Performing Arts: Page 59

Fortune’s Smile

Robert Caisley’s comedy Lucky Me premieres at OCT

Theater
Joe Cronin (left), Kelly Quinnett and Eric Hadley in OCT’s Lucky Me

Sara is unlucky. She has a problem with light bulbs blowing out, leftovers spontaneously combusting and goldfish going belly up before their time. But in the new comedy Lucky Me by Robert Caisley — now playing at Oregon Contemporary Theatre — Sara finds something special because of her supposed faults, not in spite of them.  Written in a snappy style reminiscent of Kaufman and Hart, Caisley populates Sara’s leaky apartment with a cast of genuine and lovable misfits.  Continue reading →

Shedding Layers

‘Fluctuating Hemlines’ tests Eugene Ballet Company’s dancers

Dance

“I like new contemporary work that will push me to the next level,” says D.C.-based Washington Ballet’s Jared Nelson, who was in town last fall to set a demanding new dance on the Eugene Ballet Company.  Nelson’s handiwork, the Eugene premiere of Washington Ballet artistic director Septime Webre’s pulsating “Fluctuating Hemlines,” will serve as the performance opener when the 15-member Eugene Ballet Company performs it, along with Tommy The Ballet, April 11 and 12.  Continue reading →

Laughter Is the Best Medicine

UO Standup Society hosts “Hilarity for Charity” to raise money for Alzheimer’s

Comedy
Cailin Wolff of the UO Standup Society

It’s rare that college students watch a senate hearing on C-SPAN and then decide to try and change the world. After comedian Seth Rogen delivered a statement on Alzheimer’s Research in February 2014, however, it was hard not to sympathize with his cause. Rogen explained that more than five million Americans have Alzheimer’s (including his own mother-in-law) and that nearly 16 million Americans will have the disease in the next 35 years. Research also suggests that deaths caused by Alzheimer’s have increased almost 70 percent in the last 15 years. Continue reading →

Spring blasts off with Quixotic Fusion’s Gravity of Center tour

Dance
The cast of Eugene Ballet Company’s Tommy.

Spring blasts off with Quixotic Fusion’s Gravity of Center tour, whose performance culminates the city of Eugene’s two-day (sub)Urban Projections digital art and media festival. Hailing from Kansas City, the brainchild of percussionist and artist Anthony Magliano and theatrical designer Mica Thomas (who studied at Southern Oregon University in Ashland), Quixotic combines movement, music, digital art and aerial athleticism to create cutting-edge new work. Continue reading →

Big Bubbly Creative Soup

The NW10 Festival offers up a heady stew of short plays

Theater

The seventh-annual NW10 Festival returns this week with a handful of 10-minute plays premiering at Oregon Contemporary Theatre.  “There’s a big difference between a skit and a 10-minute play,” insists festival co-founder Paul Calindrino. “A skit is like a one-line joke, whereas a 10-minute play has the potential to be a fully self-contained dramatic unit with character development, emotional impact and narrative force.” Continue reading →

Slaves, Sex and Centurions

Very Little Theatre gets irreverent with Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Theater

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum captured our country’s imagination when it debuted on Broadway in 1962. A young Stephen Sondheim wowed audiences with an interesting score, providing a teaser to his masterful later works. The book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart is based on Plautus’ Roman comedies, resulting in a goofy, sometimes brainy farce that manages to reflect a deep respect for the humor of antiquity. Continue reading →