Theater

Though they be but little, they are fierce! Bend Experimental Art Theatre has rounded up a group of young actors, ages 6 to 18, and in a three-week intensive camp, put together a production of a Midsummer Night’s Dream in original Shakespearean language. Impressive. “These kids know are off book quicker than adult actors,” said […]

Attention undiscovered playwrights! 2nd Street Theater is now accepting 60 to 90 minute manuscripts for a new initiative aimed at uncovering local and national talent. A panel of local talent will judge the manuscripts, producing scenes from a select few to perform for local theatergoers. “Audiences will then have an opportunity to vote on which […]

Cormac McCarthy is an author of some of the most prolific—and decidedly American—novels of the last 50 years (All the Pretty Horses, Blood Meridian). Consistently dark and tense, his stories lend themselves to high impac stage and film performances (see Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men, based on the 2005 McCarthy book of […]

Thirty-five young actors, ages 6 to 21, have taken on the task of becoming singing, dancing buccaneers and maidens for the upcoming Bend Experimental Art Theater production of the musical “Pirates of Penzance,” which first debuted in New York in 1879. The play is the first under the direction of Jimena Shepherd, a former BEAT […]

My chainsaw is bigger than your boyfriend’s chainsaw.
Evil Dead: The Musical is here to stay. No matter what configuration of actors and musicians, this is director Sandy Klein’s sinister baby and she’s going to keep it coming. This new Evil Dead: The Musical, currently hitting 2nd Street Theatre, has been revamped, re-cast, restructured and still resurrects all the fun of the past seasons. The play is based on Sam Raimi’s three Evil Dead flicks, but focused mainly on Evil Dead II.
I was an avid fan of the first locally produced version in 2010, seeing it four times, including the Bruce Campbell night. I saw it once last season and now here I am again. This time around there have been some definite upgrades, but all in all it’s still just good blood-spurting zombie dancing fun perfect for the season.

If you don’t think farts are funny, don’t bother showing up.
That’s what Bend theater producer and actor David Simpson said about the Mel Brooks mania taking over the Tower Theatre next week, including showings of Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein and Cat Call’s full scale production of The Producers.
In a serious case of art imitating life, Simpson steps out of his role as real-life producer to play on-stage producer Max Bialystock in Brooks’ film turned musical. Bend big timers, Cat Call Productions, in their yearly musical theater blowout, tackle the celebrated show. Past shows have included 2009’s Cabaret, 2010’s Little Shop of Horrors and last year’s hugely successful Chicago.

Everyone knows the classic tale of teenage lovers whose forbidden romance leads to lying, trespassing, murder, deceit, roofies and ultimately their own untimely deaths. But have you heard it told by 19th century Italian anarchists?
Choosing Romeo and Juliet for this year’s installment of Shakespeare in the park is all a part of a plan to make the event bigger, better and more accessible to the atypical theater crowd in Bend.
For the second year, Lay it Out Events has partnered with Bend’s Cat Call Productions to bring Portland’s Northwest Classical Theater Group (NWCTG) to town for a performance in Drake Park. Lee Perry, event director for Lay it Out Events, which is a sister company to the Source, explained that after the success of last year’s performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, bringing NWCTC back was a no brainer.

1776, a Tony-award winning Broadway show about the Founding Fathers, is coming to the Tower Theatre, but there won’t be a single male on the stage.
Instead, this version of the 1969 show features an all-female cast that puts a new spin on an old story, just in time for Independence Day.
“I love to take tried-and-true pieces of theater and stand them on their ear so audiences can experience them as new,” said the show’s director, Kymberli Colbourne. “When you hear the words of John Adams coming from a woman actor, you sit up and take notice. It’s very thought provoking.”

David Mamet’s Oleanna is not an easy play. It’s filled with big ideas and respects the audience enough to let us find our own meaning.
Oleanna is, at heart, about feeling powerless and the lengths one will go to in order to gain some control. It’s also a post-feminist fable about the impenetrable boundary of language and people’s ability to listen without ever really hearing. It’s also about whatever preconceptions of gender politics you bring into the theater with you. See what I mean? Big ideas.