If you’re an NPR listener, you’ll know the story well. After all, they run it every single holiday season without fail. Ever since it was first broadcast on Morning Edition in 1992, David Sedaris’ classic Christmas misadventure, The Santaland Diaries, has become a public radio classic, and helped launch the writer’s career. The tale, which […]
Theater
Posted inCulture
A Christmas Snark
Santaland at 2nd Street Theater…
David Sedaris is a damned national treasure. I’m not saying all of his work is perfect (hell, I’m not sure he has ever topped 2000’s “Me Talk Pretty One Day”), but when Sedaris goes after a subject he is impassioned about, he can find some of the most incisive observational humor of any satirist working […]
Posted inNews
Oregon Shakespeare Festival Actors Take the Stage in Redmond
On Wednesday, Redmond High School will hosting a performance from two actors from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Presenting a sampling of The Bard’s work and beyond, the event will benefit the Panther Production Company, the RHS after-school theatre program. The performance, titled LOVE, HATE ON: An Evening Performance! features Erin O’Connor and Jason Sanford. The OSF actors […]
Posted inCulture
A Christmas Carole
Humbug gives Scrooge a gender twist
Christmas plays can be tricky. For starters, not everyone celebrates Christmas, which potentially alienates part of the theater-going crowd. Also, most Christmas plays are often shoddily written, more about sentiment than substance, and a means to distract children with pageantry instead of quality. Oh, and finally, if the play decides to approach Christmas from a […]
Posted inCulture
Broadway, Baby!
Beautiful music for an important cause
No matter how well done a recording of a Broadway musical is, it can never really capture the magic or power of seeing it live, with a full bedazzling cast and in the swoon of the excitement. I can sing every word of The Book of Mormon, but without actually seeing it live, I still […]
Posted inCulture
Mozart and Mystery
OperaBend unveils its new season
Bend has an opera company! Which hopefully is not news since OperaBend has been around since 2013, and already has mounted a few handsome productions such as Love: The Bitter and the Sweet and Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief. Executive Director Jason Stein also had a large part not only shaping the vocal […]
Posted inCulture
A Friend With Weed is a Friend Indeed
Reefer Madness infects 2nd Street Theater
Reefer Madness: The Musical is not at all what I expected it to be. The play is based on the 1936 propaganda film that extolled the evils of marijuana by luridly depicting innocent teens descending into attempted rape, murder and madness once the devil weed touched their lips. In the 1970s, the film was rediscovered […]
Posted inCulture
Not Soft and Fluffy
Not for the faint of heart, The Pillowman is dark, but weirdly hopeful
If it isn’t your cup of tea to walk out of the theater questioning whether there is any good left in the world, then, well, The Pillowman probably isn’t for you. A dark comedy-drama written by Martin McDonagh (Seven Psychopaths, In Bruges), the play is even creepier than its title implies. The story watches the […]
Posted inCulture
Keep Calm, Panic is Here
CTC opens an intense new thriller
Panic is the perfect example of a slow burn thriller. Act One: We meet the characters, get a good handle on their relationships and, once settled in, throw a wrench into the works, letting the gears slowly, but surly stop turning. Act Two: We see the characters reacting to the machine breaking down to the […]
Posted inCulture
Outside the Box
God of Carnage kicks off non-traditional CTC series
While Bend has a well-developed and substantial theater scene, there’s still plenty of Neil Simon being tossed around. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, safe theater is theater no less, but as the lust for adventurous theater grows with the town, the time to step out of the Bend theater box is now. Enter […]