Generally, Selove says, the weather
cooperates (she recalls one instance of a
few sprinkles of rain in the past decade),
even if people don’t. There’s wind, traffi c
from Amazon Parkway and sounds of joy
from Amazon Pool, and then there are the
moments when kids on skateboards or
adults on bicycles roll cluelessly through
the center of the action or when a child in
the audience snatches a juggler’s ball and
holds onto it. Or there was the time when
someone left the sprinklers on all day
and night, and the group “showed up to a
bog.” Because of the more relaxed nature
of outdoor community theater, perhaps,
Selove and the actors take it all in stride.
“That hearkens back to Shakespeare’s day,
when the audience members were very
involved,” Selove says.
Selove knows the audience appreciates
the group’s efforts. “I’ve had families
come up to me and say ‘Thank you! I have
fi ve children; I could never afford to take
them to a play inside a theater.’”
Another community theater group that’s
been performing for about a year and a half
is Roving Park Players. Just as its name
suggests, the group moves from venue to
venue, and founders Lisa Shea-Blanchard
and Vicki Harkovitch get to prep their casts
for just about anything. In Island Park,
practicing June’s Peter Pan, they dealt
with a lot of mosquitoes this year (though
they’re hoping for an end to that problem
by the August Island Park performance
of Twelfth Night). At Campbell Center,
they use orange cones to mark off where
the “stage” exists, and Shea-Blanchard
trains the cast, both kids and adults, to
be “in neutral” and stand quietly near the
stage when they’re not part of the action.
The Roving Park Players also perform in
Maurie Jacobs Park and at Petersen Barn,
and Shea-Blanchard says they’re looking
into Bethel Park as well.
“There’s something about being an
itinerant group and taking theater to the
community, where people have not had
experiences like this before,” Harkovitch
says. “There’s a satisfaction in being able
to present a gift to the people of Eugene
and Springfi eld, and saying you can see it
— for free!”
Shea-Blanchard also likes that the
audience can have some fl exibility.
Bringing the kids and a picnic, some
pillows and a blanket means that as the
play unwinds, little ones can relax into
sleep as their parents and older siblings
enjoy what’s happening onstage. Both
women say that having to haul set pieces
and props to a variety of places presents
its own challenges. They dream of having
a caravan, just like the traveling players
of Shakespeare’s day, to carry what they
need. They also dream of getting through
to everyone that rehearsals aren’t optional,
that performance dates are fi xed, that
learning the lines is an essential. But for
the most part, they’re thrilled with all of
the volunteer work that goes into taking
plays like Twelfth Night, for free, all over
town.
If you’re a Corvallis resident reading
this article, or if you like to travel to
the cute town up the road on a summer
night, do not despair: OSU’s “Bard in the
Quad” series continues this August with,
yes, Twelfth Night. Director Elizabeth
Helman — who has experience with
the UO’s Mad Duckling summer theater
for kids — says, “I love doing outdoor
summer theater! Everything about it is
energetic.” That means the audience, the
director, the crew members and defi nitely
the actors. The space, surrounded by
lovely buildings and trees, isn’t quite as
open as Amazon or Campbell Center, but
outdoor theater inherently requires a larger
concept. “This is not an introspective
kind of play,” Helman says. “You have to
do something so all of those people way
way back can see you! We’re going with a
pretty presentational style of performance
Devienna Anggraini’s art will be at Art and the Vineyard
and trying to incorporate a lot of music and
physical comedy.”
Throughout the summer, Springfi eld’s
Island Park features the Roving Park
Players and a variety of other entertainment,
including the July 25 Great Outdoor Arts
Event. There, artists will practice “plein
air” painting or sketching and enjoy a full
day of focus on the visual arts. The Oregon
Brass Society, which performs during part
of the daytime festival, might get into
the paintings, says organizer Charlene
Eckman. Free workshops by the Emerald
Art Center make the morning parts fun for
kids and adults alike, and Eckman says
working outdoors as many Impressionists
did means that “colors are truer … and you
can experience depth.”
She says that everyone should come,
whether with crayons, chalk, pastels or
any other materials (some will be available
on site). “The weather this time of year is
phenomenal. How can you not want to?”
VISUAL ART:
Art and the Vineyard runs July 3-5 at
Alton Baker Park. $6/day or $15/3-day
pass. www.artandthevineyard.org
The Great Outdoors Art Event is 8 am-3
pm Saturday, July 25, in Springfi eld’s Island
Park. FREE. www.willamalane.org
CLASSICAL MUSIC:
Washburne Park concert series runs
6:30 pm Sundays at Agate and 20th. through
the end of August, with Saturday, July 4, and
Monday, Sept. 7, concerts as well. FREE.
The Oregon Bach Festival’s Rhapsody in
Red, White and Blue starts around 9 pm,
with a rehearsal around 6:45 pm, Saturday,
July 4, at Art and the Vineyard in Alton Baker
Park. The concert is free with a ticket to the
art festival. www.oregonbachfestival.com
The Eugene Symphony plays a free concert
at 8 pm Saturday, July 25, in the Cuthbert
Amphitheatre. www.eugenesymphony.org
POP GOES THE SYMPHONY
THEATER:
Even with great weather, keeping
an audience engaged means mixing up
the entertainment. The long-standing
Washburne Park concert series, organized
by Pacifi c Winds, showcases a variety of
notational and classical music all summer
long, and now it’s joined by a big event:
the 43-year-old Eugene Symphony’s
fi rst outdoor concert, where the light,
popular program ends with a cannon blast.
Symphony Music Director Danail Rachev
has conducted outside before, and he
says the advantages of a concert outside
outweigh some of the challenges.
UO School of Music bassoon professor
Steve Vacchi says that outdoor concerts
often terrify performers because their
instruments just don’t work as well. One
violinist from New York performing with
the Bach Festival says that musicians
usually don’t bring their best instruments
to outdoor performances — though the
dry conditions of Eugene’s summer make
tuning strings a whole lot easier than in
most of the rest of the country.
Rachev, who conducted outdoor concerts
in his position as the assistant conductor of
the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, says the
July 18 concert presents a few concerns
about instruments and sound engineering.
But, he says, the benefi ts are great. For
one thing, just as with Free Shakespeare
in the Park, “you reach more people with
this format, people who might not come to
the concert hall.” And of course there’s the
outdoor part of the equation. Symphony
Executive Director Paul Winberg says that
the revamped Cuthbert makes the concert a
lot more attractive than it might otherwise
have been.
“You can’t expect the same sound as
you would have in a concert hall, but these
Mad Duckling’s Click Clack Moo: Cows That
Type runs 11 am July 7-11 & 14-18, and The
Old Man Who Loved Cheese runs 11 am July
28-Aug. 1 & Aug. 4-8, at Amazon Park. $5 for
anyone over 2 years old. 346-4192.
Free Shakespeare in the Park’s Much Ado
About Nothing runs at 6 pm Aug. 8-9, 15-
16, 22-23 and 29-30 in Amazon Park. FREE.
682-5373
Roving Park Players’ Twelfth Night runs
at 6pm July 30-31 at Campbell Center;
Aug. 1-2 at Island Park, Spfd; Aug. 6-7 at
Petersen Barn and Aug 8-9 at Maurie Jacobs
Park. FREE. www.rovingparkplayers.org
OSU’s Twelfth Night runs 7:30 pm Aug.
5-16 in Corvallis. $5-$14 (cheaper “early
Bard” tix on sale now) www.oregonstate.
edu/bardinthequad
concerts have their own charm,” Rachev
says. “Enjoying music in the nature is a
different thing, and people can go earlier,
make a whole day out of it.”
For the conductor, working with his
wife, soprano Elizabeth Racheva, is a
sweetener. They have very different work
schedules, so this is a treat. She’s singing
a blend of American musical tunes like “I
Could Have Danced All Night” and bits
of Viennese operetta, and Rachev says
that this music “is pretty much one of her
favorite things to do.”
And of course, the end of the fi rst
Eugene Symphony outdoor free summer
music event brings the kind of celebration
that Americans love: Tchaikovsky’s 1812
Overture. With its cannon blasts (Rachev
says that the Symphony is looking for a
cannon) and tremendous orchestration, it’s
sure to attract attention from everyone at or
anywhere near the Cuthbert.
ew
Tim
Verkler
• A Full-Service Real Estate Broker •
• Earth Advantage S.T.A.R. Graduate •
• Former Home Builder •
Multi-Million $ Annual Sales
1999-2008
485-1613
timverkler@remax.net • www.eugeneproperties4u.com
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • BLOGS.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
EUGENE WEEKLY JULY 2, 2009 13