Arts: Page 331

Come Sail Away

ACE gets sunny with Once on This Island

Theater
Alexis Myles, Kirstin Nusser and Troy Pennington

More so than any other theater company in town, Actors Cabaret of Eugene continues to reflect the spirit and ethos of Eugene. Led by artistic director Joe Zingo and executive director/producer Joe Roberts — and with help from the indomitable Mark Van Beever, whose music direction is always top tier — ACE channels the best of our local culture by remaining free-spirited and at the same time hewing close to a tradition that is equal parts frontier strong and renegade D.I.Y. Continue reading →

Arts Hound

Visual Arts

Aloha Hawaii! After 32 years in the 50th state, the Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Festival is coming to Eugene for the first time 7:30 pm Saturday, March 22, at the Hult. Grammy nominee and Na Hoku Hanohano (often called the “Hawaiian Grammys”) award winner Stephen Inglis will demonstrate his fancy fingerstylings, and virtuoso slack key guitarist L.T. Smooth will show how he got his nickname. Continue reading →

Ghost Stories

Music

Hazy, fuzzy and totally spaced out, the Ghost Ease is a relatively new Portland trio whose sound meshes the jazzy punk of early Sonic Youth with the more ethereal explorations of Cat Power, all run through the crackle and pop of amps knobbed to seismic volumes. Continue reading →

PB&J meets R&B

Music

“I get asked that all the time,” says Jelly Bread vocalist and guitarist Dave Berry about the band’s sound, adding that “moonshine funk and soul” is the usual fallback. “We cover a lot of ground,” Berry says. Continue reading →

Spaghetti Western Opera

Music
Soprano Emily Pulley stars as ‘Minnie’ in The Girl of the Golden West

More than half a century before Sergio Leone, Ennio Morricone, Clint Eastwood et al brought us an Italian view of the American West’s good/bad old days, New York’s Metropolitan Opera asked famed Italian composer Giacomo Puccini to make a new opera from a play of the Gold Rush days. Continue reading →

Folk-Prog-Rock-Jam-Dance

Music
Papadosio

Papadosio is a prog-rock band at its core, but take a closer look; it is so much more than that. The Athens, Ohio-founded quintet could quite easily have tailored its sound for ignorant audiences, but if you want your music to say something, actually spread a message, you gotta go big. Continue reading →

The Agony and the Ecstasy

Ecstasy: A Water Fable is a beautiful production that teeters into overly deferential territory

Theater
Jessica Ray, Alex Mentzel and Matt Ober

Spiritual fracture and cultural alienation are at the heart of Ecstasy: A Water Fable, a play by Egyptian-American writer Denmo Ibrahim based on the Sufi tale “When the Waters Were Changed.” Directed by Michael Malek Najjar, UO’s University Theatre’s production of Ibrahim’s work — a triptych that flashes among three characters all seeking some form of reconnection with their origins — is technically adept and swift, clocking in at about 90 minutes. Continue reading →