"Come From Away" at Oregon Shakespeare Festival is a deep, entertaining exploration of how people can simply be people in times of extraordinary stress. This production showcases real people being intensely human. Superb. Five stars (plus) out of five.
This EARNEST is an old chestnut well roasted with some spice added to its normal vanilla flavoring. A 5-star performance.
Powerfully written and performed, Jitney at Oregon Shakespeare Festival definitely is a -- maybe THE -- highlight of the theater season.
The staging, pacing and acting are flawless throughout Oregon Shakespeare Festival's FAT HAM. There are no drags on this performance which rates 5 stars.
Behfarmaheen is must-see, touching, detailed show featuring a man whose work I’ve long enjoyed. He must have incredible guts to put so any sides of him on stage for us.
This one-person show by OSF veteran Rodney Gardiner is intense, personal, real, and not to be missed (and like all of the one-person shows the run is too short, so go now).
I am happy to have seen this theater-goers mental masturbation show which was well done but fails the “so what” test.
by William Shakespeareadapted by Rosa Joshi and Kate Wisniewskidirected by Rosa Joshi Ashland, ORat the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Bring Down the House, Part One (no photos yet posted for Part Two)Ensemble. Photo by Jenny Graham, Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Through a scheduling snafu I missed the opening of Bring Down the House, Part I and took up the Henry VI story halfway through. Because co-adapters Rosa Joshi and Kate Wisniewski have done such a good job of curating scenes and speeches, I fell right into the story, despite the potentially confusing rush of characters and battles. I had a fun time [...]
Hairspray created and written by John Watersbook by Thomas Meehan and Mark O'Donnellmusic by Marc Shaimandirected by Christopher Liam Moore Prepare to smile, laugh, feel good, applaud, and appreciate an uplifting story sung and danced into your heart by a strong, beautiful, coordinated cast. Get ready for a perfect production of a archetypal feel-good big musical. Beyond the summary above, everything else is just dreary supporting detail. The story has a socially marginalized fat girl scoring a position on a TV dance show that is a bastion of white privilege and teenage snottiness. She and her black friends break barriers [...]
Cambodian Rock Band by Lauren Yeedirected by Chay Yew Photo by Jenny Graham. Understanding your parents and their motivations is a difficult and uncomfortable act for most of us humans. In Cambodian Rock Band it's an impossible task for first-generation American Neary (played by Brooke Ishibashi) whose Cambodian-born parents don't talk much about the pre-USA times. Neary, a thoroughly American young adult, has decided to go to Phnom Penh and work with NGOs to bring to justice people who helped the Khmer Rouge. She's gathering evidence against the superintendent of S21, a notorious killing prison, when her father (Chum, played [...]
