Your weekend awaits you

This is good.

From the WK Radio website:

By mid-March, the United States will have been at war in Afghanistan and Iraq for seven years. To mark this important, if tragic, anniversary, over 150 of the Portland area's best classical, contemporary and world musicians are uniting to make a giant musical gift to the city and beyond. "24/7” is a series of 24 dramatic concerts, each starting upon the hour, from 7:00 p.m. Saturday, March 21, and continuing through to 7:00 p.m., Sunday, March 22, in the W+K Atrium. FREE. WK Radio will broadcast a portion of the event.

As curated by two of Portland’s most fabulous citizens, Bill Crane and Pink Martini’s Thomas Lauderdale, a truly gobsmacking company of musicians have been tapped for this occasion. Consult this schedule for the full roster. Personally I intend to make it to Michelle Mariana’s hour, at 2am Sunday, when the divine Ms. M will sing jazz, accompanied by smooth-as-silk Reece Marshburn. And the finale, at 6pm on Sunday, when the company performs Beethoven’s 9th, is not to be missed. I’ll probably bawl like a baby.

PDX Pipeline reports:

Neither a protest nor a memorial, "24/7" nonetheless is a profound calling by its performers to their fellow citizens to remember that we are a nation at war. The musicians creating 24/7 hope to move their neighbors by their music to "do what must be done" as our city, region, and nation face many challenges. This will be music of encouragement as well as entertainment.

To add to the conviviality of this big occasion, the popular and award-winning restaurant Bluehour, next door to the concert venue, will be open all night and the following day. Restaurateur Bruce Carey and chef de cuisine Kenny Giambalvo are planning a special bar menu just for 24/7 performers and audience members.

So what’s not to love? The event lacks only you. And everybody is waiting. See you there.

One Night Only, One Night Only.....

What is the Many Hats Collaboration? As Alison Hallett described it in the Portland Mercury:

Many Hats is a theater company founded by three out-of-towners, women who have worked in New York and California, did time at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles, and came together in Portland in 2004 around an interest in iconoclastic, challenging theater.



This coming Monday, July 2, 2007, the fabulous performance Many Hats unveils Rest Room. This is a piece the company presented last year as a site-specific piece for PCS’s Just Add Water Festival (JAW), where it caused an immediate sensation. Because the play took place inside a tiny women’s restroom, only a cupful of people could be in the “theater” with the actors. But many more could watch from outside the facilities, thanks to a live video feed.

Rest Room ran six times during the portion of JAW known as You Are There (the site-specific anthology). Between performances, the video feed was left trained on the row of stalls inside the restroom, and it was amusing to watch the consternation of patrons who approached the monitor only to behold a series of toilets. Most hastened away, lest something take place they would rather not see.

Now Many Hats unveils a new version of the play on July 2 as a benefit for the company. The short piece explores issues of women and addiction in an intriguing and surprising way. This is a great opportunity to witness the work of one of Portland’s most inventive ensembles.

Catch it while you can. Five performances only, all on this one night, in the eternally twilight atmosphere of the Armory’s spacious women’s restroom on the Gallery level.

Times: 7:00pm, 7:30pm, 8:00pm, 8:30pm, 9:00pm
(the first two “seatings” are wait-listed at this writing)

Location: The Gerding Theater at the Armory
128 NW Eleventh Avenue (at Davis)

Suggested donation: $10

Reservations: 503.952.6646

See you there.