OSF To Celebrate Juneteenth
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival will host its annual Juneteenth Celebration on Monday, June 18. The day's activities include a variety show, a play reading, a tribute to G. Valmont Thomas and a roundtable discussion. All events are free or pay what you can, though donations will be accepted for the Juneteenth Scholarship Fund and future Juneteenth celebrations.
Oregon Shakespeare Festival Actor G. Valmont Thomas Dies
Gregory Valmont Thomas, a 14-season member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival acting company, passed away early on Monday, Dec. 18, in Ashland after a battle with cancer. OSF's 2018 season will be dedicated to the man who worked under the name G. Valmont Thomas but was better known to his friends and colleagues as G. Val.
HENRY IV, PART TWO Opens in Thomas Theatre 7/8
OSF's journey through Shakespeare's history tetralogy marches on with the second part of Henry IV joining the repertory, with previews beginning July 4. Once again, the Festival's intimate Thomas Theatre will play host to the political intrigue of early 15th-century England.
2016 Gypsy Rose Lee Awards Winners Announced!
The 'large theater' productions of ACT Theatre's The Royale and The 5th Avenue Theatre's How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying take top honors and the 'small theater' productions of ArtsWest's Death of a Salesman and Washington Ensemble Theatre's The Things Are Against Us take top honors - for most category wins!?
BWW Review: Hard Hitting ROYALE at ACT Examines Consequences of Being First
Let me start, Dear Readers, by saying I have never had an appreciation for boxing. I've just never understood why it's important to find out who can beat up someone else the best or, alternatively, who can take a beating the best. Having said that, the current production of Marco Ramirez's stirring play "The Royale" at ACT is not about boxing. Sure the backdrop of the story is boxing but moreover it's about the choice to take personal groundbreaking victories even in the shadow of danger to your friends and family. And that is a much more interesting fight than who can punch who the hardest.
BWW Review: Intiman's Seething STICK FLY Feels Clunky
One of the reasons we love a good family drama is it appeals to that voyeur in us all. We love to peek inside someone else's world and see how it compares to our own. But as chaotic and messy as those lives may be they still speak more eloquently and at just the right moments than we could, being scripted and all. And while peeking in on the secrets and lies of the LeVay family in Lydia R. Diamond's “Sticky Fly”, now playing as part of the Intiman Theatre Festival, may be powerful and evocative it also lacked some of that ordered chaos as much of the pacing of the play and the timing of it all felt clunky and unfocused.
BWW Review: ACT's Funny STUPID F**KING BIRD Gets Too Deconstructed
I'm perfectly fine when a play chooses to break the fourth wall and become self-referential. The ability for anything to be able to point out its own shortcomings is a sign of self-actualization. But when a play repeatedly does so and then pats itself on the back for its cleverness of doing so as does Aaron Posner's "Stupid F**king Bird", currently playing at ACT, then it becomes wearing almost to the point of insulting. And while Posner's play certainly has its funny moments, those repeated exposes onto itself started to feel like the play was flipping the audience the bird (and I don't mean a Seagull).
ACT Theatre to Present Aaron Posner's STUPID F#@*ING BIRD
ACT - A Contemporary Theatre presents Stupid f**king Bird by Aaron Posner, where Chekhov's story of love, art, and a hapless bird gets a remarkably contemporary face. On the grounds of a country estate, a battle between young and old ensues in this heartbreaking, hilarious, sort-of-adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull. Winner of the 2014 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play, Stupid f**king Bird is about our longing to love and be loved.
ASSASSINS, 2016 Young Playwrights Festival & More Coming Up at ACT
A Contemporary Theatre announces the spring shows that will occur during the debut season of Artistic Director John Langs. Highlights include the haunting and hilarious musical Assassins, the sixth co-production with The 5th Avenue Theatre, is now running through May 8. ACT celebrates eight talented writers in the 2016 Young Playwrights Festival Mar 10-12 and the world premiere of Worse Than Tigers opens Mar 24. April brings the heartbreaking, hilarious, sort-of-adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull with Aaron Posner's Stupid f**king Bird.
Artistic Director John Langs Introduces ACT Theatre's Core Company
ACT - A Contemporary Theatre and Artistic Director John Langs are thrilled to announce ACT's first Core Company. Each year, a group of actors will join ACT in a year-long creative endeavor, performing and contributing as artistic ambassadors to ACT's Mainstage season. Langs has assembled the talents of Keiko Green, Kirsten Potter, Lorenzo Roberts, Jasmine Jean Sim, G. Valmont Thomas, Connor Toms, and R. Hamilton Wright for 2016.