Eugene Weekly

According to Dr. La Donna Forsgren, playwright and associate professor of theater arts at University of Oregon, there are three things newcomers should know when they sit down to enjoy her adaptation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland at Hope Theatre: 1. Clap when you want. 2. Laugh when something funny happens. 3. Dance along if you like the music. (Oh, and there will be a bathroom break, too.) Continue reading →

According to the National Survey of High School Biology Teachers, 13 percent of American high school bio teachers explicitly teach creationism in the classroom. Sixty percent give evolution very little class time and 17 percent don’t even touch the subject at all, wanting to avoid the whole controversy. These statistics speak to the state of radical religious interference with education, which gives a ’50s play new relevance in the 21st century. Continue reading →

A witty, often biting examination of neighborhood integration, white flight, gentrification and just how far we have not come in the last half century, Clybourne Park is playwright Bruce Norris’ 21st-century response to Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, in which a black family plans to move into a white neighborhood. Norris’ play, now at Oregon Contemporary Theatre, takes Hansberry’s tale of balancing assimilation and heritage full circle as white professionals return with grand plans to the neighborhoods their grandparents fled. Continue reading →

That Puck! What an imp, what a funnin’ fool. Should any wee hint of the grave or the dour threaten to shank the shambolic ether of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, rest assured that frolicsome Puck, aka Robin Goodfellow, servant to Oberon (King of the Faeries), will hop to and eradicate all frowns with a sly spree of herkimer-jerkimer and utter tomfoolery. Nay, Puck ─ as the sprightly stand-in for Shakespeare’s bumptious side ─ will have none of our earnestness. Life, after all, is but a dream. Continue reading →