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 […]
Theater
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 […]
Posted inCulture
Espionage and Pratfalls
Not the average comedic spy-thriller
“The 39 Steps” is an interesting beast because it subverts expectations at every corner. Even those who have seen the 1935 film by Alfred Hitchcock or read the 1915 book by John Buchan will enjoy it quite a bit, but the stage adaptation also keeps its tongue planted firmly in cheek for the entire running […]
Posted inCulture
Top Theatre Performances of 2015
The Bend theatrical scene has gone through quite a resurgence in 2015, with a vast majority of the shows either playing to full houses or close to it. Compared to years' past when CTC and 2nd Street both came close to shutting their doors, and Volcanic Theatre Pub was primarily a music venue, 2015 has […]
Posted inCulture
A Boy and His Dog
CTC brings Charlie Brown to life
You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown exists for one simple reason. While there are musicals with catchier songs or flashier numbers, Charlie Brown exists to make you feel happy, through the struggles of one little everyman. Obviously, the musical is based on Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip, Peanuts, which ran new strips weekly for fifty […]
Posted inCulture
Our Picks 10/29-11/4
thursday 29-saturday 31 William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead ZOMBIES—Watch as Shakespeare teams up with the Queen, Richard Burbage, and other historical people you’ve forgotten, to fight nasty, undead Elizabethans hungering for the sweet release of death and human flesh. It’s not that serious and it’s a joyous time all around and the money goes […]
Posted inCulture
Slings & (Bloody) Arrows
William Shakespeare: Zombie killer
I’m sure if Shakespeare lived in modern times, he would have fully embraced the zombie genre with both doublet-ensconced arms. Imagine the drama that would have erupted in A Midsummer Night’s Dream if Bottom and Puck had to team up to take out some undead a-holes, or if Macbeth had to worry about zombies AND […]
Posted inCulture
The Black Box of Dead, Evil Musicals
A Thrilling October with CTC and 2nd Street
Cascades Theatrical Company and 2nd Street Theater are both trying something interesting over the next few weeks. Both theaters are trying something familiar in different and unexpected ways with CTC starting up this season’s first Black Box production and 2nd Street launching its fifth iteration of Evil Dead: The Musical. In each case, the experiment […]
Posted inCulture
Something Wilde
An Ideal Husband opens CTC’s theater season
Oscar Wilde was the world’s first genre mash-up artist. He loved comedy, he loved horror, he loved tales of high society, and he loved farce. At any given moment in one of his works, he might dive from drawing room comedy to farce, dash it up with some romance, and maybe throw a villain in […]
Posted inCulture
Puppets Are People, Too
Walk Onto Electric Avenue Q
Avenue Q is a better show than you think it is. Unless you have already seen it or heard snippits from it or watched Youtube videos, the only thing you might know about the show is that it is summed up in a sentence as “An R-rated episode of Sesame Street.” While that’s accurate to […]