I'm a theater buff. I am passionate about theater. I see as many plays as I can as often as I can. I go to lectures, previews, prefaces, backstage tours, dramatic readings, dress rehearsals, post matinee discussions, talks in the park and an occasional cast party. If I'm not there, I would like to be. I have my BA in dramatic arts from UC Berkeley, my MA from San Francisco State and I'm currently studying directing at Southern Oregon University. I volunteer for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and recently I understudied a walk-on part in "Trip to Bountiful" at Oregon Stage Works.
Costume Designer Barbara Rains and Production Manager Roy Rains are two remarkable talents at Camelot Theatre. The couple met while performing in the “Trail of Tears” drama at the Tsa-La-Gi Amphitheater near Tahlequah, Okla. They’ve been in Oregon almost two years. We chatted on the set of Camelot’s “White Christmas” in Talent.
EH: Barbara, what productions are you designing?
BR: This coming season, I will be designing all of the musicals. The next one will be “Funny Girl.”
EH: Roy, fill me in on your production manager duties.
RR: My job is to make sure that artists have what they need to realize their visions. We’re in a transition period for this position.
Designer Kerri Lea Robbins has costumed more than 60 productions for the Oregon Cabaret Theatre.
Starting in the 1980s, armed with a bachelor’s degree in theater arts from Southern Oregon University and a master’s degree in costume design from New York University, Robbins spent 10 years creating props and soft goods for numerous Broadway shows.
She then taught costume design and makeup at SOU before joining Craig Hudson and the design team at OCT. Robbins created the astonishing costumes for its current production, “The Wizard of Panto-Land.” We met at Starbucks next to SOU.
Doug Rowe became the new artistic director of the Ashland New Plays Festival this year. The festival held a fundraiser at the Camelot Theatre, a reading of David Rambo’s “God’s Man in Texas” by Rowe, Bill Langan and Jamie Newcomb. It also reassembled the original cast of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s legendary production of “Death of a Salesman” for a dramatic reading and tribute at OSF’s Black Swan Theater.
In 2010, John Stadelman, Lenny Neimark, Carolyn Shaffer and David Salsa directed four original scripts selected from more than 200 play submissions. Over coffee at Bloomsbury Coffeehouse, Rowe spoke enthusiastically about ANPF’s mission.
DR: All of our lives, those of us who are in the business, owe everything to the writers. It’s their ideas, their words that we are putting in front of us. That we can now do something in return is fabulous. I would really like to see some local playwrights get involved big-time with it as well. We are working toward that end. We’re really trying to find a venue that is suitable.
EH: Is the Ashland New Plays Festival scheduled to take place in October?
DR: Toward the end of the (OSF) season, after the outdoor season closes, more festival actors become available. They all seem to feel strongly about participating, because they all believe the same thing: that the writer is really our essence. Everybody climbs on board with that. It’s quite wonderful.
EH: So this goes on for a week?
DR: A full week. Playwrights participate. This year the Ashland New Plays Festival itself went over quite well; we were sold out every performance, evenings and matinees. We met the playwrights and directors right at the very start. We had a dinner together. A wonderful bonding happened, so that all of the playwrights went to all of the plays, all performances. They got together afterward and talked back and forth. I’m sure a lot was gained by that interaction. I was delighted with the whole week.
The plays were well-received. Audiences were very enthusiastic. One of the nicest things is the discussion afterwards. It’s so exciting to hear the audience participate. Where else but in Ashland do you get such wonderful participation? We have very savvy theatergoers, interested in the same thing. They know that the essence of theater is the writer.
EH: The ANPF conducts a nationwide search for playwrights. How long does that go on?
DR: It’s already begun for next year. (Submissions for next year’s festival were due by Dec. 1.) I think they hold it open for approximately six months. Then they close it off, narrow it down and come up with the final four.
EH: What do you look for in a play? What makes a great play?
DR: There are several levels of success in terms of playwrighting. If an audience walks out of a play and questions a belief that they might have held, the writer has done something. If they come out totally entertained, the writer has succeeded. I think that if they come out of it having learned something, that is the most important part of attending plays.
When you put together a season you want a balance, so that theatergoers, who buy season tickets, have distinctly different experiences. We also have to look out for the sustenance of the organization. I just don’t think that all of the plays, about one subject, are going to be very attractive to theatergoers. You see many of the same people attending every performance, good solid audiences. Given that, you really want to make that week of play-going to be balanced, exciting and entertaining.
Evalyn Hansen is a writer and director living in Ashland. She trained as an actor at the American Conservatory Theatre and is a founding member of San Francisco’s Magic Theatre. Reach her at evalyn_robinson@yahoo.com.
Doug Rowe became the new artistic director of the Ashland New Plays Festival this year. The festival held a fundraiser at the Camelot Theatre, a reading of David Rambo’s “God’s Man in Texas” by Rowe, Bill Langan and Jamie Newcomb. It also reassembled the original cast of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s legendary production of “Death of a Salesman” for a dramatic reading and tribute at OSF’s Black Swan Theater.
In 2010, John Stadelman, Lenny Neimark, Carolyn Shaffer and David Salsa directed four original scripts selected from more than 200 play submissions. Over coffee at Bloomsbury Coffeehouse, Rowe spoke enthusiastically about ANPF’s mission.
DR: All of our lives, those of us who are in the business, owe everything to the writers. It’s their ideas, their words that we are putting in front of us. That we can now do something in return is fabulous. I would really like to see some local playwrights get involved big-time with it as well. We are working toward that end. We’re really trying to find a venue that is suitable.
Throughout Oregon Shakespeare’s 2010 Season, actress Lisa McCormick captivated audiences as the loveable Amalia Balash in the musical, “She Love’s Me”. Before Lisa left to pursue her career in New York she took some time to meet with me at Allyson’s Kitchen with her uncle and mentor, Robert McCormick.
EH: What attracts you to a life in the theater?
LM: From a young age, what drew me to theater were the people, the home that I found among a group of people who were similarly minded, artistically minded. But, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that what has been carrying me through is having a perspective that I wanted to share, having a story that demands to be told. And it’s a different story every time. I think that there’s a line through all of these things. I enjoy women who have a great deal of vulnerability, and in that great strength, who are not afraid to be afraid and move forward. The deeper my life experience has become, the more I have traveled, the more I’ve loved and lost, the deeper my experience becomes not only of my life, but also my art. That journey is deepening and continuing to deepen. It’s almost like a Chinese finger trap; the further my finger goes in the harder it is to get out. I’m just stuck, and I’m falling more and more in love with it every day.
Two years ago Francisco Severiano of Mexico was a passenger on an Ashland bus when a young adult woman started kicking his chair, saying she “hates Mexicans” and telling him to “go back to Mexico.” At the time, Francisco did not speak English. He had to endure the humiliation in silence.
The incident became the story of a short play for Literacy Theater titled “The Mean Girl on the Bus,” which has been performed several times for local audiences. Literacy Theater is an interactive theatrical experience created to help communities solve problems surrounding cultural and literacy issues. The skit is serious in its presentation of situations. It always ends abruptly at a point of crisis; the actors then stay in character and answer questions from the audience.
Literacy Theater is sponsored by the Rogue Community College Adult Basic Skills Program and INTERCAMBIO.Oregon, an organization dedicated to supporting intercultural arts. The volunteer actors are community members including students and teachers. I got together with four Literacy Theater actors who are students in English as a Second Language and Adult Basic Skills classes at Rogue Community College. They include: Simone Dias of Brazil, Shu Yang of China, Jesus Castro of Guadalajara, Mexico, and Severiano of Mexico City. We met in an ESL classroom on the Rogue Community College Riverside Campus in Medford.
Gina Scaccia recently produced “Cartoonespeare,” a musical CD and an animated DVD interpreting Shakespeare’s sonnets.
The music is extraordinary; the styles vary from lyrical melodies, to monk-like chants, to country, folk, rap and blues. The musical concepts make Shakespeare’s language accessible to the most modern of audiences.
“Cartoonespeare” originated with “Love’s Not Time’s Fool,” which were wonderfully diverse theatrical interpretations of Shakespeare’s sonnets performed last spring at Rogue Community College, adapted and directed by Ron Danko and produced by John Cole.
Scaccia received her music degree from Southern Oregon University this year. Most recently she composed and performed the music for “Larry’s Best Friend” at Ashland Contemporary Theatre. We visited over tea one afternoon.
Ashland Theatre 