Category Archives: Interview

Ron Danko: ‘Shakespeare’s Sonnets and a Will to Boot’

March 31, 2010 Evalyn Hansen 2 Comments

Rogue Community College’s theater director, Ron Danko, is launching an exciting project, titled ‘Shakespeare’s Sonnets and a Will to Boot’. We met to read sonnets in his office at Rogue Community College.

EH: What is your task with this material? What do you want to do with it?

RD: I want people to realize that the sonnets do speak, just as Shakespeare’s plays speak, to an audience today, regardless of how educated you are. They talk to us with the deepest most complex emotions, in terms of relationships and what happens in relationships, and the understanding of love. Think about it. How many actors who have done Shakespeare and theater, have really looked at the sonnets? They don’t.

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Interview

Alexandra Blouin and Christopher Bange: “Red, White, and Tuna”

March 17, 2010 Evalyn Hansen Leave a comment

Alexandra Blouin and Christopher Bange are the entire cast of “Red, White, and Tuna” now playing at the Oregon Cabaret Theater. She is luscious and lanky; he is solid with sad and mischievous eyes. They are “dating”. We got together at Pangea over steaming bowls of soup.

EH: How would you describe “Red, White and Tuna”?

CB: It follows the story of about twenty characters on a day in the life of the small town of Tuna, Texas. It’s definitely a fictional place, but completely real, because the gentlemen who wrote it are from a small town in Texas and are essentially doing their friends and family. They’ve made a thirty-some-odd year career with the “Tunas”. This is the third in a series of four. There’s “Greater Tuna”, and “Tuna Christmas”, then “Red, White and Tuna”, and now, “Tuna Does Vegas”. It’s not only a wonderful franchise, but they are touring it at the same time. They wrote it and perform it.

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Interview

Intercambio: Interview with Helena De Crespo

March 3, 2010 Evalyn Hansen Leave a comment

Actress Helena De Crespo is in Ashland developing a comprehensive multicultural theater project. The working title is “Intercambio”, created to enhance artistic communication within the various cultures within the Rogue Valley Community. Helena founded Cultural Centers both in Costa Rica and Colombia. Over tea at Pangea, she defined the initiatives of “Intercambio”.

EH: What is unique about this project?

HDC: What is unique is that it came from the community. People were saying, in various areas, that there is a huge reservoir of talent and potential audience in the Hispanic community that hasn’t opened-up as it could.

The whole initiative was to cover the performing arts in whatever way, shape, or form that it should manifest. As I had done so much work in Latin America, I seem to be an appropriate person to spearhead it. We’ve created a wonderful steering committee with highly dedicated, clever, and informed people. What has evolved is: there will be four initiatives.

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Interview

Helena de Crespo

February 17, 2010 Evalyn Hansen Leave a comment

Actress Helena de Crespo, last summer’s sensation in Oregon Stage Works’ “Shirley Valentine”, is spearheading a new project in the Rogue Valley. It’s called Intercambio, a multi-cultural theater project to integrate the arts and bring artists and audiences together, bridging the gap of ethnicity.

Fluent in Spanish and English, Helena has established theaters in Colombia, Costa Rica, and in the United States. Helena and I lunched at Pangea as she described her upcoming talent Showcase and the premier of a new play.

HDC: With the formation of this new organization, Intercambio, in the Rogue Valley, it seemed the best way to show the cultures to each other was to get them together, have a Showcase, and leave it up to them. And it’ll happen. It’ll be really exciting. There will be something from every age group, every ethnicity group, and everyone is welcome. We want to hear from everybody who thinks they can sing, dance, play a musical instrument, read a poem, do a scene from a play, anything that’s in the performing arts.

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Interview

Richard Heller of ‘Mousetrap’ discusses the craft

February 3, 2010 Evalyn Hansen Leave a comment

Richard Heller plays Major Metcalf in Oregon Stage Works production of Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap”. After acting, teaching, writing, and directing theater in California Richard is in Ashland to finish his education in Theatre Arts at Southern Oregon University. In the last six months Richard has played in “True West” and “Glengarry Glen Ross” at Oregon Stage Works, Blythe Spirit” at SOU, and now, “The Mousetrap.” We chatted at Noble Coffee Roasting one sunny afternoon.

EH: In “The Mousetrap,” Agatha Christie portrays a variety of eccentric characters in bizarre relationships.

RH: She does manage to create a lot of suspense with that dynamic of suspicion and intrigue. There’s the whole madness theme, the schizophrenic thing. Everyone in the play is accused of being a little bit mad. There’s a whole question of identity that runs through the play. Who is anybody really? There’s this whole question of how well we know anyone.

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Interview

The Hamazons

January 20, 2010 Evalyn Hansen Leave a comment

Since 1999, The Hamazons, the Rogue Valley’s Warrior Princesses of Comedy, have been empowering audiences with laughter through improvisational theater. I met with three of the four comedians, Carolyn Myers, Eve Smyth, and Cil Stengel, in a cozy cottage in Ashland.

EH: Are The Hamazons political?

CM: We’re politically responsive. We respond to the zeitgeist of the times, what the audience is interested in and what we’re reading about. We don’t develop stuff around issues. We never say, “We want to do something about trade relations with China or zombie banks.” We don’t do that.

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Interview

Char Hersh

January 6, 2010 Evalyn Hansen Leave a comment

Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Char Hersh coordinates the volunteers in the Festival’s Welcome Center, the information office on the corner of Main and Pioneer streets. Admittedly a “Shakespeare junky,” Char is a retired nurse who also teaches Tai Chi. We visited one afternoon in her home overlooking Ashland and the hills beyond.

EH: How do you like coordinating volunteers?

CH: It’s allowed me to meet the most marvelous people. It’s very much like nursing. You’re scheduling people, you’re taking care of people, you’re listening to people, you’re trying to make sure people are enjoying what they are doing. It’s teaching. You’re making sure people know what they are doing, because if they don’t, they’re not comfortable. We all want to be engaged and to know what we’re doing is meaningful. I love doing it. And of course it’s supporting the Festival.

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