Opening up ‘Oklahoma’
The Bill Rauch era comes to an end with a gay utopia at OSF
When Bill Rauch became artistic director at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2007, one of the first things he did was to validate my deep … Continue reading
Performing Arts
Latest
Street Fightin’ Men
Left-wing radio show and podcast comes to Eugene
“Power that isn’t really justified by the will of the governed should be dismantled,” Noam Chomsky says, defining anarchism as a political philosophy. I pose … Continue reading
Hear Me Roar
Catching up with The Lion King’s Michael Curry
If you’ve seen the Broadway musical The Lion King, then you know that its puppets and masks are some of the most beautiful and complex … Continue reading
Minority Voices Theatre
Local theater project looks to confront Eugene’s diversity issues
Local theater directors Carol Dennis and Stanley Coleman had been churning around the idea of a diverse project for about six years after noticing a … Continue reading
Exposed Spotlights Nuke Danger
Play explores the plight of fallout downwinders
Murmurs of a nuclear threat from North Korea and Iran, along with the growing number of people suffering from nuclear fallout, create the context for … Continue reading
Fedora Fever
The Shedd takes on the tacky suits of the ’50s in Guys and Dolls.
America’s fondness for the 1950s is a strange thing. Beehive hairdos and TV dinners are relics of a consumer-driven past that should have died out … Continue reading
Radio Ga Ga
ACE celebrates the songs of Queen in the dystopian musical We Will Rock You
Just when you think you never want to hear “Bohemian Rhapsody” ever again, it comes on the radio and immediately you’re sucked in by the … Continue reading
On the Boards
Tragedy, farce and a bit of Jane Austen take the stage at this year’s Oregon Shakespeare Festival
The buzz in Ashland last weekend at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s season openings should, by all rights, have been about Bill Rauch. The popular and … Continue reading
Popular
Strange Times, Indeed
The Crucible at Cottage Theatre is solid but dated
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a set piece in American theater, one of those cultural landmarks of which more people know and talk than have … Continue reading
Hilarity and Horror
Indulge yourself at VLT’s Little Shop of Horrors
I could not have been more excited to check out Little Shop of Horrors at the VLT this past weekend. As a kid I used … Continue reading
Losing My Religion
Puppets wreak hell on a fundamentalist ministry in OCT’s Hand to God
I have to say that when it comes to art, I categorically reject the idea of “trigger warnings,” which is simply another term for censorship. … Continue reading
Still funny after all these decades
Paula Poundstone returns to Eugene this weekend with a show at the Hult
When comedian Paula Poundstone wanted to get in shape, she opted for taekwondo — not because she had a passion for self-defense but because it … Continue reading
Back Down the Rabbit Hole
Ballet Fantastique and crew refashion Alice in Wonderland
In Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel, Alice falls from the quaint English countryside into a whirling subconsciousness thick with verse and whimsy, but in the new … Continue reading
God Help the Outcasts
A Disney twist on Victor Hugo’s gothic tragedy in ACE’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame
This past weekend I had the pleasure of bringing my 8-year-old thespian to Actors Cabaret of Eugene to see The Hunchback of Notre Dame. For … Continue reading