Portland Center Stage

Get intimate with legends (some as old as western civilization itself), tackle the absurdity of health care and the impending collapse of print media, then take arms against a sea of elves and overthrow the systems that bind geniuses and madmen alike with Portland Center Stage’s 2010/2011 season.

This 10 show season will open and close with legendary women whose lives were larger than the worlds that tried to define them. In between, chamber musicians, four-eyed boys, rogue professors, hypochondriacs, ancient heroes and a guy named McMurphy will tackle the unwinnable fights, dream the impossible dreams and attempt create that most ephemeral of human conditions: creative freedom. Got us pegged yet?

Tickets

Season subscriptions open for sale on March 2nd. Season tickets start at $52.50 (for the 3 show Studio Preview Series) and include special pricing for 30 and under. Evening performances in both the Main Stage and the Studio begin at 7:30 pm, with weekday matinees at noon and weekend matinees at 2 pm. To purchase season tickets, call the box office at 503.445.3700.

Without Further Ado, Portland Center Stage is Pleased to Announce the 2010-2011 Season Lineup:

Sunset Boulevard
September 14 to October 17, 2010
Main Stage
Tickets

“It’s extravagant. It’s spectacular. Go and enjoy.” -Clive Barnes, New York Post

She’s still big. It’s the pictures that got small. Norma Desmond gets the full star treatment in this blow out season opening musical (our first by Andrew Lloyd Webber) about the fading silent film star whose obsession with the revitalization of her career and a young man named Joe might just succeed… or it might end in the kind of tragedy only a legend can inspire.

An Iliad
September 28 to November 21, 2010
Ellyn Bye Studio
Tickets

Leave it to Tony-award winning actor Denis O’Hare* and visionary director Lisa Peterson to find a way to make the western world’s oldest extant work of literature not only intelligible, but immediate, relevant and eerily fascinating- like a barroom raconteur telling LITERALLY the oldest story in the book and making you believe it is being told for the first time. Gods and goddesses, weak-tendoned heroes and the face that launched a thousand ships…it’s all just another (incredibly engrossing) yarn in O’Hare* and Peterson’s one-man adaptation, developed at the Sundance Theatre Institute.

*Denis O’Hare is the co-creator of the piece but will not be the actor performing in the Portland Center Stage production.

A Christmas Story
November 21 to December 26, 2010
Main Stage
Tickets

“Wacky and wistful, and fresh as a fir.” – San Jose Mercury News

The only thing little Ralph Parker hopes to find under the tree is a Daisy Brand Red Ryder BB rifle. He doesn’t simply want it – he’s consumed with an aching desire for it. Looming in the way, however, are alleyway bullies, major awards, freezing flagpoles, unsympathetic authorities and a certain horrifying Macy’s Santa. Based upon the classic motion picture, this play is a holiday treat everyone can enjoy—that is, until someone shoots their eye out.

Santaland Diaries
November 30, 2010 to January 2, 2011
Ellyn Bye Studio
Tickets

Based on the true chronicles of David Sedaris’ experience as Crumpet the Elf in Macy’s Santaland display, this cult classic riffs on a few of Sedaris’ truly odd encounters with his fellow man during the height of the holiday crunch. NPR humorist and best-selling author of When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Me Talk Pretty One Day and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris has become one of America’s pre-eminent humor writers. This production will include two late night 10:00 pm performances on December 9th and 16th.

The Imaginary Invalid
January 11 to February 6, 2011
Main Stage
Tickets

“Trés crass, trés funny… [a] delirious spree of silliness.” – Misha Berson, Seattle Times

All the world’s a fart joke in Constance Congdon’s hilarious new take on Moliere’s skewering of a health care crisis from an entirely different century. To quell his growing pile of medical bills, Monsieur Argan, a chronic hypochondriac, will go to any length to marry his daughter off to a doctor. Of course, his daughter has other ideas. A narcotic cocktail of romantic triangles, double entendres and mistaken identities ensues, promising to leave you gasping, giggling and possibly… in stitches.

Futura World Premiere!
February 1 to March 27, 2011
Ellyn Bye Studio
Tickets

Seven months ago, at the JAW reading, Futura’s warnings about the extinction of print media (and its costs) seemed timely. Now, they seem downright spooky. What will it feel like by the time the show premieres in February? Jordan Harrison’s last trip to PCS launched a gender-bending, Drammy-Award winning hit with Act a Lady. This time he returns with a different axe to grind: the future of the words you are reading right now. And Futura? Well, it’s a font; it’s a love story; but ultimately… it’s one rogue professor’s quest to avenge her missing husband – and the lost art of ink on paper.

One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest
February 22 to March 20, 2011
Main Stage
Tickets

It was set at the Oregon State Hospital, still one of the most controversial institutions in the state. It was arguably the greatest anti-authority protest novel of the 20th century. And it boils down to one insistent refrain: Authority Must Always Be Questioned. Want more? Cuckoo’s Nest pits Randle Patrick McMurphy (a convict who has feigned psychosis so that he can spend the final months of his sentence at a mental institution) against Nurse Ratched (the icy head nurse of the ward), who believes that rules must be followed without exception. A band of crazies gets half-inspired, half destroyed by McMurphy’s rebellion and the question remains… was it worth it anyway?

Opus
April 12 to May 8, 2011
Main Stage
Tickets

“So entertaining and insightful that you’ll never quite listen to a chamber music group the same way again.” – New York Post

Ex-violist Michael Hollinger trades in his bow for a pen in this a tart and witty chamber piece about the politics and passions that threaten a classical string quartet. In front of an audience they’re pitch perfect but behind the scenes the Lazara string quartet is coming unstrung- all on the eve of their first televised performance for the President of the United States. There’s sex, there’s drugs, there’s…chamber music, but the real rewards lie in Hollinger’s insights into the balancing act of drudgery, machination and volatile genius that make a seemingly effortless performance possible.

Love/Stories (or, But You Will Get Used to It)
April 26 to June 19, 2011
Ellyn Bye Studio
Tickets

“For those prone to delight, Love/Stories is a revelation!” – Sam Thielman, Variety

A casting session for a play about a love affair goes awry. A talk-back with a theatre audience becomes the occasion for a life-altering choice. A couple moving in together finds that greater intimacy can have surprising results. Nothing is what it seems in these five funny and poignant short plays from Itamar Moses, the breakout playwright whose world premieres of Outrage and Celebrity Row were launched right here at Portland Center Stage. Why an evening of short plays? Moses explains, “Theater is so much closer to music than it is to fiction and so, in a way, only ever writing full-length plays is like only ever writing concept albums, or Handel’s Messiah.” Or, to use a foodie metaphor… sometimes, a tasting menu is the ideal way to experience the full range of a chef’s talent.'

Love, Janis
May 24 to June 26, 2011
Main Stage
Tickets

“Spirited and poignant…Love, Janis passionately explores the person behind the myth and the music that stirs listeners now as it has for four decades.” – culturevulture.net

Inspired by the memoir of the same name, Randal Mylers combines Janis’ own words (taken from real-life interviews and heartfelt letters home to her family in Port Arthur, Texas) with her brilliant breed of rock-n-soul music that revolutionized 1960’s America. To recreate Janis’ leave nothing back style of musical performance (including full renderings of her hits “Piece of My Heart,” “Ball & Chain,” “Mercedes Benz,” “Me and Bobby McGee” and “Get It While You Can”), three actresses will tackle the role- one to play the young Janis seen in the letters and interviews and two to alternate performance nights embodying the on-stage legend.