“Songs for Haiti” -- one night only (Thursday!)

Tomorrow night, while relaxing in the boho comfort of Portland’s Aladdin Theater, you can contribute to Mercy Corps’s Haiti fund while being serenaded by outstanding Oregon musicians and vocalists. As organized by the tireless Stephen Marc Beaudoin,

Some of the marquee Portland performers appearing in “Songs for Haiti” include pianist Thomas Lauderdale (bandleader, Pink Martini), the Portland Cello Project, acclaimed hip-hop artist Cool Nutz, Grammy-nominated pianist Janice Scroggins, the legendary Storm Large, Oregon Symphony concertmaster Jun Iwasaki with pianist Grace Fong-Iwasaki, Broadway veteran baritone Douglas Webster (Les Miserables), singer-songwriter Holcombe Waller, and local choral ensembles Flash Choir, PHAME Academy Choir and the Grant High School Royal Blues. Oregonian columnist Margie Boule and KOIN Portland 6 reporter Tim Joyce are the event co-hosts. (emphasis very much mine)

Sweet! Thirty bucks gets you in the door and contributing to disaster relief, and you get to attend one of the most fun events of the whole season.

As a teaser I’m including this video of Thomas Lauderdale -- an inapposite choice, really, since Thomas will doubtless be far less sedate tomorrow evening. But I plop this footage here anyway because it’s from another event Mr. Lauderdale was instrumental (sorry) in bringing to fruition -- the 24/7 concert of last year acknowledging just how long we’ve been mired in a different catastrophe, the war in Iraq.

I was sitting just a few feet away from Thomas when this video was shot, and I will be again tomorrow night. See you there.

Three things I want you to see at Wordstock

Full disclosure: these are three events I planned, so of course I consider them must-sees. They’re all omnibus occasions -- panel discussion/reading events, designed to extract maximum performance value out of each sojourn. Check it out.

Voices from Another Portland
Saturday, 2pm, Wieden + Kennedy Stage
Remember last June when I gushed over my favorite summer book, Portland Queer? Now meet five of the book’s contributors, as they read from their stories and wax philosophical over writing about Portland places and experiences as viewed through a different lens.

Editor Ariel Gore assures these writers – Marc Acito, Jacob Anderson-Minshall, Wayne Flowers, Colleen Siviter and moderator Dexter Flowers – are writers who love to perform and/or are performers who love to write. Sounds heady!


Stages of Playwriting
Sunday, 2pm, McMenamins Stage
Our three guests – Marc Acito, Storm Large and Cynthia Whitcomb – have all had recent hits on Portland stages that are now primed to wow audiences on the national scene. These writers will talk about the many advantages of workshopping homegrown work – including the support of local collaborators, an avid fan base, and most importantly, fellow writers (all three participate in the Big Brain Trust). Plus this panel is moderated by bon vivant Floyd Sklaver, so what’s not to like?

And yes, that is indeed Storm in the photo at right -- because I will stop at nothing to attract people to these panels – all dolled up as Gretchen Lowell, the dangerously fetching antiheroine of Chelsea Cain’s novels. (Chelsaa, you know, is also appearing at Wordstock: Sunday, 1pm, Colubmia Sportwear Stage.)


Border Crossings
Sunday, 3pm, McMenamins Stage
First of all, this discussion is moderated by Portland media goddess Dmae Roberts, okay? And then her guests are Marilyn Chin, Canyon Sam, and redoubtable Portlander Polo Catalani. Together they’ll discuss the tricky business of how you represent other cultures in writing without casting them in the dubious distinction of being exotic or resorting to other forms of orientalism. This is bound to be a lively discussion.

Saturday, by the way, is my 2nd annual 75th birthday. So show up for me, why don’t you.

A Night at the Drammys

Is it just me or was this a particular wild Drammy ceremony this year?

Once again, I’m happy to report that bloggers more quick on the draw than I am have already covered the particulars, including Alison Hallett over at BlogTown and the ineffable culturejock at Culture Shock. But neither reported on the radiant nimbus sported by Megan Ward, which was so glam as to hold its own against the evening’s other goddess, Storm Large (our tattooed answer to Grace Kelly).

So now I’m free to talk about my favorite part of the evening: myself.

Again this year, the fabulous people at the Portland Area Theatre Alliance hosted a segment of the ceremony called The Spotlight Awards. These are kind of like Portland theater’s version of the People’s Choice Awards; in truly democratic fashion, any PATA member can nominate people who aren’t usually recognized in awards ceremonies: stage managers, for instance, and crew members, and … others.


While I’m as “other” as they come, nobody told me I’d been nominated. By that point in the ceremony, my mind had wandered briefly…I was thinking about the ancient Hitchcock film, Notorious, which I had just discussed with Marissabidilla a couple of nights before, and I wondered if it could be useful to me as I continued to tinker with another Bluebeard adaptation, Gozzi’s Zenobia…

Then all of the sudden I heard my name, and Megan jumped out of her chair and there was all this racket and I thought Oh no, now I’ll have to go up there. So I did, but it was flummoxing in the extreme because I didn’t actually know what I was going there for at that moment. Jen Raynak crowned me with the lovely tiara you see at the right (hand-made by herself), and I said thank you to the microphone and I fled.

Now I regret that; probably I disappointed some people by not saying a few words. (Though no doubt others were grateful.) So I’ll say a very few words now. Now that I know what the distinction was for.

Theater folk of Portland: it means everything to me that you wanted this award to be an encouragement to me. To say you’re proud of me. Because I’m proud of you, too. In the U.S. we have several cities with theater scenes that reflect what’s unique about where they are; I wonder if you realize that Portland is that way, too. There’s nowhere like it. And over the past seven years I’ve seen it grow and knit together till it’s become the city’s last big secret, invisible to many of its citizens but beloved by those have sought it out. I know that many of you could work in bigger markets and more glittery venues. But you choose to be here, and I’m grateful for that.

Gertrude Stein once wrote that personality reflects landscape – you move to San Francisco or Los Angeles knowing that an earthquake could kill you at any second, or instead you stick with certain Midwest states where you can be sure nothing will happen to you for the rest of your life. What does it say about us that we choose to live in this green corner of the wild, wild west? In the shadows of volcanoes, in a greenbelt between an ocean and a desert? I think it’s something to do with the DIY, rough and ready ethic of the Northwest – that sense that BY GOD I have something to say and I want to say it where people just might listen.

Seriously, more days than not I think about how lucky I am to live here and to work alongside tireless and dedicated artists who are so incredibly singular. I applaud your individualism, and I’m also gladdened that you can temporarily give it up when it really counts.

It touches me that you count me among your own. Thank you.

Trust me on this

Don't miss this:

Storm Large

in

Crazy Enough

opens tomorrow night in the Ellen Bye Studio @ Portland Center Stage

Kudos to us

Last night The Drammy Awards reverted to a format I hadn't seen in a few years: semi-controlled chaos, a healthy mix of the outrageous and the emotional, and a delicious sense that anything could happen at any moment.

In other words, it was like Thanksgiving dinner with your entire extended family.

The O'Briens, mother and daughter, were terrific hosts -- genial and easygoing and off-the-cuff, clearing having a ball -- and though no turkey got served, Mother O'Brien did bring her home-baked brownies, which were dispensed to the award winners along with their trophies.

Of course I knew in advance which artists were getting awards, but during the actual ceremony, I felt keenly certain nominations that didn't quite make it to the award stage -- Storm Large's Sally Bowles, for example, and Rick Lewis' extraordinary musical direction for Cabaret. But it happens....a large majority of Committee members (80%) have to ratify each nomination, which sometimes means that worthy nominations just miss the cut. On the other hand, though, this system makes it almost impossible to pass any noms that are quixotic or misguided.

ANYHOW. I don't mean to complain, because PCS did every well, with 11 wins. And I was especially gladdened at the chorus of approval over Sojourn Theatre's win of Outstanding Production for its footloose adaptation of Brecht, entitled Good, which was among the most memorable and affecting plays I've see EVER.

Favorite moment of the evening: Chris Murray's Poem to the Anonymous Followspot Poster. It was en garde and touche all in one fell poop.

Storm @ Large

Good news from Rochester: our Storm Large scores just as superlatively there as she did here in Portland. Read all about it in Barry Johnson's piece for The Oregonian:

Theater: In Rochester they love Storm
by Barry Johnson
Tuesday January 15, 2008, 12:46 PM

So what did Rochester, New York, think of the Portland Center Stage production of "Cabaret" that opened there over the weekend? Not to mention Storm Large in the role of Sally Bowles? Not to worry... the reviewer at the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle couldn't have been more enthusiastic.

"Move over Liza. "Cabaret" has been taken over by a Storm -- and she's rocking down the house at Geva Theatre," wrote Marcia Morphy. "Storm Large breathes such fire, heart and soul into the legendary Sally Bowles that her performance as the reigning diva of Berlin's famous Kit Kat Club is nothing short of hot, hot, hot."

Wade McCollum as the Emcee and the rest of Chris Coleman's production earned high marks from Morphy, too. And earlier, the paper's Stuart Low previewed the show and profiled Storm.

Of course, we did quite a bit on this "Cabaret" ourselves.

To read the article complete with its hyperlinks, go to:

http://www.oregonlive.com/performance/index.ssf/2008/01/theater_news_in_rochester_they.html

More about Cabaret, old chum

In preparation for all the Prologues, Q&A sessions and everything else associated with the Portland Center Stage production of Cabaret, this summer I finally broke down and read The Berlin Stories, by Christopher Isherwood. These remarkable, mostly autobiographical accounts of Berlin partying while Hitler rises to power are harrowing, funny, revealing and absorbing. I should have read them decades ago; it’s the sort of book that can show a young writer there’s a middle ground between confessional diarism and fiction.


Don't do as I did, though, and take the book on vacation with you. Imagine me avidly and anxiously rushing through these stories, as “Cliff Bradshaw” (Isherwood’s nom de guerre) traipses through Berlin’s seedier spider traps with the Nazis growing ever more menacing and numerous….and all while I’m sunning myself at the edge of the world in emerald green Kaua’i. Embodying a new definition of cognitive dissonance. I hardly needed to be transported away from Hanalei, but it was a journey worth taking nevertheless.

Since then, in my follow-up research, it touched me to learn that there’s now a plaque on the front of the house where much of The Berlin Stories unfolded, acknowledging the building’s historical and literary importance. It makes Cabaret all the more poignant knowing that most of its characters – Fraulein Schneider, Ernst, Fraulein Kost, Bobby, and of course Sally Bowles herself – actually lived, and lived in that very residence. I hope to visit it myself someday.


Meanwhile, here’s a some fun spots for you: Storm Large’s promo for the production, done in character; same for Wade McCollum; and also a brief introduction by the play’s director and my boss, Chris Coleman. Cheers.