Eugene Weekly

You think your dad has outrageous stories?  According to Edward Bloom, the years before he became a salesman were filled with heroism, giants, witches, mermaids and indentured servitude in the name of love.  Continue reading →

With 20 songs and the precedent of a 1983 film starring Steve Martin and Bill Murray, Little Shop of Horrors isn’t the easiest musical to pull off. But Red Cane Theater, home of the Phoinix Players, succeeds in telling the story of the Venus flytrap from Hell on Skid Row.  Continue reading →

First, the bad news: Cottage Theatre’s excellent production of David Auburn’s Pulitzer-winning drama Proof ends its run this weekend, so you’ll have to scramble to get tickets. The good news, then, is that, should you land seats, you will be treated to one of the finest local productions of the year. Directed with a sure hand by Alan Beck and featuring a small cast of talented local actors, this production achieves an almost perfect balance of emotional resonance and technical finesse. The play is so engaging and moving, so rich and dynamic, it feels like a dream. Continue reading →

In the canon of musical comedies, it doesn’t get much better than How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.  Playing this weekend at The Shedd, this hilarious 1961 musical slyly satirizes the midcentury corporate American workplace, as its hero, J. Pierrepont Finch, a humble window washer, ascends the rungs of the corporate ladder by not really doing anything.  Continue reading →

When performer Nancy Hopps first tackled the one-woman show Raw Canvas in 2001, her life was in a radically different place than it is today.  “I had just come through cancer, relationship changes,” Hopps recalls. “I was a busy, active parent to a teenage daughter. Coming back to the play now, I realize even more that the character’s weighing her own passions and artistic fulfillment against societal and familial expectations.”   Continue reading →

The Very Little Theatre’s current main stage production Superior Donuts, directed by Stanley Coleman, is a work of both comedic and dramatic realism, like a buddy film with a twist of gut-wrenching social commentary.  The interwoven genres at work here are not too surprising, as it comes from playwright Tracy Letts, who’s most famous work August: Osage County deals with the dark underbelly of Americana as a dramedy. Continue reading →