For Cascadians Only

Here’s a hankful of groovy upcoming events, if you happen to be in the Portland area soon.

The Ghana Travel Fund Bake Sale

Tomorrow, Sunday Aug 16, dramaturg at large Kim Crow is hosting a bake sale benefit from 10:30 am until 4 pm at NE 17th & Schuyler, one block north of Broadway near the Irvington Farmer's Market. All goods are made with love by Kim herself. Check out the menu:

Strawberry Icebox Pie
Plum Cake
Midnight Cake
Lemon-Poppy Pound Cake
Almond Biscotti
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Fleur de Sel Chocolate Sables
Honey Cookies

Who does the sale benefit? Hopefully, KIM, who is trying to make her way to Ghana to visit her sister and her family in their new home – a noble cause. I advise getting to the bake sale early because between the James and I, we may well sell it out.


Ultragroovy


Monday, August 17, from 7 to 9pm in the lobby of the Gerding Theater, Hand2Mouth Theatre is having a special send-off party to support its New York City premiere at the Ontological-Hysteric Incubator at the end of this month. Get this, the party features Holcombe Waller, Al James (of Dolorean), and Faith Helma of H2M fame (Faith will be doing a section of Undine, the show that's going to NYC). Admission is a sliding scale from $5 to $25.






But wait, there’s more


Portland Theatre Works is pleased to present Andrew Wardenaar's play Live, from Douglas for three workshop performances August 20-22 at Theater!Theatre! in SE Portland. Live, from Douglas was read in Portland Theatre Works' FreshWorks series in April of 2008 and selected for our more intensive LabWorks program for further development.

Hell hath no panic like a Douglas revealed, although until now that wasn't a problem. Douglas is a happy, hidden town. Everyone is named Doug, likes tea, and gardening, and the quiet life. The world doesn't bother them and they don't bother the world. Until a renegade Doug invites radio reporter Harriet Mirion to do a piece on Douglas. Will the feature she's planning ruin their little utopia?

"I'm excited to spend some time in Douglas this August and so should everyone else. Andrew's created such an absurdly funny world and given us characters we can really care about" says Artistic Director Andrew Golla, "And we've got a very good idea of what we're trying to find out in this workshop, so I'm planning on getting some great work done on this fantastic play."

Andrew Wardenaar has been writing plays for the past three years and is thrilled to see Live, from Douglas featured in this year's LabWorks workshop. His other full-length play, The Next Smith, was read in January as part of the first-annual Fertile Ground Festival.

7:30 p.m., Thu.-Sat., August 20, 21, 22
Profile Theater at Theater!Theatre! (3430 SE Belmont St., Portland, OR)
Tickets: $8 General Admission, $5 Students/Seniors

Adventures in Playwriting, cont'd

That’s right, the birthday madness continues. Thank you Dawn Young for the droll mortification at right. I feel a new Facebook portrait coming on.

Anyhow. It was my good fortune last night to take in another high watermark in the annals of Portland’s crazy-ass one-off events. This one, InsomniACTS, was a benefit for Portland Theatre Works that sets a new benchmark for fiscal transparency: all the money raised by the event goes toward a workshop of a new play by Andrew Wardenaar this coming spring, Live from Douglas.

InsomniACTS was a double-headed beast, conceived by PTWKS’s AD, Andrew Golla, and playwright/impresaria Eugenia Woods. Eager patrons crowded the fabulously groovy Hipbone Studio on Friday evening to see short plays by six notable Portland dramatists, including Nick Zagone, after which each writer was auctioned off on the spot. The winning bidder got to commission a playwright to write an entirely new short piece, with first and last lines of the commissioner’s choosing. Then the assembled voted on three props that had to be used in all six playlets.

Oh, and the playwrights had from then until 6:30am next morning to compose and turn in their scripts. Which would be cast and rehearsed that day, for presentation that same evening.

Yikes.

When I showed up on Saturday night, you could taste the excitement; a nervous flutter made the Studio seem to flap like a sail. Actors running back and forth; directors toting sacks of props peculiar to their own piece; an audience clearly prepared to have a rollicking good time. And they got it. Me, too.

The props turned out to be a gas mask, an oversized ladle and a stuffed crow. The given lines, in every single case, were of course diabolically challenging. All the writers did a game job, but specials props must go to Ellen Kesend for her hysterically funny and excoriating send-up of American recklessness, I Sold It on E-Bay.

With any luck, InsomniACTS will be an annual event. If so, they’ll be turning people away at the door, so get there early next time. And Andrew: jack up those admission prices! It is a benefit, after all.

60-Second Interview: Hunt Holman

As JAW: Made in Oregon crescendos on Thursday, July 10, you’ll be treated to the work of one of the wittiest, most well-observed social satirists I know: Hunt Holman.
That evening we’ll be hearing Willow Jade, which centers around a rooming house whose most mysterious tenants may or may not be on the lam and have a tantalizing bounty on their heads. The prospect has a galvanizing effect on a group of friends going nowhere fast, all of whom sniff a chance for fast money.

Hunt’s penchant for getting comedy out of people under pressure leads me to today’s 60-Second Interview:

Q: You are one of the most easy-going guys I know. Do you have a Mr. Hyde who takes you over so you can write plays with such sharp satire in them?

A: I remember being backstage at Seattle Rep when Bill Irwin was there playing Scapin. I remember seeing him, surely one of the most civilized gentlemen in show business, do a monkey walk in imitation of the person in front of him, who had no idea. What can I say? There is something inherently vicious in comedy.

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WILLOW JADE

by Hunt Holman

directed by Andrew Golla

July 10 at 7:30 pm in the Ellyn Bye Studio

Nowheresville, Washington state. Meet four aging chums with a bad idea: stave off middle age with a game of D & D … in costume. It only gets worse when a scandalous crime explodes next door, and orcs come down out of the mountains.

NB: Admission is freefreefree, but seating is limited and will be offered on a first come, first served basis. See you there.