Tag Archives: Actor

Interview

David Dials

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David Dials
David Dials

Anyone who has seen David Dials as the tragic/comic Shelley Levene in “Glengarry Glen Ross” (now at Oregon Stage Works) can see that David is an accomplished actor. But David fell in love with education early on. As we lunched at Geppetto’s, he told me how he combined a life of theater and teaching.

DD: I got my BA in theater with an emphasis in children’s theater, and then I got my teaching credential. I had a wonderful teaching career for 30 years. Just for fun, just recreationally, like you would play recreational softball, I’ve been in plays all the time, except for a period of time when my kids were at an age where I wanted to be at home with them.

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Interview

Bill Langan

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Bill Langan
Bill Langan

Bill Langan is the director of David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Glengarry Glen Ross,” which opens Friday night at Oregon Stage Works. I have had the privilege of sitting in on rehearsals. The play is impeccably directed. Bill received his master’s degree from Yale School of Drama and has been acting professionally for 20 years, including six years in the acting company of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We lunched on the terrace at Martino’s and discussed acting, art and politics.

BL: I couldn’t be more delighted by the quality of my actors. I love my guys. I’m so impressed. Now I can see from this “side of the table” the real meaning of the phrase, “directing is 80 or 90 percent casting,” depending on who you talk to and somewhat depending on the show. But this play is all about the actors; it’s all about the language, which I love.

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Interview

John Stadelman

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John Stadelman’s hilarious performance as the obsequious yet self-important Vice Principal Douglas Panch in the “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” is truly unique. I was curious as to how he prepared for the role.

John sings with the Southern Oregon Repertory Singers. He performed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for six seasons. He has directed theater up and down the West Coast, at Ashland High School and the Oregon Cabaret Theatre.

A Stanford graduate, John graduated from law school at the University of Southern California before pursuing a career in film and theater. John is also a landscape designer; the name of his company is Green Man Gardens.

We met in the Oregon Cabaret Theatre’s elegant restaurant section on a weekday afternoon.

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Interview

DaRon Lamar Williams

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DaRon Lamar Williams
DaRon Lamar Williams

At 29, DaRon Lamar Williams has found success in show business. He’s played in theater Off Broadway, toured nationally with “Jesus Christ Superstar” and performed with Michael Jackson on video.

In Oregon Cabaret Theatre’s “The 25th Anniversary of the Putnam County Spelling Bee,” Williams plays Comfort Counselor Mitch Mahoney, who delivers hugs and juice boxes to the losers. We got together at Starbucks on Main Street one afternoon.

EH: Were you always interested in theater?

DW: I grew up watching “The Wiz.” As a little 4-year-old, I learned all the choreography and all the dialogue. I would cast kids from my grandma’s day care, and we would do it in the garage. I would make my grandma and her friends come to watch. Everyday it was a different scene from “The Wiz” or a dance number or something. I knew even then that, in some shape or form, I’d be doing this the rest of my life. I used community theater and community bands as my creative outlet. Then I decided to move to New York.

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Interview

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

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From left, top row: Rebecca Denley, Tim Homsley, Chris Carwithen. bottom row: Rachel Seeley, James David Larson, Beatriz Abella
From left, top row: Rebecca Denley, Tim Homsley, Chris Carwithen. bottom row: Rachel Seeley, James David Larson, Beatriz Abella

A zesty combination of improvisation and musical comedy, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” now playing at Oregon Cabaret Theatre, presents a surprising and endearing event steeped in laughter.

Pre-teens naturally see themselves as eccentrics, misfits and outsiders as they navigate the painful path through puberty to adulthood. The vulnerability and youthful angst of 10- to 12-year-olds are magnified with raucous results when energies are focused on the goal of winning a national spelling contest.

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Interview

‘Things We Do’

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Peter Alzado
Peter Alzado

The recent series of plays at Oregon Stage Works, “Things We Do,” portrayed the effects of suspicion, prejudice and the tragedy of war waged upon civilians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I met with Peter Alzado, artistic director of Oregon Stage Works, in the theater’s store front office on A Street. Peter spoke to the controversy surrounding the presentation of “My Name is Rachael Corrie,” one of the plays in the series, which included “The Jewish Wife” by Bertolt Brecht, “Masked” by Ian Hatsor and “A Tiny Piece of Land” by Mel Weiser and Joni Browne-Walders.

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Interview

J.R. Storment

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J.R. Storment
J.R. Storment

In the “Great American Trailer Park Musical,” formerly produced at Oregon Stage Works, J.R. Storment played Duke, a “marker-sniffing stripper-ex-girlfriend-chasing redneck freak.” His performance was bone-chilling until Duke miraculously transformed into the comfy, cozy and compliant sonny boy that any mother would want.

Currently, J.R. plays a revolutionary in the intense new Palestinian play, “Masked,” one of the four plays in “Things We Do,” now at Oregon Stage Works.

I met J.R. at Bloomsbury coffee house. He is the Web creative director of denizenTV.com and a photographer.

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