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
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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.
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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
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