PHOINIX PLAYERS ON THE SET OF SILVER SPUR SALOON
THE HARDEST WORKING
TROUPE IN EUGENE
PHOINIX PLAYERS
RISE AGAIN IN
RED CANE THEATRE
BY RICK LEVIN
I
t’s hot, humid and breezeless inside the Red Cane
Theatre, a new Eugene venue sinking fresh roots at
West 11th and Chambers. Right next door is Lava
Lounge, the bamboo-and-thatch watering hole
sprung like a tropical oasis within Ring of Fire Thai
restaurant. It’s late afternoon, in an uncommonly
flowery month of May, and from the adjacent lounge one of
those tall, fruity drinks with a baby umbrella is calling.
Inside the Red Cane, however, the call for happy hour
goes unanswered. Opening night approaches. They want
those roots sunk deep.
On black wooden risers serving as a makeshift stage, the
Phoinix Players run through scene after scene in the
sweltering shell of the new theater, which remains a work in
progress. The members of this troupe, ranging in age from
18 to 24, have spent long hours stripping the floor of this
former Asian market, scraping up years of goo like barnacles
from a ship’s hull; they’ve scrubbed the high ceiling,
painted the tall walls. It’s tedious work, blister making and
back aching, and a far cry from the feather boas and suede
shuffle of their upcoming Broadway musical, scheduled to
open, if everything falls into place, June 28.
For educator and local theater maven Mary Huls, who
founded Phoinix Players some eight years back, work is
work is work — perspiration and inspiration are inseparable,
and when it comes to the hard knocks of musical theater, it’s
in for a penny, in for a pound. Whether blocking out scenes
or knocking out walls, Huls’ young actors are bound to her
vision through determination and drive. There is no room
for divas in Huls’ creative universe. If you’re too good to
scour the toilet, buddy, the southbound Greyhound leaves
thrice a day for L.A.
As a self-funding troupe of nomadic actors, the Phoinix
Players aren’t unfamiliar with busting ass, and not only to
get a production up and running. With Huls at the helm, the
10 JUNE 14, 2012
EUGENE WEEKLY
troupe has taken its show abroad several times, performing
in Los Angeles, New York, London and the Czech Republic,
where their one scheduled show turned into an additional
10 performances at the demand of their hosts.
Several of the players teach workshops and classes, and
it seems everyone in the cast pulls some form of double
duty; for instance, Elise Newell choreographs shows, and
Daniel Halstead oversees safety.
For sure, every skill set among the cast members — as
well as that of Huls’ husband Gary, who volunteers his
construction skills — has been tapped to make Red Cane a
reality. “The theater is not going to look like it does unless
someone does it,” jokes actor Richie Deyhle, to which his
co-star Elise Newell adds bluntly: “Stuff’s gotta get done.”
TELLING STORIES
As it was for Joan Didion, so it is for Phoinix Players
founder Mary Huls: In life, it’s all about the stories we tell. Not
any single story — though we all have our preferences, from
Don Quixote and Law & Order to The Gospels and Porgy &
Bess — but those journeys into the adventure of experience in
the realm of discovery on the verge of revelation. As in, you
are really just a story told to me, and vice versa. When we take
those stories to the stage, they become like a ritual, a public
celebration of community. For Huls, then, story and community
are just two sides of this life’s strange coin.
“Passionately, I believe story is the single most important
thing for human beings to share,” she tells me. “To tell
stories, with characters, with movement, with song and
heart, is a privilege. We know it reaches out to the core of
people, and we want that to be our mission — to reach the
community with stories that inspire, that transform and
simply entertain them.”
A few weeks back I was sitting next to Huls, watching a
full-cast run-through of the honky-tonk torch song “Any
Man of Mine,” when suddenly something about the size of
a grasshopper went flying from the stage; the airborne
object took one long, loopy arc and then landed, skidding,
at my feet. I picked it up and looked over at Huls. “Bobby
pin?” she whispered. I nodded. “Yeah,” she said, “that’s
Amanda. Happens all the time.”
It’s somehow fitting that bobby pins regularly catapult
from the head of Amanda Lawrence. When, last July, I
attended my first Phoinix Players production, Crazy for You,
way out at Junction City’s Star Theater, it was Lawrence
who really caught my eye; even among an exuberant,
engaging cast possessing equal amounts of courage, talent,
grit and sheer faith, Lawrence, at just 19, stood out as
impressively gifted for her years. She revealed the beauty,
dazzle and mad comic timing of Golden Era legends like
Jean Arthur and Irene Dunne. Lawrence had it — the It
Factor, that certain intangible aura of unlimited artistic
possibilities.
Sharing the lead with Amanda Lawrence in Crazy for
You was Austin Lawrence, 19, a multifaceted performer
with confidence and charisma to spare. As they navigated
the romantic rollercoaster of Gershwin’s madcap comedy,
Austin and Amanda created a flirty, charming rapport that
gave the show a sweetly lilting feel of youthful infatuation.
In other words, they had chemistry.
Life, as everyone knows, imitates art. Austin and
Amanda (nee Bauer) recently tied the knot. It’s just too
perfect: When, in a matter of days, the Red Cane Theatre
throws open its doors to Eugene, the newlyweds will retake
the stage, this time as a wooing, sparring pair of spur-
crossed lovers. You can’t make this stuff up.
What you can make up — and what Huls has made up
in her new musical Silver Spur Saloon, as a nod to the
Phoinix Players’ homecoming and debut Eugene
performance — is an old-fashioned Broadway musical
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