Portland’s king of the word nerds will be back this spring.
Posted inArts
Palindrome Champ Mark Saltveit Gives Up His Crown (For Now)
Portland’s King of the Word Nerds Will Be Back This Spring
TEMPLE LENTZ
Posted inComedy
The 12-Year-Old Boy Scene
Brent Weinbach’s Dazzlingly Original Poo Joke Repertoire
Brent Weinbach is one of the most original comedians working today. He also likes poo jokes.
Posted inTheater & Performance
A Critic’s Lament
A Tuna Christmas embodies all that’s wrong with Portland theater.
Posted inTheater & Performance
24-Hour Play Festival
The Forced Creativity of Portland’s 24-Hour Play Festival
Posted inTheater & Performance
The House of Blue Leaves
With The House of Blue Leaves, Profile Theatre ends a season of works by playwright John Guare. And the end couldn’t come soon enough. Guare is an acquired taste, difficult for some audiences to “get,” and even more difficult for most companies to perform. Done right, his better plays (of which The House of Blue […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Entusiasmo!
Here in the Pacific Northwest, we’re driving eco-cars, abandoning plastic bags, and exploring the merits of “fresh, local, and organic.” And we’re miles ahead of the rest of the country. But in Colombia, there’s a little town called Gaviotas that’s leaps and bounds ahead of even Portland’s most eco-minded. Do Jump!’s Entusiasmo! is the story […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
9 Parts of Desire
Heather Raffo’s 9 Parts of Desire is one of the most compelling pieces of solo theater you will ever see on a Portland stage. Performed by Luisa Sermol in a joint effort by CoHo and Cygnet Productions, 9 Parts illuminates the lives of nine Iraqi women—not terrorists, not war heroes, but normal, everyday women living […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
The Garden Party
Former Czech president Václav Havel is a bit of an overachiever. It wasn’t enough for him to be a political dissident and activist. No, he had to go and become an award-winning playwright. Oh, and then? Yeah, he led the Velvet Revolution that lifted the Czech Republic out from under the Iron Curtain. Then? Ran […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Oyá: Call the Storm
Oyá: Call the Storm is a mystical and compelling story of spirits and danger: a perfect work for the Miracle Theatre Group to have taken on this season. Afro-Cuban drumming, an original score, creative choreography, and a brilliant set and costumes set the stage for something that could be truly incredible. And although a work […]
Posted inBooks
X Saves the World
by Jeff Gordinier (Viking)
To a thirtysomething reviewer with a pretty solid Generation-X identification and a thorough loathing of everything “Boomer,” X Saves the World is a welcome reprieve from Dennis Hopper’s TV ads for the Easy Rider retirement plan. Sure, the “generation” thing is tired, but whether or not we want to admit it, there’s a pretty significant […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Scotland Road
Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher must be connected to the mob—there’s no compelling reason to produce one of his plays except the threat of broken kneecaps. The alternative, that Integrity Productions made the decision to produce Scotland Road under a complete lack of duress, is too depressing to contemplate. With a world of plays to pick from, […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Dreamgirls
Dreamgirls is one of the great successes of both Broadway and Hollywood, and it’s no surprise that Stumptown Stages would want to capitalize on that success by staging their own production. But Dreamgirls is a big show that calls for big voices, and it needs a production team that can handle all that bigness and […]