
Justin Hocking
Director of the Independent Publishing Resource Center
If Portland can be said to be “zine-crazed” (and it can), it follows that the Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC) is at the center of the city’s homemade periodical frenzy. This little hole in the wall features computers for writing and graphic designing, four letterpresses, a Gocco printer, a mimeograph, workshops and other hands-on learning […]
Posted inArt
It’s About Time
Everything You Need to Know About This Year’s Time-Based Art Festival
by Chas Bowie, Alison Hallett, Evan James, and Justin Wescoat Sanders
Posted inBooks
Take a Look, It’s in a Book
Wordstock—Like Reading Rainbow… for Adults
Screw LeVar Burton. We don’t need that proto-Urkel anymore. We’ve got Wordstock now. Now in its second year, the first-class lit fest has slimmed down to a svelte three days of writerly awesomeness. This year’s event has more authors than we could possibly list here (for instance: Charles D’Ambrosio, Christopher Moore, Donald Hall, Ariel Gore, […]
Posted inArt
The Little Art Festival That Could
Reed Arts Week Lays Low, but Comes Out Swinging
More than any city we know, Portland loves to get its art fix in concentrated, multi-vitamin bursts of festivity. PICA’s Time-Based Art festival is the leading example, of course; it boasts two year’s worth of programming stuffed into barely more than a week, and draws a far bigger audience than PICA’s more traditional performing arts […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
The Lion in Winter
The Lion in Winter Lakewood Centre for the Arts, 368 S State, Lake Oswego, 635-3901, Thurs-Sat 8 pm, Sun 7 pm, through Feb 19, $22-24 Like many suburban arts organizations, Lake Oswego’s Lakewood Theatre Company plays for an older, richer crowd that likes its theater straight as an arrow. I try to understand that they […]