Krista Garver - Page 18

This month, millions of people across America will gather in squares, theatres, and many other places to sing their favorite seasonal carols. At 99.99% of these gatherings, someone will strike up the tune of 'White Christmas.' Meanwhile, at sporting events across the country, just after the national anthem, many people will remain standing to participate in a rousing rendition of 'God Bless America.' Very few of these people will know that these songs -- both quintessentially American -- were written by a Russian Jewish immigrant. That immigrant, who gave us much of the Great American Songbook, was Irving Berlin.

Holiday shows can be pretty cliche -- someone learns the true meaning of Christmas and then everyone breaks into song. Now, don't get me wrong, I look forward to watching Mickey's Christmas Carol and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (cartoon version) every year. But during a time when new societal fault lines seem to open up every day, we need a different story.

The next time you're getting ready for work, take a moment to be grateful that your boss is not Daniel Weisinger, the super-rich, super-entitled boss who sucks the life out of one assistant after another in Leslye Headland's ASSISTANCE, now playing at Theatre Vertigo. The play is a sarcastic and funny look at the worst bits of modern office life, and the people on which that life takes its toll.

In this weird presidential campaign, where ideas like building a wall along our southern border and excluding entire groups of people from our country based on their religion are tossed around as if they were reasonable, it's important to look back at our shameful history -- in the hopes that we might avoid repeating it. Jeanne Sakata's HOLD THESE TRUTHS, now playing at Portland Center Stage, gives us that opportunity, and I urge as many people as possible to take it.

What do you do if you work at a fast-food franchise that's been abandoned by the manager, but instructed by corporate to stay open, even without supplies?

If you're looking for Portland's most creative theatre, Shaking the Tree productions are always in the running. And the current show is no exception. Just in time for Halloween, director Samantha Van Der Merwe brings us HEAD. HANDS. FEET., which consists of three devised works based on the fairy tales Bluebeard, The Handless Maiden, and The Red Shoes, plus an adaptation of Euripides' Iphigenia.

If you'd like to know how August Wilson went from humble beginnings to a beloved (and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning) playwright, then make your way over to Portland Playhouse for HOW I LEARNED WHAT I LEARNED, a one-man show originally written as a memoir and performed by the playwright himself.

If you're looking for that next musical to fall in love with, or you wonder what the big deal is about musical theatre, I very highly recommend you make your way out to Tigard to see FLY BY NIGHT at Broadway Rose. (Protip: Take a date. And tissues.)

You know the songs by heart, you have complicated feelings about the dentist (Steve Martin could never really be that bad, right?), and, admit it, you always secretly root for the plant. If any of this rings true, then go right now and buy your tickets to LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS at Portland Center Stage. It will fulfill all of your 'rock musical horror comedy' fantasies. (Rock musical horror comedy -- that's how Wikipedia describes it. Are there any other shows in this genre?)

I'm not that into fashion. In truth, we're barely on speaking terms. So, when I found out that Triangle Productions' first show of the season was FULL GALLOP, a one-woman show about tastemaker and fashion icon Diana Vreeland, I wasn't sure what to expect. On the one hand, I've greatly enjoyed past Triangle shows that profiled intriguing women. On the other hand, could I really sit through two hours of fashion?

It seems like every time a previously docile animal, like a pet dog or an animal at the zoo, does something unexpectedly awful (usually in the form of harming a person), we hear things like, 'I don't know what happened. He's never been aggressive before.' When it's a person who commits a terrible act of violence, we say they 'just snapped.' In any case, we generally have the idea that one day someone is fine and the next day they just lose it.

'Something happened 13 years ago.' That's the first line of E.M. Lewis's stunning one-person play THE GUN SHOW, and from the moment Vin Shambry says it until a little over an hour later when he takes his bow, you should be prepared to laugh, cry, sing, and maybe, just maybe, change your perspective on guns.

In response to the controversial Patriot Act of 2001, which allowed for wiretapping, surveillance, and other measures ostensibly to protect the United States against terrorism, five women wrote adaptations of Sophocles' ANTIGONE, a play about power, resistance, and what happens when we're denied those things most important to us.

What would you do if the wife who left you 20 years ago in the middle of the night, and who you've loved and and hated ever since, showed up at your door?

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM is the musical equivalent of the perfect summer beach read -- funny, not too demanding, and everything works right out in the end. The current production at Broadway Rose fulfills all of these expectations and gives you a tune to hum on your way home (I've been amusing myself with 'Comedy Tonight' for days).

Portland has a new theatre company! Public Citizen Theatre is the mostly crowdfunded passion project of Amanda Mehl and Aaron Filyaw. For their first production they've chosen Jean Genet's 1947 play THE MAIDS, a sadomasochistic look at domestic servitude, based on the true story of the Papin sisters and translated by Martin Crimp.

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR had its heyday before I was born. Of course, growing up as a musical lover, I had several Andrew Lloyd Webber compilation CDs, so I got to know the music, which I still think is rates among Webber's best. But, I'd never had the pleasure of seeing the actual musical until last weekend, when I took in Michael Streeter's production at Post5 Theatre. And I thought it was great! One of the people in my party had been lucky enough to see the original 1970 production on Broadway. He enjoyed this one as well.

Broadway Rose could perhaps not have picked a more fitting time to bring us Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein, and Stephen Sondheim's WEST SIDE STORY. Right now, our country and several others around the world are in dire need of a reminder that when gangs face off, there is no happy ending. Violence that is rooted in blind hatred and fear has tragic consequences -- for everybody.

When AMERICAN IDIOT premiered on Broadway in 2010, I must admit I was skeptical. Like every other person of my generation, I started listening to Green Day in high school. But a punk jukebox musical? Really?