The Receptionist cast members Laura Faye Smith, Sharonlee McClean, Bob Thomas and Chris Harder share their own office nightmares…

Stories from the NE Office from Portland Center Stage on Vimeo.

What’s your favorite office horror story? DO TELL.

It is a busy week (isn’t every week, really?) around these parts.

First up, for First Thursday we’ve got two things you won’t want to miss.

The Company We Keep
In the PGE Gallery & Ellyn Bye Studio Lobbies, we will have a champagne & chocolate reception (from 5-7 pm) in honor of the exhibition The Company We Keep, a masterful array of paintings, prints, photography, fashion, craft, and multimedia installation by the employees of Portland Center Stage.

FEATURING: Paula Buchert (Cutter/Draper, Costume Shop);  Michael Buchino (Graphic Designer);  Barbara Casement (Costume Crafts Artisan); Kelly Cullom (Production Assistant); Katherine Fitch (Overhire, Costume Shop); Geno Franco (Charge Scenic Artist, Scene Shop); Bonnie Henderson-Winnie (Wardrobe Supervisor); Susi Jenkins (Crafts, Stitcher, Dresser); Michael Jones (Carpenter/Welder, Scene Shop); Megan K. Kahrs (Accounting Manager); Kelly Keiler (Overhire, Costume Shop); Fuchsia Lin (First Hand, Costume Shop); Timothy McGarry (Electrician, Running Crew); Patrick Weishampel (Multimedia Designer)

Also on the Mezzanine for First Thursday:

Colored Pencils Art and Culture Night

We are honored to host Colored Pencils,  a monthly multicultural art and culture evening featuring the rich traditions of New Portland, an  extraordinary array of social and cultural capital drawn from our immigrant, ethnic minority, and mainstream communities’ joint bank account. Join us from 5:30-7:30 pm for an evening of visual and performing arts, co-hosted by Kalakendra : Society for the performing arts of India. This is an excellent time to remember, as Nim Xuto, one of the co-organizers reminds us: “Life is so short, sweet family. Let’s get together. Teach and learn.”

Mark Appelbaum’s The Metaphysics of Notation

On Friday, February 5, we team up with Third Angle New Music Ensemble for the first in a month-long series of weekly noon-time performances . For these free performances, 3A and PCS invite a bevy of artists to interpret and respond to Mark Applebaum’s dazzling, epic graphic score “The Metaphysics of Notation” –animating  the public spaces of the Gerding Theater’s lobby with all manner of sound, sight and movement.

“How do these images make you feel? If you were a poet, what words come to mind? A dancer, how would you move? A musician, what notes would you play?”

Applebaum’s score is a stunning, 72-foot-long work of visual art teeming with fantastical musical glyphs, where the meaning is deliberately left undefined by the composer. This circuitous, unusual work will wind its way around the Mezzanine of the Gerding Theater at the Armory and invite the audience to experience it in a variety of delightfully different visual and auditory ways.

Featuring:
February 5: Catlin Gabel 8th Grade Drama Students
February 12: Blum Blum Shub Sound Poetry Coincidence
February 19: Quadrophonnes Saxophone Quartet
February 26: Dance Artist Linda Austin

Fridays in February at noon
Portland Center Stage
Mezzanine, Gerding Theater at the Armory

This creative exploration is in anticipation of Third Angle’s innovative concert “Chance/Perchance: A Musical Happening,” on Friday, March 5 — featuring work by David Schiff, Terry Riley and Mark Applebaum — at the Hollywood Theatre. For more information on Third Angle and their upcoming performance Click Here

This Friday, the eighth grade drama class from Catlin Gabel (under the watchful stewardship of  teacher Deirdre Atkinson, a highly valued talent on the local theaterscape) will set the bar by being the first to tackle Metaphysics of Notation.

Ms. Atkinson noted, “this project is so exciting for us in so many ways…we’re exploring new forms of performance and collaboration; we’re playing with site-specific construction out in the world and we’re inviting the general public to share our work…I’d say our first challenge is the abstractness of the piece and of the whole project. It has been such a thrill to see the kids discovering the piece and the process. Of course, the real piece would be watching the process…the performance is merely a distillation of the actual responses and/or interpretation of Mark Applebaum’s composition. The kids are really excited about performing on Friday. They are thrilled (in their own teenage way) to be making connections to a larger creative community.”

You can read more about Atkinson and the Catlin Gabel students’  explorations here

And finally. . .

Sounds. Like. Portland:
Jim Brunberg with special guest Jonathan Newsome

Jim Brunberg (a Portland-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who hails from Coralville, Iowa) honed his rich talent in the coffee houses and taverns of San Francisco. Jim loves “heckling from the crowd, broken strings, and dressing rooms without ventilation.”  PCS regulars will recognize him as the guy with the bass  who sang with Storm Large during last summer’s hit, Crazy Enough.   A vital member of the Portland music community, Brunberg istechnical director for LiveWire Radio and the man behind Mississippi Studios .   A master craftsman of a songwriter, Brunberg is a musical charmer with a warm voice, an irreverent wit and versatile musical chops.  Don’t just ask me, ask some of the folks he’s toured with over the years, strummers, pickers, thumpers and shouters as diverse as Greg Brown, Tracy Grammer, Hot Tuna, Willie Nelson, The Indigo Girls, Huey Lewis, and Rat Dog.
He’ll be joined by Miraflores’ Jonathan Newsome and invite a friend or two to open through out this month of Saturdays (including one Matt Schulte on Feb. 27—watch for it!).

Saturdays in February from 5-7 pm, Lobby (Gerding Theater)

Cosponsored by Music Millennium

PCS’s Community Programs made possible in part by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and James F. & Marion L. Miller Foundation.

We’ve all been there.  Forcing yourself to stay awake while a speaker drones on and on behind a podium. He clicks his way through the powerpoint while you balance you bank account in your head.

Don’t be that guy!

The Art of Presentations Class (a part of Portland Center Stage’s Art of Business Classes)  will utilize performance exercises and techniques to help you focus on creating confident and engaging presentations. Move your audience from captive to captivated by helping them understand quickly and clearly why they should listen to you. Learn how to keep the flow of energy between you and your audience by keeping the audience actively involved while finding your own confident presenting style.

The course is taught by Laura Faye Smith, currently starring in The Receptionist. Laura has also served in many different roles in the business world.

Course dates: Mondays, Mar. 1—Mar. 22, from 7pm to 9pm
Tuition: $100

To register, contact PCS education director Kelsey Tyler at kelseyt@pcs.org

We KNOW you're a better boss than this guy!

Administrative Professionals day isn’t until April, but you could be the Bestest Boss Ever if you nominate your receptionist to win our fun dinner (at Fratelli’s in the Pearl) and a show (two tickets to The Receptionist) package before March 1.

Tell us why your receptionist is the best on the block (and if you’re afraid of him/her, so much the better) and you may end up as his/her office favorite.

PCS fan Murray drafts an important memo

Send us your best office memo. You’ve heard thanks for memos on Michael Feldman’s What D’Ya Know? on NPR, and it’s just good darn fun. Check it out on Feldman’s website if you don’t know what we’re talking about.

So post an excerpt from the best office memo you’ve ever received in the comments section here, and you might win tickets to see The Receptionist. Protect yourself and your employer (former or otherwise), and omit names!