One Slight Hitch - The Caveat Plays

The Spotlight One-on-One Program (ART)
June 27 & 28, 2008

Summary:

The Spotlight One-on-One Project pairs 10 underserved children with professional playwrights and actors create a two-character play. Don't miss this opportunity to see these young actors from Rigler and Woodmere Elementary perform alongside professional actors in a play written specifically for each child's special talents and produced with original music.

The History Boys

Artists Repertory Theatre
May 2 - June 8, 2008

Review by peanutduck

Why this play now? Clichéd prep school drama - impressionable, overly clever boys, staff rivalry, sexual repression/expression, boy-fondling, teacher as subversive leader. Script, and played up by direction, often heavy-handed, overly ironic; scenes rarely more than platform sound bites. It is the ensemble’s skill and commitment that makes it endurable.

A Streetcar Named Desire

Artists Repertory Theatre
April 8 - May 18, 2008

Review by peanutduck

Ignore director’s conceit: play filtered through asylum resident Blanche’s mind (i.e., past made present). Idea interests but execution, primarily with padded walls, lighting changes, ever-present doctor, misses point – memories, action, aren’t colored by this madness. Enjoy Frankle’s (Blanche) spun-glass fragility. Matarrese (Stanley) only frightens– no hints of Stella’s colored lights.

Rabbit Hole

Artists Repertory Theatre

February 12 - March 23, 2008

Review by The Mad Hatter

Brilliantly acted gripping drama. Almost everyone in the audience profoundly affected. Slightly out of sync at the top of show, actors quickly found their groove. Type of story where audiences are uncomfortable because they identify with characters’ obtuse behaviors. Profound humor only punctuates terrible tragedy of loss.

Clean House

Artists Repertory Theatre
January 22 - March 2, 2008

DUELING REVIEW

Reviewed by peanutduck:

Ruhl subverts expectations to affect without sentimentalism. Cool, controlled, geometric home of clinical dispassion contrasts well with lush, messily passionate sea-view veranda (though latter placed in neck-cramp-invoking area of theatre). Villazan endearing, if slightly too subdued, in quest for perfect joke. Distractions: production feels dishonest; casting Janke for Brazilian/Argentinean bothersome.

Reviewed by followspot:

Villazan is good in the lead role, but Marilyn Stacy steals the show as the cleaning-obsessed Virginia. Coromel disappointingly unbelievable. Janke fine, but why not cast someone who looks less....American? Creative use of space was a joy. 20 minute intermission after only 40 minutes of theatre seems slighly silly.

Mars on Life

Artists Repertory Theatre
November 13 - December 23, 2007

Interview - Marv Ross

October 1, 2007

Word doc of the full interview here.

Full text also pasted into first post of thread.

Marv Ross may be best known for his time with QuarterFlash and The Trail Band, but for the last 10 years he has also been working on a Northwest musical about Celilo Falls, a traditional Native fishing center that disappeared in 1957 beneath the waters of The Dalles Dam.

After years of painstaking research and development, GHOSTS OF CELILO has come to Portland and is currently receiving a stellar production at the Newmark Theatre.

Ghosts of Celilo

Photo: ?

Artists Repertory Theatre
September 27, 2007; closes October 14, 2007

A major achievement of lasting significance for the theatre canons of Oregon and the Northwest. This wolf of a critique dressed in sheep’s clothing cleverly focuses on Native children to tell a story that would otherwise be too depressing to bear. Noah Hunt is amazing. Technically immaculate. A total triumph.

PDX Magazine - Discussion with Mead Hunter and Trisha Pancio

Extensive, wide-ranging discussion of Portland's growing reputation as a center for new play development.

Full interview here.

Is a golden age of Portland theatre upon us? Again? Many signs point to YES...

Of note: Fascinating idea for expanding annual JAW festival into a city wide event showcasing new work.

Orson's Shadow

Artists Repertory Theatre
Closes July 1, 2007

Visceral battle of bygone egos. Uniformly strong cast. Van Voris is a brooding, wounded giant with a voice that can wake the dead. In second act, same note (Olivier and Welles don’t agree!) hit a few too many times. Vulgarities feel out of era. Shadow when it arrives is striking.

They Came From Way Out There

Artists Repertory Theatre
Posted by Frenchglen April 22; closes May 27

An engaging premise of alien infestation, but liftoff sputters. Several memorable inter stellar moments of physical and found object comedy. Show could make much, much more of this material. When not jack-hammering the fourth wall, talented, zany cast fights hard to escape orbital pull of this mostly known, earth-bound script.

The Retreat from Moscow

Artists Repertory Theatre
Posted by Followspot April 1, 2007; closes April 29, 2007

Old-pros Keith Scales, JoAnn Johnson, newcomer Alex Moggridge craft a particular elegance from intimate, real-time moments of this private tragedy. It’s true: little new is revealed, but there are unspoken truths. Interesting, too, is transformation of one’s reactions to Alice’s progression. Jeff Seats’ equally elegant set is a beautiful metaphor.

The Ghosts of Celilo

Marv Ross Productions Blue Mountain Community College, Pendleton, OR
Posted by Frenchglen March 16, 2007

Upon the 50th anniversary of the inundation of Celilo Falls (March 10, 1957), a new musical brings the world of this gone-but-not-forgotten native cultural site to life. Marvelous young cast takes us through final days before The Dalles Dam made the mighty Columbia flow backwards. Bound for Portland in September.

Artists Repertory Theatre's 2007-2008 Season

Artists Repertory Theatre's 2007-2008 Season Announcement

House and Garden
Ghosts of Celilo
Mars on Life: The Holiday Edition
The Clean House
Three Sisters
Rabbit Hole
The History Boys

Vanya

Artists Repertory Theatre
Posted by Frenchglen January 25, 2007; closes February 25, 2007

Saturated with color, longing, regret. Powerhouse cast expertly sustains a languid, dreamy tone. Time stops and the stage expands. Beautifully constructed Chekhovian moments where absolutely nothing – and yet everything – is happening in front of us. Audience responded to western environmental themes of adapted setting. Weakness: Elena struggles to keep up.

Mars on Life: The Holiday Edition

Artists Repertory Theatre
Posted by Followspot December 13, 2006; closes December 31, 2006

Lovely. Let me echo what’s been said before: The sparkling Susannah Mars is a Portland treasure of exquisite voice and generous soul -- a natural who loves to sing, filling the stage with personality and patter that fluently segue between tunes familiar and unusual. A contemporary Dinah Shore? Excellent quartet.

Inspecting Carol

Artists Repertory Theatre
Reviewed by Followspot November 19, 2006; closes December 24, 2006

Let’s be clear: this was audience-pleasing without doubt. But light, zany farce generally not ART’s strong suit: silly shtick becomes unwieldy in hands of company’s more dramatic leads, evidenced here by surprisingly angry, almost bitter tone to first-half. But just wait: after weeks of eight, things’re bound to go Burnett.

Mr. Marmalade

Artists Repertory Theatre
October 18, 2006; closes November 19, 2006

Fascinatingly gruesome self-realization. Clever, disturbingly dark comedy is a contemporary Wonderland — a provocative, cynical, cracked-mirror perspective of nature of adulthood and its dysfunctional trappings. Larry’s exposition loses pace and, scriptwise, ending seems tad convenient. Otherwise crisp, smart, accessible; obsessively effortless engaging performances from Laura Faye Smith, Tim True, Michael Mendelson.

Metamorphoses

Artists Repertory Theatre
September 9, 2006; closes October 15, 2006

A flirty theatricality that tickled as often as it touched, filled with colossal beauty, face-to-face forthrightness. Outstanding: Jeff Forbes’ submersive lighting; Rodolfo Ortega’s lovely, leading sound; director Randall Stuart’s eclectic intuition; relaxed cast found honest joy, wonder otherwise unseen at ART recently. Niggle: time to exhale before shorter curtain call.

Theater District

Artists Repertory Theatre
May 26, 2006; closes July 2, 2006

A warm, gratifying play. Conflict somewhat packaged, structure a bit cut-to erratic, but unique shifting POV strung together multifaceted moments of honest this-is-who-we’ve-become — well executed by qualified cast, especially Ted Schulz, Jay Randall, Eben Hoffer in spot-on supporting roles. Stylish yet functional set by Jeff Seats, lighting by Jeff Forbes.