WINTER BRAVO! 2012
LCC
THEATER
DEPT.
PRESENTS
EXPLODING
LOVE
BEALL CONCERT HALL
Cypress
Quartet
with Jon Nakamatsu
2012
Season
Tickets
on sale
1 982 - 201
3
2
th
Anniv
ersar y
NOW !
February 3 – 19
Drink
the Water
SUNDAY JAN 22 | 3:00PM
Woody Allen’s 1966 laugh-out-loud farce
Salzburg
Chamber
Soloists
April 13 – May 6
The acclaimed musical based on the
memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee
June 15 – July 1
T HE
G LASS M ENAGERIE
SUNDAY FEB 5 | 3:00PM
Ebène
Quartet
The classic 1944 drama by
Tennessee Williams
August 10 – 26
T h
Th
S f
ll
A heartwarming musical full of hope
and second chances
October 5 – 21
SUNDAY MAR 4 | 5:00PM
682-5000
(541)
music.uoregon.edu/cmb
A mesmerizing glimpse into
the American judicial system
November 30 – December 23
Roald Dahl’s
W i l l y W o n k a
A scrumptious holiday treat
for your entire family
700 Village Drive, Cottage Grove
541-942-8001
www.cottagetheatre.org
24 JANUARY 19, 2012 EUGENE WEEKLY
Tomorrow
and tomorrow ...
A pungent preview of Eugene’s theater scene
I
t’s an unwritten rule of the
performing arts: When times
are tough, go conservative. Our
perpetually slumping economy
probably won’t hurt those big-
ticket venues on Broadway,
but there can only be one New York, New
York; the rest of the arts world is feeling
the pinch as touring bands, fringe troupes
and community theaters compete for what
remains of our discretionary income after
we feed and clothe ourselves.
It’s a vicious circle — the tighter the
budget, the safer you play it, around and
around until all sense of adventure and risk
is extinguished. Speaking as someone who’s
averaged a play a week for the past six or
seven years, I’d rather see someone botch
The Pillow Man than sit through An Enemy
of the People one more time.
This is not an indictment. If anything, it is
a request, a spur to theater companies to keep
up the good work, and for audiences to keep
fi lling those seats — and then to step it up.
Judging by this past year, Eugene audiences
show no sign of shying away from staged
works. What’s needed now is to get a new
generation of theatergoers through the door.
To that end, Lord Leebrick Theatre Com-
pany (lordleebrick.com) is staging a trio of
edgy contemporary plays that should appeal
to a broad demographic, from angry young
kids to veteran snobs of orthodoxy, and ev-
eryone in between. Tom Stoppard’s The Real
Thing (now through Feb. 4) kicks off Lee-
brick’s 20th anniversary season (see review
this issue), followed March 2-24 by that
classic dystopia, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit
451, directed by Bobby Vrtis and produced in
collaboration with Eugene Public Library’s
“The Big Read” literacy program. Leebrick
concludes its 2012 season with a dark domes-
tic comedy by America’s foremost poet of the
down-and-out (and Pulitzer Prize winner),
Sam Shepard; directed by Richard Leebrick,
A Lie of the Mind runs May 11-June 3.
The Very Little Theatre (thevlt.com) com-
mences 2011 with a wild and crazy farce by
Steve Martin, The Underpants, running now
through Jan. 28 (See EW, Jan. 12, for an in-
terview with director Johnny Ormsbee). The
laughs keep rolling when Dirty Rotten Scoun-
drels hits the stage March 9-31; this Broad-
BY RICK LEVIN
way hit about a pair of con men working the
French Riviera is directed by VLT veteran
Chris Pinto. John Cariani’s Almost, Maine,
a play comprising several vignettes set in a
mythological town, is directed by Michael
P. Watkins and runs May 25-June 9. And get
ready for a madcap comedy featuring a stolen
stole, Scotland Yard and a bumbling band of
middle-aged lodgers when Breath of Spring,
directed by Nancy Boyett, opens July 27
(through Aug. 11).
Some of the most surprising turns on stage
this past season were produced by students.
This time around, UO’s University Theatre
(http://theatre.uoregon.edu/) gets timely with
Clifford Odets’ Awake & Sing!, a family
drama set during the Great Depression, di-
rected by Damond Morris (Jan. 26-Feb. 4).
Next up, and keeping with our theme of the
social squeeze, is Arthur Miller’s classic tale
of paranoia and persecution, The Crucible,
directed by Theresa May and running March
8-17. Dominic Cooke’s adaptation of Arabian
Nights, directed by Michael Najjar, runs April
20-May 5, and LaDonna Forsgren directs
Robert Alexander’s I Ain’t Yo’ Uncle, a hip-
hop revision of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s revo-
lutionary antebellum novel (May 24-June 2).
The crew at Lane Community College’s
theater department (lanecc.edu/perarts) of-
fers up Joseph Coyne’s Exploding Love, a
comedy about the pyrotechnics of love and
divorce (Jan. 26-Feb. 11), and don’t miss the
annual, one-day-only Shakespeare Showcase
on March 17, directed by Judith Roberts.
The folks at Actors Cabaret have been
tearing it up lately with a run of risky, raun-
chy, challenging productions, and 2012
promises more of the same: The Great
American Trailer Park Musical (see review
this issue) runs now through Feb. 18; the
controversial and hilariously inappropriate
Sesame Street-like satire Avenue Q plays
March 2-April 7; and Legally Blonde: The
Musical is set for May 4-June 2.
Defi nitely keep an eye on Trial by Fire
TheatreWorks, a fi ercely independent and
seriously talented fringe troupe that continues
to mount innovative and daring work: On tap
in the next several months are Beirut, Ruby
by the River and Balm in Gilead (for updates,
visit trialbyfi retheatre.org).
Break a leg.
ew
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