theater

Last Friday, I donned a hard hat and, accompanied by UO Theater Department Chair John Schmor, re-toured the building(s) (first blogged here) that will be the new UO theater space, aka the Miller Theater Complex.

Things I learned:

• There's a naming contest underway for the now-called "New Black Box Theater." The contest, open to theater students, comes with a $500 scholarship and a temporary name. Me: "Yeah, aren't you still looking for a donor?" Schmor, more diplomatically: "We want to hold the naming opportunity open for a future donor."

• Before the new steps to the new Robinson lobby got poured, theater faculty and students held a blessing ceremony and buried things (including wine and dog tags) in what Schmor described as something "Elizabethan theaters would do."

• The new laundry and dye room, off the costume shop and with excellent ventilation, almost wasn't built — it was unused space until someone noticed it. This weirdly reminded me of hiding spaces for Jews in Nazi-dominated Europe. (Who was measuring the crawl space, you know? Um, perhaps too many readings of Corrie ten Boom's Holocaust memoir The Hiding Place as an 11- and 12-year-old?)

• Something this big takes competitive giving. That is to say, though there was a grant from the ASUO and an alumni fundraising campaign, things kicked into high gear when, how to say this, one wealthy donor started giving, and her friends then felt obliged to give as well. Or maybe not obliged ... I imagine Schmor might say felt the opportunity to give. Another large donor jumped in to save the project at a crucial point.

• There's a guy in the Bay Area named Smokey whose job is restoring old theater seats. And he's doing all of the seats for the old Robinson Theatre.

• Schmor and Joseph Gilg want to know just exactly when the (horrific) Arena Theatre space came into being. Was it during a post-war renovation of Villard? It's a mystery. (And Arena will soon be turned back into classroom/practice space. With [I think Schmor used this word] happy colors on the wall instead of the black box, um, black.)

Photos follow the jump.

It’s a mere three months post-interview, and a month after I thought I’d have it up on the blog, but at long last, the Very Little Theatre interview!

Back in the day when it was so cold that I had to keep my jacket on in the green room during the interview, VLT past president Karen Scheeland and VLT board member (and publicity director) Scott Barkhurst gave me an interview and tour of the VLT’s building. Details from that to come later (though hopefully sooner than three months — Scott, feel free to poke me about that).

The VLT, 24th & Hilyard (interior and exterior)

That building, by the way, has been around since 1950. Of course, that was 21 years into the so-far 79-year run of the VLT, so even the building is a bit of a newcomer. There are rumblings and mutterings about how to improve the building (dead spots on the stage have led to some miking, for instance, and the less said about the electrical system, the better — though the lighting designers do a superb job) or whether to construct a new building — but nothing, as far as I know, is yet decided.

1978's The Chalk Garden, with Karen Scheeland [then Karen Biggs] and Gerda Brown

Karen Scheeland became a member of the all-volunteer organization in 1969 after playing a role in 1968’s Devil’s Advocate.

1996's It Runs in the Family, with Stan Boyd, Achilles Massahos, Scott Barkhurst, and Ron Hart
Scott Barkhurst was a music student at the UO when he played the flute in the VLT orchestra in 1967. Later, he helped with lights and eventually, he says, “turned into a VLT person,” becoming a member in 1973. They spoke with me in late March.

Scheeland recently turned in a performance as Vi in Memory of Water, which closed June 21, and Barkhurst played the tailor (among other roles) in April’s On the Razzle; both remain active in all kinds of ways every VLT season. (This year’s season closes out with Truman Capote’s Glass Harp, opening Aug. 1, directed by recent VLT president Suzanne Shapiro*.)

Read more by clicking here.

So a couple of weeks ago, back when it was like 90 degrees and all we could think of a major plus during the tour was how very, very glad we were to be under a roof even if the building's not finished and it wasn't air-conditioned (I'm pretty sure others we were all also thinking of beers or G&Ts post-tour), UO Dept of Theatre Arts prof Joseph Gilg offered the press and others a tour of the new theater building. (UPDATE: The whole thing, built on the back of Villard "without destroying the historic nature of Villard," is called the Miller Theatre Complex.)

I brilliantly didn't remember the EW camera, and I was the only press person there (which was bizarre!), but whoo hoo for the cell ...

Read and see more after the jump.

Hey y'all!

To the great chagrin of everyone else running around finishing up the largest paper in the EW history (sorry, guys! I'll bring Portland treats ... ), I'm up in Portland at the Oregon Arts Commission conference — excuse me, Arts Summit.

In the breakout session I'm in right now, talking about facilities and capital campaigns and all of that, there are about 21 people, including lots of arts org folks in Portland but also Craig Willis from the Leebrick, Karen Marie Pavelec from Maude Kerns and Riley Grannan from the Eugene Ballet Company.

Also, I'm hearing stories of people from Roseburg, Klamath Falls, Gresham, Hillsboro and Vail. Vail! Where the heck is that? Wait ... it's Vale!

View Vale Map Grannan knows where it is because the Ballet used to be a Boise/Eugene collaboration, and Vale's kind of on its way (check out the map).

I love the Internet. Now there's discussion of how to "brand" arts organizations. This normally makes me insane (witness my reaction to the Oregon Bach Festival's new branding thingie that involves a certain EEEEVIL corporation), but these folks are helping me understand how it gets money out of donors. Hey, even the donors in the room are talking about it.

More on this later. I know Mary Unruh of DIVA is in another room, and this morning, Frances Bronet, dean of the UO School of Architecture and the Allied Arts, was the keynote speaker (much more on her in a few weeks in the paper and online).

This is so cool.

I so wish Avenue Q would come here! You know, instead of My Little Freakin' Pony. At least there's a Whitty play down I-5 ... and one coming next year.

I'm crunched for time, so I'm going to simply quote from the press release from the Lord Leebrick Theatre about next season's lineup:

"Titles for the 2008/09 Season include: John Patrick Shanley's Doubt: A Parable, a tightly woven drama that received the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for Best New Play; David Lindsay Abaire's 2007 Pulitzer Prize winning drama Rabbit Hole; and Sarah Ruhl's The Clean House, a surprising comedy from one of the most highly acclaimed new playwrights in recent memory. Plus Lord Leebrick will present the West Coast Premiere of West Moon Street, a new comedy adapted from an Oscar Wilde short story by Rob Urbinati, as well as the premiere of Suicide Weather, a comedy by Jeff Whitty, a UO alum and Oregon native who received the 2004 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for Avenue Q. The company also plans to revive It's A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, with all performances for this very popular holiday classic at the Wildish Community Theater in Springfield."

Me, I'm pumped to see Sarah Ruhl's play (which I sadly missed when it was in Portland this year). And I totally acted like a complete bumbling rube when I met Whitty the other day, but that's because he is a JEEEN-ius.

(May I inspire such stuttering someday. Preferably in a Hot Gay Man like Whitty.)

Anyway, truth be told, I'm annoyed at having only one woman playwright here, but I'm going to do a much bigger and longer story about women, playwriting and theater culture, so that said, it's a strong lineup for the Leebrick next year.