Portland Spoke – The Official Blog of Travel Portland

Here are some of Portland’s performing arts highlights for September and October (see visual arts and music highlights):

Portland’s stages are filled in September and October, often with the very best productions of the year, from the beautiful productions of Portland Center Stage to the intimate shows at the city’s neighborhood theaters.

“Seven Guitars”
Oct. 9-Nov. 11
Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 S.W. Morrison St.

In recent years, Portland has seen fine productions of several of the great August Wilson’s 10-play theater cycle, set in an African-American neighborhood in Pittsburgh over 100 years. This one is set in 1948 and captures Wilson at his lyrical and musical peak.

“Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson”
Oct. 11-Nov. 11
Portland Playhouse, 602 N.E. Prescott St.

The question is, can Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson survive the assault of this rock musical? Portland Playhouse is a little theater with big ambitions, known for its risk-taking and sense of fun and energy. This excursion into American political history arrives just in time for the elections.

“Body Awareness”
Oct. 18-Nov. 10
Coho Productions, 2257 N.W. Raleigh St.

Coho is another of Portland’s little neighborhood theaters that so frequently produce great, gripping evenings of theater. “Body Awareness,” by Annie Baker, is set in a Vermont college town where a family deals with the introduction of a visitor whose career sets him at odds with everyone, except perhaps the son. One of the city’s best directors (and actors), Gretchen Corbett, directs.

 

“And So It Goes…”
Sept. 4-Oct. 7
Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 S.W. Morrison St.

Aaron Posner has carved a stage production from Kurt Vonnegut’s collection of short stories, “Welcome to the Monkey House,” and he’ll direct a cast that includes some of Portland’s best actors, including Tim True and Valerie Stevens, to kick off Artists Rep’s 30th season.

Time-Based Art Festival
Sept. 6-16
Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, various venues

Known as “TBA,” this festival is dedicated to avant-garde forms of theater, dance, music, visual arts and other uncategorizable arts, bringing both emerging new performance groups and established stars, including this year, Laurie Anderson. TBA shifts the Portland art scene several degrees toward the “wild and crazy.”

“Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street”
Sept. 18-Oct. 21
Portland Center Stage, 117 N.W. 11th Ave.

Center Stage is the largest theater company in Portland, and its most lavish production is usually the musical that kicks off each season — in this case, the company’s 25th. “Sweeney Todd” is Stephen Sondheim’s great musical thriller, based on a Christopher Bond play, and motivated by revenge. Pies and especially close shaves are involved.

LA Dance Project
Sept. 26
White Bird, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 S.W. Broadway

Benjamin Millepied is one of ballet’s hottest young choreographers, fresh off the success of “Black Swan” (and marriage to its star, Natalie Portman), and the LA Dance Project is a brand-new company he’s formed to storm the ramparts. Dance presenter White Bird gets the company at the very front end of its very first national tour, which will include new work by Millepied, as well as Merce Cunningham’s “Winterbranch.”

“Master Harold … and the Boys”
Oct. 3-28
Profile Theatre, Theater! Theatre!, 3430 S.E. Belmont St.

Profile devotes its entire season to a single playwright, and this one belongs to Athol Fugard, the great South African dramatist, whose accounts of life under apartheid are some of the most vivid we have. “Master Harold” is Fugard at his mid-career best and sharpest — the play was originally banned in South Africa.

“That Hopey Changey Thing”
Oct. 5-21
Third Rail Repertory Theatre, Winningstad Theater, 1111 S.W. Broadway

Richard Nelson is writing a cycle of plays based on recent American history, and this one is set in 2010 on election day in the house of a (relatively) liberal family as it deals with the crushing election defeat of the Democratic Party. But the play isn’t an ideological rant — it’s more a reasonable (though occasionally passionate) discussion of politics mixed in with a bit of family drama.

Trisha Brown Dance Company
Oct. 11-13
White Bird, Newmark Theater, 1111 S.W. Broadway

It’s hard to imagine modern dance without the extensive movement experiments of Trisha Brown, who has created work that is both quite challenging and quite beautiful. White Bird will present the U.S. premiere of her newest work, “Toss My Arms…,” which is based on her love of sculpture and calligraphy.

“Body Beautiful”
Oct. 13-20
Oregon Ballet Theatre, Keller Auditorium, 222 S.W. Clay St.

In conjunction with the Portland Art Museum’s “The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece” exhibit, Oregon Ballet Theatre gets those bodies in motion with a program built around George Balanchine’s ballet, “Apollo,” to music by Igor Stravinsky. Also on the card, dances by Kent and Christopher Stowell and William Forsythe.

 

Tags: dance, drama, play, plays, Theater, theatre

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