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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 19, 2007)
JANUARY 19, 2007 Altar Boyz, a smash off-Broadway musical-comedy spoof about a heavenly boy band on the rise to stardom, opens Jan. 30 as part of Portland Opera's Broadway Across America series. ty, hygiene, types of toys and how to find the right lubricant. Don't be scared! (7-9 pm. 3106 NE 64th Ave. $10. Register at 503-280-8080 by Jan. 23J Queer performance artist Peterson Toscano presents Doin' Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House—How I Survived the Ex-Gay Movement! at Metropolitan Community Church of Portland. (7:30 pm. 2400 NE Broadway.) Queer electro-synther Nicky Click headlines a free all-ages show with trans rapper Katastrophe at Reed College. (8 pm. 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd.) Hey, what's your vice? Holocene presents Double Down, the fab queer party where the JUStpUt,27 Haven Coffee hangs Rosanna Tam's photographs of Gay Skate Night and other local happenings through Jan. 31. player always wins, every fourth Saturday. (8 pm. 1001 SE Morrison St. $5.) Out Dancing's monthly Dance Social is every last Saturday at Ankeny Street Studio. Lesson and refreshments included. (8:15 pm. Southeast Ninth Avenue and Ankeny Street $8.) as an “open and affirming" congregation with music by the Portland Lesbian Choir and guest preacher the Rev. Jean Erb. (10:25 am. 1126 SW Park Ave.) The Latino Gay Pride 2007 planning committee meets at Jupiter Hotel. (1 pm. 800 E Bumside St.) The Eagle presents Portland's dirtiest dance party, Jack, with DJs Grant, Stormy and Jimme Jamma throwin’ down ninja style! (9pm-2:30 am. 1300 W Bumside. $3.) Q-LAND and LoveTribe present Beat the Blues, a men's depression peer support group that meets every second and fourth Sunday. (6-8 pm. RSVP to 503-223-8822 or www.lovetribe.org/menspirit.) SUN • JAN. 28 Scream Club performs at Holocene during a release party for the electro duo's video "Toi et Moi," a hot pink fantasy world with danceoffs and drag queens. (7pm. 1001 SE Morrison St. $3-$5.) / go \ First Congregational United Church of .OUT. Christ celebrates its 15th anniversary Meow Meow performs her quixotic cocktail of kamikaze kabaret, opera "brut” and karaoke splendor Feb. 1. Cat Woman What a Way to Make a Living Every office has its horrors. The nosy receptionist. The flatulent co worker. And, of course, there’s the boss from hell. If you can’t escape these white-collar woes, you might as well laugh at them. In the tradition of the 1999 film Office Space and the hit sitcom The Office, gay Portland actors Tobin Gollihar and Ian Sieren of Spring 4th Productions present their play Loop: An Original Workplace Comedy. “This has been a monster,” says Gollihar. “It was going to be a four- week project, and it’s been seven months.” These lengthy labors have resulted in a two-act show about a new employee meeting an older man who is leaving his job at the office. Gollihar and Sieren play the lead and supporting roles, including a shady character who murdered his secretary. The duo promise that a mind-bending trick ending awaits the audience. “It’s like The Zoo Story meets The Office,” Sieren says. “It’s deeply disturbing to utterly frothy.” Musicians Ethan Homan and Scott Stubbs play the guitar and the snare drum throughout the entire performance. Sieren, who co-owns the pub Biddy McGraw’s on Northeast Glisan Street, voices articulate disdain about offices, though he admits he’s never worked in one: “It’s a soul-sucking, stultifying environment.” Gollihar owns a theater company called As You Are Productions, and he works at the progressive Rainbow Preschool in Northeast Portland. In Loop, he says: “We don’t mean to parody people we actu ally work with, but we do. Everyone has someone in their work life that they have to tolerate.” Tobin Gollihar (left) and Ian Sieren star in Loop, a Gollihar grew up in La Grande, Sieren in Gresham. They first met comedy that brings all of your worst co-worker at Imago Theatre, where they both appeared in an acclaimed produc nightmares to life. tion of Federico Garcia Lorca’s Blood Wedding. They named Spring 4th Productions—their recently founded company—after the streets they grew up on. Their extensive work on Loop has made it difficult to focus on future projects, though Gollihar said he’s working on a story about a man who struggles to find social acceptance after he discovers that he’s pregnant. Spring 4th Productions presents Loop 10 p.m. Fridays through Feb. 9 at Shoe Box Theatre, 2110 S.E. 10th Ave. Tickets are $12 at the door or $10 in advance from 503-235-2633. —Stephen Blair Like true heartbreak or the temporary vagaries of insanity, a show by international exotica performance artist Meow Meow is beyond description. A Euro-starlet of unknown origin,"she vacillates between desire and despair, operatic arias and heart-wrenching shrieks, parody and profundity with both the grace of a swan and the fervor of a wrecking ball. But more than beyond description, her “kamikaze kabaret” performances are, as the title of her upcoming performance with Pink Martini bandleader Thomas Lauderdale simply states, Beyond Glamour. Meow Meow first turned local heads during the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s Time-Based Art Festival in 2004, where she was the talk of the fest. Incorporating multimedia, countless costume changes, obscure songs in assorted European tongues and more emotional transitions than a schizophrenic on Prednisone, her one-woman show was a spectacular train wreck orgy of Old World icons, musical antiquities and jet-set castaways—here Piazolla tangos smoking in a heap with Brel cabaret numbers, there Brecht lyrics simmering with, is that Dolly Parton? Meow Meow’s performance so transfixed the audience that for 60 minutes the world ceased to turn on its nor mal axis. Instead, it rotated around all the overwhelming, pent-up rawness of human emotion that coalesced and then erupted from this single showgirl of the heart. Be not failed, though, by Meow Meow’s apparent descent into emotion al chaos; she is the clear master of her performance. She leads the audience through an artfully crafted meditation exploring the myriad facets of human emotion with particular attention paid to love and loss. A classically trained singer and dancer, she obliterates artistic boundaries to utilize monologue, song, dance, film, improvisation and, most hilariously, audience participa tion. Don’t be surprised to find yourself carrying Meow Meow (or her lug gage) around the theater as she twists in your arms to grab someone else’s glass of wine. She rarely finishes a number before she’s off on another thought in her never-ending pursuit of the heart’s caprice. Whether project ing a film on her belly or dragging a living room worth of furniture tied to her corset, Meow Meow’s performances promise a wicked and hilarious ride through the human psyche. Meow Meow returns to Portland next month to rehearse with Lauderdale for their upcoming run of Beyond Glamour: The Absinthe Tour at rhe Sydney Opera House during Mardi Gras. They will perform a special pre view 8 p.m. Feb. 1 at Darcelle XV Showplace. Tickets are $12 at the door or $10 in advance from Brown Paper Tickets or the box office. Aaron Scott .
