Portland Playhouse Season 11 With Special Guests Profile Theatre

Portland Playhouse is thrilled to announce that Profile Theatre will present two plays in rep in its newly renovated North Portland theatre during the 2018-19 Season. The Rejoice! Diaspora Dance Theatre will also take up a one week residency in the space during the spring of 2019.

Portland Playhouse's official Season 11 offerings include:

Wakey, Wakey by Will Eno - What are we here for? Is time a friend or an enemy? Do we all eventually end up in the same place, but take different routes to get there? This funny, moving, and thought-provoking new play challenges the notion of what really matters and recognizes the importance of life's simple pleasures. (All of which might sound dreary, but there's a chance this will be a really good experience.)

(September 26 - October 21)

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens- The award winning production of this family-friendly classic returns to the Playhouse for another season of humbugs and Happy Christmases! Join Ebenezer Scrooge and the ghostly spirits who visit on Christmas Eve and guide the grumpy miser through a redemptive and transformative journey towards friendship and love. Hopeful, musical, and above all fun!

Directed by Brian Weaver. Adaptation and Original Lyrics by Rick Lombardo, Original Music by Anna Lackaff and Rick Lombardo, Music Arrangements by Anna Lackaff (December 1 - 30)

No Candy by Emma Stanton- At the center of No Candy is a multi-generational community of Bosnian Muslim women who run a gift shop near the Srebrenica memorial. The play follows how each woman copes, both privately and publicly, with the particular trauma she experienced during the war: She dreams of Julie Andrews; She dresses drag in her father's clothes; She sings late-night karaoke; She allows the ghost of her husband to stay a little while longer in her home. No Candy is very much about how trauma inhabits the body and shapes a community. But it is also about the persistence of humor, art, and absurdity in an unimaginable time.

Directed by Tea Alagic (January 16-February 10)

Crowns by Regina Taylor adapted from the book by Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry. Portland Playhouse garnered much acclaim for its musicals with successes such as A Light in the Piazza, Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson, and most recently, Scarlet. Crowns brings the musical experience back to the Playhouse stage in a big way. A female driven cast tells the story of Yvonne, a young woman transplanted from Brooklyn to South Carolina following a family tragedy. There she meets a circle of women who share with her the history, the importance, the power of the hat. Crowns is a not-to-be-missed celebration of song, dance, cultural history-and glamorous headwear. (March 13-April 7)

"Our Season 11 dives into the experience of aliveness; these plays are about people who are saying "give me MORE life, more laughter, more messiness, more truth, and allow me to feel the pain and suffering that surrounds me fully," said Portland Playhouse Artistic Director Brian Weaver. "What better way to honor this life than share it with friends? With that in mind, we are thrilled to welcome back Rejoice! Diaspora Dance Theatre for a short run and to feature Profile Theatre's two productions - Anna Deveare Smith's Let Me Down Easy and Well by Lisa Kron - into our home to close out the season. "

"I'm really looking forward to this partnership," said Profile's Artistic Director Josh Hecht. "I've loved the energy and enthusiasm Portland Playhouse brings to each of their collaborations. And I'm excited to share Profile's unique depth of engagement with these master writers with the Portland Playhouse audience. Two incredible theatre companies, two of our most accomplished dramatists, one expansive theatre event in rotating rep...what could be more exciting than that?"

About Portland Playhouse

PORTLAND PLAYHOUSE, heading into its 11th season of making theatre for diverse audiences in Portland, is a space for people of all backgrounds to come together to celebrate the complexity of our shared human condition. Portland Playhouse is dedicated to producing quality, intimate, performances in which the interaction between artists and audience is paramount. We envision a world awakened by the wonder of theatre. More information at www.portlandplayhouse.org

Box Office: boxoffice@portlandplayhouse.org or 503.488.5822

About Profile Theatre

Profile Theatre's mission is to produce a season of first-class productions and community engagement activities centered around a single writer whose vision broadens our perspective on our world and deepens our collective compassion. More information at www.profiletheatre.org

Box office: boxoffice@profiletheatre.org or 503.242.0080

About Profile Theatre productions

Performing May 9th - June 16th, 2019 in rotating repertory.

Well - In the opening moments of this Tony-nominated Best Play on Broadway, Lisa Kron assures us this play is not about her mother and her. But, of course, it is about her mother, and her mother's extraordinary ability to heal a changing neighborhood, despite her inability to heal herself. In this self-professed solo show with people in it, Kron asks the provocative question: Do we create our own illness? The answers she gets are much more complicated than she bargained for as the play spins dangerously out of control into riotously funny and unexpected territory. Directed by Josh Hecht.

Let Me Down Easy - In this theater piece constructed from verbatim interview transcripts, Anna Deavere Smith examines the miracle of human resilience through the lens of the national debate on health care. Drawn from in-person interviews, Smith creates an indelible gallery of 20 individuals, known and unknown-from a rodeo bull rider and a World Heavyweight boxing champion to a New Orleans doctor during Hurricane Katrina, as well as former Texas Governor Ann Richards, cyclist Lance Armstrong, film critic Joel Siegel, and supermodel Lauren Hutton. A work of emotional brilliance and political substance from one of the treasures of the American theater. Originally created as a one-person show, the Profile Theatre production will feature the same six-person cast performing Lisa Kron's Well. Directed by Josh Hecht.

About Rejoice! Diaspora Dance Theatre

Rejoice! is a Portland-based contemporary dance ensemble led by the bold vision and artistic direction of Oluyinka Akinjiola. Inspired by the folklore of the great African diaspora, Rejoice's performance repertoire boldly weaves stories of adversity and hope, captivating audiences with their outspoken calls for social change. diasporadancetheater.weebly.com

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