Martin McDonagh's THE PILLOWMAN Comes to NE Portland

Life In Arts Productions will present the company's inaugural production, The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh, beginning February 10th at The Headwaters Theatre. Directed by Jamie M. Rea, The Pillowman is an urgent work of theatrical bravura - an unflinching examination of the very nature and purpose of art.

SHOW DATES:

Friday, February 10th @ 7:30pm
Saturday, February 11th @ 7:30pm
Sunday, February 12th @ 7:30pm

Thursday, February 16th @ 7:30pm
Friday, February 17th @ 7:30pm
Saturday, February 18th @ 7:30pm
Sunday, February 19th @ 7:30pm

Thursday, February 23rd @ 7:30pm
Friday, February 24th @ 7:30pm
Saturday, February 25th @ 7:30pm

TICKETS: $15; $10 students & seniors | Advance: https://squareup.com/store/life-in-arts-productions

CAST: Bobby Bermea, Benjamin Philip, Gary Strong, and Jonah Weston.

ABOUT THE SHOW: The Pillowman is a brutal dark comedy from Martin McDonagh, a renowned playwright and filmmaker, which won the 2004 Olivier Award for Best Play. With echoes of Stoppard, Kafka, and the Brothers Grimm, The Pillowman centers on a writer in an unnamed totalitarian state who is being interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories and their similarities to a series of child murders. At its core, The Pillowman is about storytelling and the thrilling narrative potential of theater itself. Let's make one thing clear: Mr. McDonagh is not preaching the power of stories to redeem or cleanse or to find a core of solid truth hidden among life's illusions. The Pillowman is celebrating the raw, vital human instinct to invent fantasies, to lie for the sport of it, to bait with red herrings, to play Scheherazade to an audience real or imagined. For Mr. McDonagh, that instinct is as primal and energizing as the appetites for sex and food. Life is short and brutal, but stories are fun. Plus, they have the chance of living forever.

Life In Arts Productions and its founding members Jayne Furlong, Benjamin Philip, and Mandy Khoshnevisan, all life-long students of the arts who are deeply involved with many community theatres throughout the Portland area, brought the script to director Jamie Rea and actor Bobby Bermea. As their passion for the project became clear, the team at Life Arts decided that this was an ideal project to introduce themselves as a new voice in the rich tapestry of the Portland theatre scene. One of the many goals for Life In Arts is to create an environment in which an ensemble of actors and artists develop different works in a variety of mediums, using the ideals of community, collaboration, and commitment in order to give power to the voice of the artist, supporting their vision from conception to production. The Pillowman puts the resources of Life In Arts into the vision of local artists on a project aligned with Life Art’s mission, offering a deeper collaboration and more diverse community involvement for the company, the artist, and the communities they serve.

ABOUT THE COMPANY: Life In Arts Productions was founded by Jayne Furlong, Benjamin Philip, and Mandy Khoshnevisan. Seeing the need for more experimental storytelling and challenging material within the community theatre scene of Portland, as well as working to create a dialogue about the increasingly difficult realities of the world we face in the year 2017, the team decided to create a company that would endeavor to find socially and politically relevant material, and explore them with like-minded students of the theatre. Life In Arts Productions is committed to discovering and exploring stories and opportunities for these communities.

MISSION STATEMENT: Life In Arts Productions is committed to producing quality work that brings performing arts and education to our communities.

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