Portland Center Stage and Willamette Week are thrilled to bring you the perfect event to prepare for Pride ‘08. For the unthinkably low admission of $30 you can enjoy snacks before dating (because some drink more than others at these events, there will be a cash bar in the immediate vicinity), the speed dating experience itself and our hilarious comedy of manners The Little Dog Laughed in the Gerding Theater Studio. Here’s the itinerary:

5:30pm – Mix and Mingle on the Mezzanine
6:15pm – Speed Date like there’s no tomorrow with your host and emcee, PCS Education Director, Kelsey Tyler
7:15pm – Overflowing with infatuation, head down to the Studio for The Little Dog Laughed
9:30ish – Keep the party going with a special happy hour in honor of PCS Speed Daters at District (232 NW 12th Ave.)

All you need to do to get started is call the PCS box office at 503.445.3700 or click on the buy tickets link up and over to the right on this page, select the June 4th performance of The Little Dog Laughed and use the the redemption code SPEEDO. If you can’t say or type “speedo” without cracking up, it’s okay…just call the box office and tell them you want to be part of the Gay Speed Dating event of the century.

Hey, if the fork ran away with the spoon, there’s no telling who you could end up with!

Pops was known for a lot of crazy things and from the stories I’ve been told, he was a lot happier about the things he became known for after his “born again” moment. More than anyone else I’ve ever known, George John Trick immersed himself in his relationship with God; he was proud to be a fanatic. One year, after locking himself in his study on a three day meditation he emerged from the “tomb” singing something incessantly…seriously, this little ditty lasted the rest of his life and it continues to be the single nugget of Christianity that persists most significantly in my belief system today.

“Believing makes it so.”

Maybe this throws a bit of a wrench into the whole celebration of doubt dialog, but this aphorism is what allows me to respect other people’s spirituality at the deepest level. It’s different than just saying “that’s fine for you but it’s not true for me.” It’s more like, “I can really see how that belief is reflected in your life and work and that’s beautiful and powerful.”

As a chaoist my most fundamental belief is in the inherent power and interchangeability of belief. Rather than seeing belief as an end in itself, being preoccupied with the degree to which a particular belief is consistent with conventional wisdom or, heaven forbid, an ultimate morality, I view belief as a means to an end. Once a belief is no longer consistent with my list of desired ends…it becomes counterproductive and must be discarded, modified or replaced with something more suitable. It’s very much a “belief of convenience” sort of walk. Furthermore the collective result of beliefs manifesting reality for centuries is something some people call an aetheric or akashic record. I believe it’s there with all sorts of stored energy that can either support or undermine one’s own effort to manifest reality via devout (however transitory) belief.

I think it was Ghandi who said something along the lines of “Be the change you want to see in the world.” I guess my own version of that idea is “Believe the change you want to see in the world and you will be it by default.”

So, ever since we’ve started marketing the play that opens next week, I’m left wondering “what’s left for me to doubt about?” I suppose I could call into question my belief in the power of belief.

For example, no matter how hard I try, I doubt that sitting here chanting “I believe in a blue haired, green eyed alien friend” would result in any physical manifestation of such a creature. But that monasticism would likely create an iconic new voice among the masses in my head that I would begin to represent in my imagination as a funny looking dude from outer space who was more or less fond of me and I of him; especially if I could summon considerable belief. I’m left with no doubt in the power of belief and I guess I’ll just have to live with that.

I can, however, go back to doubting whether we’ll ever get over the damage a certain bit of shrubbery has done to our global reputation as a nation. I can doubt that Mr. Jackson or Mr. Spectre is, either one of them, truly innocent. I can doubt that Pat Robertson, a man who has called for political assassination on national television, really has a walk with anything resembling what the rest of us conceive of as god. But I can’t know these things to be absolutely true or false, that’s for sure, right?

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I have a confession to make.

I was raised in a middle class military family, guided by relatively progressive values yet revolving around a hub of 1970’s “born again” spirituality, complete with 700-club-inspired family prayer meetings and a minimum of 3 visits to 2 different churches each week. To really communicate the context, it’s helpful to relate a story my father used to tell about standing up in a central-Texas, Lutheran adult sunday-school class and saying to the pastor and all in attendance “you guys are talking a lot about brotherhood, so where are all the black people?.” So you see, it was the natural course of things that I would embark, at the tender age of 13, on a so-called “teen mission” to none other than mother England to cast a light on the obviousness of their sinful ways.

In that summer of ‘79, when Aerosmith and Boston were the heaviest American rock bands of any significance, when Freebird and Stairway to Heaven were always the last two songs played at every school dance, when there were still more “I found it” bumper stickers than “question authority” bumper stickers, little Tommy Trick spent three weeks in missionary “boot camp” in a swampy corner of Florida and another 6 weeks touring the British countryside singing and doing puppet shows in the public squares and witnessing one-on-one to the un-saved. I must have said the “sinner’s prayer” with at least 10 or 12 strangers that summer and there was real tangible energy in those moments of conversion; an unmistakable feeling of power, influence and somewhat smug benevolence. I was overcoming doubts left and right…all except my own.

One evening I tossed and turned in my sleeping bag, alongside my fellow missionaries who somehow slept more soundly than I. Although it was scandalously against the rules, I determined to go out for a walk under the stars, all by myself. On that walk I met an agnostic man walking his dog. Couldn’t tell you how old he was, what he looked like or what he was wearing and I certainly don’t remember his name. What stuck was that he was willing to admit that he didn’t know the answers to life, the universe and everything. I remember feeling a brief compulsion to sell this guy on the bliss of salvation but I was so awe-stricken by the depth of his honesty that it wasn’t long before I realized I was out-classed…and he wasn’t trying to convince me of anything.

That was my own conversion moment. Although I was always told that doubt was healthy and indeed that I had been named after perhaps the most famous doubter in the Bible for that very reason, this was the first time I had been given an adult opportunity to consider the possibility that doubt was more important than conviction.

read part 2 || more blogs about Doubt || buy tickets to Doubt || bring a group

{“Wag it and Shag it boys!” Patriarch Henry Stamper (Tobias Andersen), laid up with a broken arm, relies on his sons Hank (P.J. Sosko) and Leland (Karl Miller) to keep the family logging business afloat.}

You asked for it Portland and who are we to stand in your way? Sometimes a Great Notion has been extended through May 4th. Not since Cabaret have we seen such a race for tickets and we’re thrilled to be able to hold this show over so that you can all get the call out to your own extended “Stamper clan” to come see this “…artistic triumph, worthy of it’s heritage.” (Marty Hughley, The Oregonian).

The performance schedule will be slightly different than what you’re accustomed to, so you may want to take notes here (or just click on the buy tickets link, navigate to Sometimes a Great Notion and you’ll find a calendar of these shows).

Wednesday, April 30th at 7:30pm
Thursday, May 1st at NOON and 7:30 pm
Friday, May 2nd at 2:00 pm and 7:30 pm
Sunday May 4th at 2:00 pm and 7:30 pm

NO performances on Tuesday April 29th or Saturday May 3rd

We know it’s popular with Portland theater fans, but what else are the critics saying about this phenomenal production?

“Posner’s beautifully acted play tells this rich story with great economy, something suggested early on by Tony Cisek’s ingenious set, a spray of timbers propped like gigantic pick-up sticks that evokes, in turn, forested hillsides, gray blankets of Northwest chill and deadly rising rivers. …a succinct, well-paced distillation of Kesey’s sprawling book.” Eric Bartels, Portland Tribune

“…an intelligently conceived and gorgeously executed production.” Alison Hallett, Portland Mercury

“…the work [writer/director Aaron Posner] wrangled out of his PCS design crew is nothing short of extraordinary. Tony Cisek’s set is a mountainous pile of timbers that manages to be both beautiful and eminently functional, Jim Ragland’s incidental music is folksy without being silly, and Casi Pacilio’s falling-tree sound effects shake the Armory’s foundations.” Ben Waterhouse, Willamette Week

So what are you waiting for? Get your tickets while you can still sit close enough to see Tobias Andersen twist his face into that crotchety ‘ol Henry Stamper scowl and say “Never give a inch!”

(if you still need convincing, read more about this amazing show in the full press release regarding the extension of Sometimes a Great Notion here.)

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In keeping with the show, our own local-music-scene-Superhero, Tim DuRoche, has booked the indy-psyche-folk band Bark, Hide and Horn to provide aural pleasures to booze and schmooze by. If their tunes don’t make you want to move, call 911…you’re in a coma.

Here’s what Adam Gnade of the Portland Mercury had to say about them…

“Bark, Hide and Horn make electro Americana pop songs with lyrics based upon National Geographic articles. But it’s not as convoluted as it sounds. Brian Garvey, Peter Valois, and Andy Furgeson spin the above into catchy, lo-fi, blues orchestra jams that are fun, but also know when to back up from the boogie and look you straight in the eye. Their music has the heart and spirit of a gospel choir but-just the same-throws down the shuddery, haunted folk with class and authentic-feeling sincerity. They have a new self-titled EP done. Look for it ’round month’s end.”

But don’t take anybody else’s word for it, check out this grewvie audio track, “Treasures of the Everglades” and Willamette Week review. If you’re into that sort of thing, you can find a link to their myspace page there too.

Rumor has it that our cast of Stampers are very likely to join in the fun after they’ve had a chance to ditch their caulks (logging boots, for the city slickers out there) and stage makeup. Nothing like gettin’ down and gettin’ your drink on after a long day logging in Wakonda.

For those who’ve never done our Fade to Black event, the concept is simple…$20 gets you a ticket to the play and admission to the party afterward, including tasty nosh and thirst-quenching imbibables. Just call the box office to reserve your ticket today and tell ‘em you want to Fade to Black on Tuesday. The tickets are also available online (click that “buy tickets” button up yonder). Just be sure to use the promotion code FADE3 when you have the opportunity.

There’s no specific dress code, but feel free to get in the spirit of things with your favorite flannel, suspenders or Carhart overalls. Just don’t layer it up too much ‘cuz its guaranteed to get hot and steamy.

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