Portland Shakes' Presents PROSCENIUM LIVE Free Festival Of New Work

Portland Shakespeare Project and Proscenium Journal present the fifth annual Proscenium Live Festival of New Work with two days of fresh plays. This year's festival takes place at Portland State University's Lincoln Hall, in the Boiler Room Studio Theater. All performances are free, no ticket reservations are necessary, and seating is general admission.

Building on a four-year history of successful play development through Proscenium Live exposure, the 2019 Festival will offer new plays by each of these playwrights: Linda Alper, Susan Mach and Carl Sander. All plays will be performed in a staged reading format, and feature some of Portland's most talented actors.

Proscenium Live Festival of New Work 2019

VENUE: Portland State University, Lincoln Hall, Boiler Room Studio Theater (LH55) 1620 SW Park Avenue, Portland, OR 97201

DATES: August 3 & 4, 2019

PERFORMANCES: Saturday @ 7:30pm; Sunday @ 2pm & 7:30pm

PLAYS:

August 3 @ 7:30pm The Best Worst Place by Linda Alper. Directed by Jane Unger.

August 4 @ 2pm Water From Fire by Susan Mach. Directed by Michael Mendelson.

August 4 @ 7:30pm Mercer Island Misalliance by Carl Sander. Directed by Michael Mendelson.

TICKETS: FREE - General admission seating, no reservations.

PROSCENIUM LIVE FESTIVAL OF NEW WORK

2019 SCHEDULE

Saturday, August 3 @ 7:30pm | The Best Worst Place by Linda Alper

Directed by Jane Unger ^

Linda Alper's new play, The Best Worst Place, follows Eva Broder, a European adolescent refugee who grows to maturity in one of the most crowded, corrupt, crime-ridden and unhealthy places on the planet. During her journey to adulthood, Eva discovers how her life is interwoven with that of others and what kind of responsibilities - even under extreme adversity - she has the courage and obligation to embrace.

The Best Worst Place examines 1937-1947 when 18,000 European Jews fled their countries only to be refused entry to the United States, Canada, Mexico, South America, South Africa and Australia. Only Shanghai, the colorful and corrupt international city teeming with displaced persons from around the world, accepted them without visas. Although originally allowed anywhere in the city, the Jewish refugees were eventually forced into a square mile ghetto, which they shared with 100,000 of the poorest Chinese. Written for family and young adult audiences, the play is part coming-of-age, part adventure story and part exploration of a fascinating, nearly forgotten piece of history.

Linda Alper's The Best Worst Place is part of Artists Repertory Theatre's Table|Room|Stage new play development program. Watch Artists Rep's video interview with Linda Alper about her new play HERE.

CAST: Cast: Claire Rigsby* (Eva Broder), Jason Glick* (Leo), Foss Curtis* (Helene), Barbie Wu* (Song Pei), Joshua J. Weinstein* (Benjamin Wundemann)

Linda Alper is an actor and playwright. She is a resident artist at Artists Rep and appears on stage there frequently. She has also played leading roles at Portland Center Stage, Portland Shakespeare Project, Off Broadway, Mark Taper Forum, The Intiman, Seattle Rep, Baltimore Center Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse and other theatres, including 24 seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival where she appeared in over 50 productions. Linda has co-written adaptations and translations produced in all three venues of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, as well as at A Conservatory Theatre (San Francisco), Denver Theatre Center, Virginia Rep, The Acting Company; Santa Cruz, Colorado and other Shakespeare festivals in the U.S. and U.K. She was the script deviser and producer for On Common Ground, a Pakistani/American collaboration supported by a U.S. Embassy Cultural Affairs Grant that brought Pakistani artists to Artists Rep and OSF. Linda won a Dramalogue Award for Best Actress, Fulbright Specialist Grant to Pakistan, Fulbright Travel Grant to Beijing, Grant for Visiting Artist to Taiwan and an Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship. A graduate of The Juilliard School, she is also a Fulbright Senior Scholar.

^Member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society

*Member, Actors' Equity Association, the professional union of actors and stage managers.

Sunday, August 4 @ 2pm |Water From Fire by Susan Mach

Directed by Michael Mendelson^

At the end of the trial scene in The Winter's Tale, Apollo's oracle states that "the king shall live without an heir if that which is lost be not found." At this point in the play, Hermione appears to both Leontes and the audience to have died, but is actually whisked into hiding by Paulina. Perdita, the lost child, is rescued by a shepherd. At the beginning of Act IV, Time describes the sixteen years of Perdita's childhood as "growth untried" (4.1.6). This play imagines what happens during those years.

CAST: Kelly Godell* (Hermione), Lolly Ward (Paulina), Murri Lazaroff-Babin (Leontes), Agatha Olsen (Perdita), Steve Rathje (Stage Directions)

Sue Mach's plays have been produced by Theatre for the New City in Manhattan, Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, Portland Repertory Theatre, CoHo Theatre, Artists Repertory Theatre, Portland World Theatre, Third Rail, and Icarus Theatre Ensemble. She has been teaching literature, composition, and digital storytelling classes at Clackamas Community College for over twenty years.

^Member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society

*Member, Actors' Equity Association, the professional union of actors and stage managers.

Sunday, August 4 @ 7:30pm | Mercer Island Misalliance by Carl Sander

Directed by Michael Mendelson^

A comedic purge of the national trauma brought on by the events of November 8, 2016, Mercer Island Misalliance is an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Misalliance updated to the 2016 election, and moved to the lakeside estate of Mrs. Julia Tarleton of Mercer Island, an upscale community just east of the deeply Blue city of Seattle. The adaptation uses the quaint rituals of America's sincerely liberal, but largely oblivious, West Coast upper middle class in the early 21st century to explore questions of national identity laid bare by the election of Donald Trump.

CAST: Sharonlee McLean* (Julia Tarleton), Olivia Weiss (Jean Tarleton), La'Tevin Alexander Ellis (Bunny Summers), Kelly Godell* (Hypatia Tarleton/Patsy), Bobby Bermea* (Carl Tones), Dave Bodin* (Coop Summers), Jim Vadala (Ally Youngren), David Sikking (Jeremy Birdwell), Steve Rathje (Stage Directions)

Carl Sander is a playwright who works in the Seattle theatre community. He earned an MFA from The University of Washington School of Drama, served as a Washington State Artist in Residence, received grants from the Washington, King County, and Seattle Arts Commissions, and was honored with an Individual Artist Award by the city in recognition of his "artistic contributions to the City of Seattle." Sander's notable plays include: Perfect Stranger, Navy Brat, Standing Up Walking Out, Two Women TV (winner, New City Theater Playwrights Festival), American Lebanon (winner, Stanley Kramer New Play Contest), Dead Singers, Adventures In The Alley Of Extraordinary Obsession, Adventures In The Archive Of Truth and Dare, The String Cycle: a Tavern Opera in Three Acts.

^Member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society

*Member, Actors' Equity Association, the professional union of actors and stage managers.

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