Arts: Page 327

Middle School Musical

Actors Cabaret of Eugene premieres 13with a youthful cast

Theater

“A lot of people around age 13 are trying to find themselves,” says Jenny Bryant, performing this weekend in 13 at Actor’s Cabaret of Eugene. Castmate Angel McNabb adds, “The play relates to middle school, because kids are always trying to find a group where they fit in.”  With music and lyrics by the Tony award-winning American playwright Jason Robert Brown, book by Dan Elish and Robert Horn and direction and choreography by Lanny Mitchell, 13 features a cast of young people from around the region, ranging in age from 10 to 16. Continue reading →

Pillars of the Community

Artist Esteban Camacho brings an environmental focus to the murals of the WJ Skatepark

Visual Arts
Photo by Todd Cooper

Esteban Camacho weaves through the skateboard jungle that is the new WJ Skatepark + Urban Plaza, finding some smooth invisible path while I stumble after him, jumping out of the way of teens on wheels. It’s clear the artist is a seasoned veteran of the site. We sit on a bench carved into a ramp, skateboarders whirring around us. Hands leathery with green paint, Camacho points up at the murals developing on two pillars buttressing I-105.  Continue reading →

Dazed and Confused

Film

James Franco is a fascinating character. With his chiseled good looks and bedroom eyes, he is genetically perched for sex-symbol status, and certainly Hollywood yearns to dip him in those spangled shallows. But Franco, as part of Seth Rogen and Jason Segel’s Freaks and Geeks mob, resists the most earnest superfluities of celebrity; his artistic talent is tempered by self-deprecation and suspicion, which keeps him on his toes — witness the masochistic pleasure he takes in ripping his reputation in This is the End. Continue reading →

Big Ambitions, Tiny Venue

Music
Gibraltar

New bands play lots of strange places: bedrooms, basements and bars (empty or, preferably, full). On June 12, Seattle’s fledgling post-punk quartet Gibraltar plays Eugene’s Tiny Tavern, a venue that is, well … pretty tiny.  But it’s immediately apparent from their latest record, The New Century, that Gibraltar (featuring current and former members of Afghan Whigs, Visqueen, Exohxo and Spanish for 100) have arena-sized ambitions.  Continue reading →

Free as a Bird

Music
Gabrielle Louise

For her latest project, The Bird in My Chest, singer-songwriter Gabrielle Louise wanted to do something different. “I had my heart set on releasing a book of short stories and poems alongside a collection of music,” Louise says. “So I took everything I had composed in the same time frame — songs, poems and short stories — and I published a booklet to accompany the CD.” Continue reading →

Dynamic Duo

Music
Tyler Fortier and Beth Wood

If EW’s annual Best of Eugene contest included the category “Most likely to perform at Austin City Limits,” local singer-songwriters Tyler Fortier and Beth Wood would surely tie for first. Wood, a native Texan, says she’d jump at the opportunity to play the famous Austin, Texas-based music festival; Fortier admits he might prefer to appear online in an installment of NPR’s intimate Tiny Desk Concerts. Continue reading →

Hail the King, Buzzo

Music
King Buzzo

Excerpt from phone interview with King Buzzo of the Melvins: Me: Hello, may I speak with Buzz Osborne, please? Buzz: That’s me. Me: Hey, this is Rick Levin from the Eugene Weekly. Buzz: Never heard of it. And that, folks, is punk rock in a nutshell. Continue reading →

Ordinary People

OCT kicks off summer with an intimate New York musical

Theater
Tony Coslett, Trevor Eichhorn, Katie Worley and Shannon Coltrane in Ordinary Days.

Claire, Jason, Warren and Deb are just four ordinary New Yorkers, but their lives intersect in the most extraordinary ways as they search with classic longing for love and fulfillment in a very modern setting. Ordinary Days is a contemporary musical by up-and-coming American composer Adam Gwon. According to Charles Isherwood of The New York Times, “Mr. Gwon writes crisp, fluid and often funny lyrics that reflect the racing minds of the four New Yorkers on a nervous search for their immediate futures.” Continue reading →

The Absurdist

Winner of the Andy Kauffman Award, comedian Brent Weinbach returns

Comedy
Brent Weinbach

Brent Weinbach is goofy, strange and smart — the perfect combo for a comedian coming to Eugene. He’s your Renaissance everyman: A former professional jazz pianist, Weinbach writes and co-directs the web series Pound House, hosts a podcast on video game music that predates the millennium, and has appeared on reigning comedy platforms like Conan, Comedy Central, HBO and IFC as well as touring with the Comedians of Comedy. Continue reading →