Eugene weekly., October 29, 2015, Page 13, Image 13

den!
is a lot of top-notch theater in Eugene, but the timing is
Fast forward eight years, throw in a marriage and baby,
tough during the school year. OPL gives the students a
and Pearlstein and Norton are in Eugene for the summer of
short, intense experience during the summer when they
2015, inaugurating the Oregon Performance Lab.
have the time to engage with a project like this. And the
Oregon Performance Lab (OPL) offers space and
workshops give them and the community the chance to
support to artists hoping to create or fine-tune new works.
really pick the brains of different theatre artists.”
Utilizing the theater facilities at Lane Community College,
OPL is staffed by student and community
interns. In return, the visiting artists hold
workshops for the public and connect interns
with artists in larger theater venues across the
nation.
Last August, OPL provided space for a
workshop production of Spill, an original
work by Leigh Fondakowski (Emmy winner
and lead writer for The Laramie Project) and
collaborators Reeva Wortel and Kelli
Simpkins. After this, Seattle’s Degenerate Arts
Ensemble staged a trial run of Predator
Songstress. Local artist John Schmor held a
reading of his stage adaptation of Ursula K. Le
Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness.
Along with these productions, OPL held
Schmor agrees: “With the Oregon Performance Lab, I
successful public workshops: More than a dozen local
have to say I really enjoyed having the opportunity to work
actors were able to stretch their skills and eight students
with and witness a variety of different projects in process
received intern experience with theater professionals.
and different artists, local and otherwise. I am hoping our
Not a bad start for such an ambitious project.
department and spaces will be a partner in future labs.”
“Diversity is a big inspiration,” Pearlstein says. “When
Schmor participated not only as a facilitating educator
you look around, where are the good roles for Latinos?
but also as an artist. He had been working on a stage
Where are the roles for women?”
In encouraging new works, Pearlstein and
Norton are urging theaters to catch up with the
American experience. “We want to reflect the
HARUKO CROW NISHIMURA AND
JOSHUA KOHL, CO-DIRECTORS
time we are in,” Norton says, noting that the
OF DEGENERATE ART
demographics of our country are changing
ENSEMBLE, IN REHEARSAL
rapidly, and yet so many plays are still about
upper-middle-class married people and all
their collective neuroses.
“We want to tell good, American stories,”
Pearlstein says. He notes that cities like
Eugene and Springfield are changing, rapidly
becoming more diverse. “We want to create
authentic pieces about here.”
OPL has been greeted enthusiastically by
local theater education professionals such as
Brian Haimbach, lead theater faculty at LCC,
as well as John Schmor, the University of
Oregon’s theater arts head.
“Corey and Willow approached me last
summer," Haimbach says. "They proposed the
idea [of OPL] and I quickly said 'yes.'"
Bringing in guest artists has long been a
favorite project of Haimbach, who hopes his
students will learn from and forge connections
with successful theater artists.
“Timing was perfect,” he notes of OPL’s
arrival, “because our beautiful spaces are not
frequently used in the summer. It is great to
see them being used for theater.”
“OPL was an amazing experience for our
student interns,” Haimbach continues. “There
adaptation of The Left Hand of Darkness, and this summer
he read the new script as part of the OPL season.
“For my own work, the low-pressure exploratory
reading and also discussions with designers from DAE
[Degenerate Arts Ensemble] helped me to move forward
with reframing the adaptation,” Schmor says. “I could have
done that here on my own, I suppose, but it
was more fun to be part of a larger
conversation and interactions with different
people working on such different projects.
Now I have a lot of notes and ideas that I am
folding into the revised script.”
So what’s in it for the New York theater
artist? As lovely as Eugene is, inviting artists
to travel to the other end of the continent in
order to workshop a production seems
counterintuitive. As it turns out, the reason is
simple: money.
“No one is making their work in New
York anymore,” Pearlstein says. “The cost of
space and actors is crippling.” And then there
are the critics. “This is a place artists can take
risks and not be reviewed,” Pearlstein says.
For those interested in getting involved, there will be
more intern and acting opportunities next summer, along
with workshops. Support is needed for the homestay
program, during which artists are hosted by local patrons
for the length of their stay.
What’s next for the Oregon Performance Lab? “We
didn’t want to be an invading force from New
York,” Norton says, noting that they will
continue to include work by West Coast and
Eugene artists. Next year, OPL hopes to
provide workshop space for two local artists,
one national artist and one ensemble piece.
“I always suffer from ambition,” Pearlstein
says sheepishly before launching into his
hopes for the future, which include pushing
the boundaries of traditional theater, focusing
on issues of equality and access to theater
arts, and ultimately helping create “theater for
the other America.”
Haimbach says he’d “love for this to be a
regular thing … It went off very well this
year. The students got so much out of it and
the artists were really able to delve deeply
into their projects. I’m very gratified knowing
the artists were really able to do some serious
development on their new works. And Eugene
artists were instrumental.”
OPL seeks to forge an exciting partnership
between Eugene and the larger U.S. theater
community. Norton and Pearlstein are not
expecting this to be easy or without friction
on either side. But as Pearlstein so aptly
reflects, “Arguing about theater is a very
healthy thing.” ■
SO WHAT’S IN IT FOR THE NEW YORK THEATER ARTIST?
AS LOVELY AS EUGENE IS, INVITING ARTISTS TO TRAVEL
TO THE OTHER END OF THE CONTINENT IN ORDER TO
WORKSHOP A PRODUCTION SEEMS COUNTERINTUITIVE.
AS IT TURNS OUT, THE REASON IS SIMPLE:
MONEY.
For more information about Oregon Performance Lab,
including upcoming opportunities, visit
oregonperformancelab.com.
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