Theater

If you didn't run out to see Nicole Kidman's Academy Award-nominated performance as a grief-stricken mother in 2010's Rabbit Hole, you can be forgiven. Not everyone, including the Academy, is interested in such weighty cinematic material as the death of a young child (Kidman did not receive the Oscar nod). But it would be a mistake to sit out Cascades Theatrical Company's presentation of the David Lindsay-Abaire play that served as the basis for the film's script.
In fact, after walking out of CTC's production of Rabbit Hole, I had to let it percolate through my mind for a day. Ultimately I decided I really did like it, and I would recommend it to anyone, but with a warning: this is not a happy play. It is tragically sarcastic, but it is definitely not happy. Don’t go to this play on a first date, or if you are looking for something light.

The set of Waiting for Godot is comprised of one dead tree, an expressionistic desert background and a floor covered in burlap. It's a stark scene, and feels slightly menacing, a lot like the language in Irish writer Samuel Beckett's seminal work.
It's also a lot like the financial situation of Innovation Theater Works. The nonprofit theater company, which got started in Bend in 2008, is in dire straights. If this play does not net enough cash, ITW's Artistic Director Brad Hills said it will be curtains for Innovation. (See sidebar).

Parker Daines is living the dream.
He's 19. He's living in Los Angeles. He's working at a restaurant. He's doing audition after audition, looking for his break into Hollywood. He'll go to LA City College and major in theater this fall.
“It's pretty incredible,” said Daines, a former actor with Bend Experimental Art Theatre, aka BEAT. “I'm only 19 and I've already started on what I want my life to be.”
He credits BEAT with inspiring him to get here. But more than that, he said the organization provides hundreds of young people in Bend an opportunity to find themselves through dramatic arts – a program that local public schools have cut deeply in recent years. As funding has dwindled for theater programs, BEAT has seen participation among young people grow at its workshops and shows. The program has gone from offering three productions in 2006 to eight in 2012, according to the organization's director.

When the curtain opens on the set of Gina Galdi and Guest at 2nd Street Theater this weekend, the cast and playwright hope audiences see a seamless and hilarious Sex and the City-style take on the life of a young women starting her own wedding cake business.
They want people to go away believing the sparse, black-box set was intended to be that way and that no will notice anything could ever have been amiss in preparations for opening night.
The reality has been very different. Just two weeks ago, the director of the play, Patrick Kmiec, 63, died suddenly and unexpectedly of a massive heart attack in his Redmond home. His partner, Roger Sinclair, was to have been the play's stage manager. And the set design, which was to be based on Kmiec's vision, had not gotten underway.

Local news celebrity Bob Shaw – aka the morning weather guy on KTVZ – stars in this one-man show that spurs nostalgia for Christmas past, and a hankering for whiskey-drenched fruitcake.
A Christmas Memory is based on a Truman Capote short story about a young boy's Christmas with his elderly cousin and unlikely best friend. Despite their poverty and misfortune, the two are flush with the spirit of the season and make the best of the little they have. Their adventures and oddball relationship are beautifully depicted by Capote's writing and are brought to life by Shaw's performance.

Just in time for Halloween and reviving 2nd Street Theater's Evil Dead spirit comes Bug, a play that lays out a true psychological vision of warped and squeamish dimensions. Once again, it's nice to see something this bold and wacky in Bend.
You've got to hand it to this talented production team: they are not afraid to take risks. I was lucky enough to attend the “week before” opening and even though there are some minor bugs to work out, this is a solid production fully intent on remaining creepy-crawly from the inside out.

Outside the Tower Theatre after Cat Call Productions' opening night performance of Chicago on Friday, I heard a man say to the woman hanging on his arm, “I can't believe we just saw that in Bend.”
This didn't surprise me. I heard a variation of that comment when Cat Call performed Cabaret in 2009 and again when they took on Little Shop of Horrors last fall. It does, however, make sense that people would say something like this, given that we really don't see many large-scale productions of this caliber and edginess around these parts. But by now, theatergoers should be getting used to such quality as long as Cat Call is involved in a musical.
The popular tale of prohibition-era cabaret singers who find themselves in jail and accused of murder is left in the capable hands of director Michael Heaton and choreographer Michelle Mejaski who team up to provide a creative and daring take on one of the most popular American musicals of all time. Add in the live onstage band directed by Constance Gordy and one of the most impressive casts I've seen in this town and you've got a hell of a production.

Fuddy Meers is a rollercoaster ride. Directed by Derek Sitter, professional actor and founder of both the Actor’s Realm and Volcanic Theatre, this David Lindsay-Abaire piece is one of the darkest plays to hit a Bend stage in recent memory.

Innovation Theatre Works' new production, tick, tick… Boom! is the rock and pop autobiography of Jonathan Larson, best known as the creator of Broadway sensation Rent. Fans of musical theater will enjoy the pitch-perfect singing of main character Jon, played with enthusiasm by Matt Lutz, who commands the stage with the frenetic energy of a wind-up toy smack in the middle of an early midlife crisis.
His girlfriend Susan, played by porcelain songbird Olivia Cherryholmes, presses Jon to give up his dreams and settle into East Hampton domestic bliss as the age of 30 ticks ever so near. John navigates his existential pangs and soothes his Peter Pan complex by condensing his life into rollicking rock show tunes that canonize everything from his jealousy over not driving a BMW to his borderline shameful love of the Twinkie.

“We're Still Here”
The 2nd Street Theater is letting the creative community in Central Oregon know that it's still very much around with its 10th anniversary party on Friday and Saturday nights, April 29 and 30, aptly dubbed “We're Still Here.” The theater has gone through some changes over the past couple of years, including the dissolution of its in-house production company, but that isn't to say the midtown-area playhouse has gone quiet. In fact, the 2nd Street continues to host innovative theatrical presentations, including the Halloween run of Evil Dead: The Musical and the plays of local writer Cricket Daniel.