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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (July 2, 2004)
july ¿ 2Q04 ’ jUSt OUt 41 DIVERSIONS ▼......... New Oregon Bear and Cub Give my regards to old Broadway ’m going to say something now that might scare you. Tigard. Calm down, calm down, I’m not saying you have to go there, hut as you continue to read down the column, he open-minded. You’re queer, remember? It’s supposed to come naturally. I’ll he honest: Before I was forced to attend press screenings at Tigard Cin emas, I couldn’t even have told you where Tigard was. But now I can hop on the freeway (you’ll want to go south) and drive right on in just like I live there. (Ha ha, as if!) Anyway, aside from the cinema, I’ve found a really good reason to go to Tigard—The Broadway Rose Theatre Company. There are three reasons Portlanders don’t give much notice to the mostly musical theater troupe: They’re in Tigard; their name sounds a little cheesy; they perform in a high school. As I’ve come to find out, though, people who live in Tigard flock to the place (it can be scary driving into the city!), and the perform ances are in a high school’s theater auditorium. (I don’t know what I was thinking—that they’d be on a gym floor or something?) This month Broadway Rose is doing the smash pop-rock opera Jekyll & Hyde. The New York director, Abe Reybold, is gay. The local musical director, Rick Lewis, is gay. Portland stage manager Mark Tynan is gay. The New York lead actor, Robert Hunt, is gay. Two of the other Portland actors —Paul Miller and Jim Crino—are gay and gay, respectively. I know it’s not much of a stretch to link gayness and the performing arts, but in Tigard it still kind of seems, I don’t know.. .subversive. “It’s harder in the ’burbs, it really is," admits Lewis, Broadway Rose’s in-house musical director and occasional actor, who also serves as director of entertainment and marketing on the Portland Spirit. But this is, he continues, “a really beautiful production...it’s the type of production you’re probably not going to see in most theaters in Portland.” The company has rented the entire set from the Fullerton Civic Light Opera in California. “1 don’t know what the Broadway Rose reputation is,” says Hunt, who plays Dr. Jekyll, “but I do know that the production values of this show are pretty amazing.. .it’s dark and mysterious and sexy and over the top.” Hunt was last in Portland about six years ago on a tour of Forever Plaid, and he’s just come off a tour of Les Miserables. He gives props to the two leading ladies in Jekyll & Hyde. “We know the queers love to hear the divas sing, and these girls are unbelievable.... We went out to karaoke in Portland, and the two of them brought the house down.” (Tigard and The Grand Café—what a priceless tour these people are on!) Still, am I up to driving to the suburbs for theater when there’s plenty within 10 minutes of my inner Southeast home? “Yeah, get out here, for Christ’s sake!" director Abe Reybold hollers at me through the phone. “It’s worth the trip.. .they’re really pushing the envelope with this show.... We’re not holding back with the murders and kind of the racier things.” And, he adds, lowering his voice, “Robert Hunt is incredibly attractive.” “As far as the gay audience,” Lewis notes, “Robert Hunt is....” He pauses. “He’s gorgeous.” “I rip my shirt open,” Hunt adds. “If that helps.” It helps. But if you’re still not convinced, check with your closest college lit geek friend and you’ll find out that some scholars believe Dr. Jekyll’s alter ego was brought on by repressed sexuality. Now, off to Tigard with you! JH I JEKYLL &. H yde plays at Tigard’s Deb Fennell Auditorium, 9000 S.W. Durham Road, through July I I. Tickets are $12-$I9 from 503-620-5262 or wwu>. broadwayrose .com. 111’m actually kind of a small guy,” says 1 Johnney Russ, the 32-year-old new I Mr. Oregon Cub. But, as he points out, being a bear is a matter of personali ty, not size. “Bears are the most genuine, loving, compassionate, nicest bunch of guys,” says Russ, who joined the Oregon Bears two years ago when he and his husband moved to Portland from a small town in Washington. Russ works at the bear- owned Beefy Boys ftxxl cart downtown. Both he and Mr. Oregon Bear 2004, James “Butchy” Janik, serve on the Ore gon Bears executive board. “I find it a huge honor to be representing the Bears,” says Russ. He and Janik were given their new titles at a gala event June 12 as part of Beartown 2004. Russ says he looks forward to working with Janik. “If you go to an event and Johnney Russ (left) all the flowers are and James “Butchy” arranged really nice Janik were sashed ly, that’s Butchy’s June 12 during work,” he notes. Beartown 2004 Janik also moved here two years ago with his husband; they hail from Texas. Janik was a founding mem Also on the docket are Portland’s own Sarah ber of the Houston-area bear organi Dougher and teen phenom Zoe Trope. Literary- zation. “Bear culture is almost a inclined indie rocker Dougher (The Bluff, The Walls counterculture movement,” he notes. Ablaze) has most recently been at work on a cycle of 24 The 39-year-old says their jobs as songs that explore the afterlife of Homer’s Odyssey. In Mr. Oregon Bear and Cub will be to case you’ve been living in a cave, Trop is the author of act as ambassadors for the club to the the wildly popular Please Don’t Kill the Freshmen. rest of the queer community. “Bears This all-ages event gets going at 9 p.m. for a mere have big hearts. We’re very giving 6 bucks. and committed to communities.” The coming year will find both men involved in all manner of warm and fuzzy bearlike activities, including trips out of town to help judge bear contests. Other duties t wouldn’t be summer without the Michigan includes raising money for the Womyn’s Music Festival. The 29-year tradition con Friends of People with AIDS Foun tinues Aug. 10 to 15 when thousands of women from dation, organizing campouts and all over the world converge on 650 private forested working with the Imperial Sovereign acres to dance, camp and bare breasts in the largest Rose Court on various events. Oh, intentional women’s community this—or any other— and don’t forget the bears’ important job as foster par side of the Mississippi. ents to an actual bear at the Oregon Zoo. You may not agree with all their spelling choices or Russ, who was introduced to the bear movement a gender guidelines, but you’re sure to find someone you few years ago, says “being a bear is an attitude.” love listening to at the fest. This year’s lineup includes The Dolly Ranchers, Tret Fure, Ubaka Hill, Magdalen Hsu-Li, Laura Love, Kate Clinton, Alix Olson, C.C. Carter, Ellis, Jill Sobule and many more. t would be in your best cultural inter The highlight will likely be est to not miss Disjecta Gallery’s all the Aug. 12 performance of chick literary-music-art ensemble Hothead Paisan: The Musi July 14. The proud space of avant-garde cal, Act I, based on the comic multigenre art at 116 N.E. Russell St. is by Diane DiMassa and directed hosting a gaggle of queer gals sure to by Animal Pruffock. The twirl your curls. “Wholly Ensemble” includes Headlining is Michelle Tea, the Ani DiFranco, Ferron and punk-rock poet and memoirist whose Susan Powter (who is billing unabashed tales of being queer, poor herself as “the female Michael and female put her at the top of Village Moore”). They are accompa Voice, San Francisco Chronicle and nied by “Whorchestra” mem Lambda Literary charts. bers that include Toshi Reagon For her latest creation, the 33-year- and Alyson Palmer of Betty. old co-founder of Sister Spit All-Girl Visit www.michfest.com for Roadshows has teamed up with illus a complete schedule and ticket trator Laurenn McCubbin on Rent information. JF1 Girl, a graphic novel about the several years Tea spent working in the sex C ximptled by MEG D a LY industry. Dykes who flock together rock together I Triple your pleasure at Disjecta I
