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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 16, 2011)
36 SEPTEMBER 16, 2011 theater W W W .JUSTO UT.CO M Skamania fioJifnAminq. CùdtA Joundaiiori füuuuwtA OK Go! New production marks costumed history for Portland Center Stage’s Jeff Cone BY KIRA LESLEY SEPTEMBER 24TH 8:00PM B onneville H o t S prings resort & S pa NORTH BONNEVILLE, WA ¿ *1 . . . . ; * 1 Y. . * ff • * • Portland Center Stage’s 2 0 1 1 -1 2 season opens this month with Oklahoma !— a pro duction marking 13 seasons and 52 shows for resident costume designer Jell Cone, 56. It is the 31st show Cone has designed since P C S moved to the Armory in 2006. * ,'x information visit large-framed, gray-bearded Cone spent this summer researching calicos and corselets for the classic American musical. SkamaniaArts.org l o r call 1-800-494-T IX S S.P.A.F. is a proud member of arts The In an unconventional take, P C S ’s produc tion features an African-American cast. Cone collected old photographs to research the type of clothing worn by African-Amer cúlturi ican residents in 1906 Oklahoma Territory, where turn-of-the-century settlers faced a stark existence. “There’s not even a building, their lives are so hard,” he says. “It’s kind o f a juxtaposition to Oklahoma! the musical.” The narrative is fundamentally a love story, with a dark side plot. Engaging with images o f real people provided a different lens through years, Cone says it was never a mapped-out which to view that story, Cone explains. path. At age 25, he was outed as gay, an “[Some] musicals are a heightened sense o f reality— a glossy, heightened reality,” he JT IST IC D IR EC T O R A R A H SLIPPER event he says shaped the course o f his life and career. notes. “My goal is that the clothes look like W hile visiting him in his college apartment, real clothes . . . as if you were to take a pho Cone’s sister found a letter he had written to tograph” o f real people at that time. another man. She told their parents, who con Once he has developed concepts and de fronted Cone. “It was a complete and total signs, the trick is making them fit the bud surprise to me,” he recalls. The idea o f “coming get. Realizing the designs includes deter out,” now so prevalent in the media and soci mining how much P C S costume shop staff ety, had never occurred to him. can build, whether they must hire outside His parents told him that if he did not see help, how many pieces should he rented or a psychiatrist who promised to “cure” him, purchased, and ex they would cut o ff support, Cone contin plains. He refers to the process o f piecing ues. W hen he told them he couldn’t do this, together these elements while staying within he was on his own. from where, Cone budget as “solving the puzzle.” Each show He lost his apartment, flunked out o f presents a “problem” and the excitement lies school and was homeless for a while. But in solving that problem. gradually, he learned how to “do life” and put Although he has worked in the arts for 30 himself back in school. W hile an under- OCTOBER 1 4 + 15 SERVING B RE A K F A ST a n d L UNCH DAILY rork* from 3 World-Renowned Choreographer* • / Didy Valdman / Tha Netherlands V______________. World Prämiere / Noam Gagnon / Canada World Premiere Pedro Ola* / Portugal Lincoln Performance Hall 1620 SW Park Avenue BEST TICKETS at l________ Info 503 828 8285 Also available at PSU Box Office ♦ Ticketmaster e ’xrn: M d n - F ri • 7 a m - 2 pm S a t -S un • B am - 3 PM B R ID G E S C A F E A N D C A T E R IN G .N E T
