Bendites are getting the chance to see some world-class plays performed locally this year. Tis the season for award-winning productions in Central Oregon. Cascade Theatrical Company is presenting the Tony Award-winning play, “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” this month, and the play runs through March 26. Central Oregon has excellent theatrical choices all […]
Play
Posted inCulture
Theater As Catharsis
“Next to Normal” finds beauty in pain
“Next to Normal,” the new show by 2nd Street Theater, is based on a Pulitzer-winning Broadway rock musical that tells the story of a family on the brink of collapse. Diana Goodman is trying to be a good mother and an attentive wife, even as her bipolar disorder worsens by the day. She is hallucinating […]
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Erupting in Laughter
A sitcom as hot as lava
Most plays are written to fit snugly into a genre so they’re easier to market to an audience. Comedy. Drama. Tragedy. Historical. But local playwright Suzan Noyes’ new show, Hot Spot in Pompeii, is a mash-up, a delightful breath of fresh air that takes a screwball romantic farce and plops it smack dab next to […]
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F-U-N-N-Y
Use that in a musical?
Ten years ago, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, an interactive musical, stormed Broadway, capturing six Tony nominations and a Grammy nomination for its songs. The performance is a perfect storm of improv comedy, theatrical flare and gleeful musical numbers. This month, the musical is being staged for the first time in Central Oregon. Recently, […]
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Sibling Hatred
2nd Street’s latest is intense, but lightly comical
More than a frame to hold the actors and the storyline, the set—as well as the soundtrack—plays a central role in the charm of 2nd Street Theater’s current production of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane. Front-and-center is a stripped-down space that does triple-time as a 1910 cabaret, a 1935 movie set and a 1962 […]