Page 10
News
Street Roots •
Jan. 20-26, 2017
New musical invites audience to
‘see homeless people as people’
BY SUZANNE ZALOKAR
S TA F F W R IT E R
e are thick in this city with a
wonderful glut of talented,
passionate artists. Alan Alexander
III is one of them,
Alexander is a multi-instrumentalist,
singer, composer, producer and playwright
who grew up in S t Louis and has called
Portland home since 1984.
In 1988, he
■
A lan Alexander I I I will
debut his new production,
‘H omeless (the musical), ’
z
a t Portland’s Fertile
yo,
j
. r
Ground restival
|||feZmbJX
iX IK w
integrated musical
performance sextet
who toured with
UB40; performed
With Ziggy Marley,
Third World, Jimmy
Cliff, Judy Mowatt,
Burning Spear, Toots and the Maytals, and
David Lindley; and headlined their own tour
of Japan as part of the World’s Fair Expo
’90.
In tandem with the success of the band,
—,— ,----------- —----
company created to publish and produce^he
band’s original music - Dub Squad Music.
Today, over 25 years since its inception, Dub
Squad Music publishes and produces
original music for recording artists, film
companies, video producers and
performance artists.
Alexander has composed source music
and original scores for several film and
television productions, including “Hear No
Evil” (20th Century Fox), “Alien Invaders”
(National Endowment for the Arts) and
“Stuff’ by director Larry Johnson. Alan
recently completed the script and score for
“Alan’s Confectionery (the musical),” which
debuted before a sold-out audience at the
2015 Fertile Ground Festival.
Last month, Alexander was awarded a
grant from the Regional Arts & Culture
Council to fund a public performance of his
latest production, “Homeless (the musical).”
A lan Alexander IH, a founding member o f the band Dub Squad, is the creator o f -Homeless ( t t f f ^ a i ) .
RACC awarded $733,608 in grants to 92
area artists and 52 nonprofit organizations
for artistic projects that will take place in
popular because music is associated with
Twitter. We got about 170 responses. The
2017.
emotion. If you are sad and you break into
basic questions was, “If you see a homeless
“Homeless (the musical)” will be
song, you are really sad. If you’re angry and
person on the street, what are you most
performed at this year’s Fertile Ground
you break into song, you’re really angry.
likely to do?” And the four choices were:
Festival. Performances will be held at 7 p.m.
Feeling joyous? You guessed i t That’s the
give them money, give them food, refer
Jan. 27, 28 and 29 at the Clinton Street
function of music in musical theater: It
them to services and the last one was ignore
Theater, 2522 S'E Clinton S t
accentuates and amplifies the emotional
them.
The Portland Area Theatre Alliance
content
Half of about 170 respondents said they
launched Fertile Ground in 2009 so Portland
would ignore them.
S.Z.: Where did the idea, or motivation for
theater companies could showcase their new
this musical come from? What is the content
S.Z.: Wow.
work. The festival runs 11 days - Jan. 19-29
that you hope to amplify with this musical?
- with more than 45 producers putting on
A A .: That was on Twitter, a blind Twitter
A.A.i There are a lot of people involved -
shows at 44 Portland-area venues.
survey. I did that back in June. It was my
cast and crew. We hope that when people
Suzanne Zalokar: A musical about
way of finding out what the general feeling
leave the theater, they will have more of a
was.
,
,
homelessness - how do music and
personal connection to the next homeless
homelessness complement each other
S.Z.:
I
wonder
what
the
response
would
be i f
person that they see. A bit more empathy
conceptually?
we did that survey now, in light o f the cold
and see homeless people as people.
Alan Alexander III: Musicals are
When we started this, I did a survey on
See ALEXANDER, page 11