You may have noticed there have been a few changes to PCS over the last few years. A new building, a new web site, a new Executive Director and, naturally, a new logo.

After the move to the Gerding Theater, we took the additive approach to modifying our logo. As you can see (click here for larger image), it got a bit cluttered. By the beginning of the 2007–2008 season, our logo spoke for Portland Center Stage, Gerding Theater and the Armory. That’s a hefty lot to ask of anyone, even more for an abstract mark.

continue reading "Ch-ch-changes: the new logo"

{Storm Large returns in a World Premiere autobiographical musical that is one of THREE musicals that will grace the PCS stages next season}

Over 350 people joined us Monday, February 25th as Artistic Director Chris Coleman unveiled a season that explores some of the most fascinating personalities of the 20th Century.

So what do you have to look forward to? Three (count them) THREE musicals, including a World Premiere from Storm Large, a little skit about a girl who can’t shake a cold, and Broadway’s newest smash hit about some eccentric relatives of Jackie O. Also on deck is an American premiere that has been described as an ‘like Hitchcock meets Blade Runner,’ and a World Premiere multimedia event that scratches the dark underbelly of the 20th century’s crowning achievement…our mission to the moon. To cleanse the palate, there will be a frothy Oscar Wilde classic, the return of Mead Hunter’s immensely popular adaptation of A Christmas Carol, and evenings with two of the twentieth century’s most fascinating characters…one a revolutionary thinker, and the other a controversial President.

Get the Season Details here.

The Season announcement itself started with a PCS tradition: Associate Artistic Director Rose Riordan’s much anticipated video montage. Last year took a ’shaken, not stirred’ approach with a box-headed Chris Coleman doing a James Bond bit, escaping the PCPA for the new Armory.

Check that out here.

This year, a frenetic, breakdancing Chris Coleman twisted and turned to a remixed ‘Singing in the Rain’ while some of the highlights from this season played out. Chris joked that his favorite part of each season’s announcement is that he gets to be humiliated in front of his best patrons. Humiliating? Hilarious? Both? Decide for yourself here.

The announcement then began in earnest (no pun intended), with a line up of plays that tackles some of the greatest ideas and most persistent questions of the 20th Century.

Susannah Mars took the stage to sniffle (and belt) her way through the classic song ‘A Person Could Develop a Cold’ from the gangster fable, Guys and Dolls, which will open the mainstage season in September.

Ebbe Roe Smith tickled the audience’s thinking bone with an peek into the brilliant, creative mind of Buckminster Fuller, taken from R.Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY(and Mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE, which will play in the Studio in October.

Julianna Jaffe, minus the giant wreath but with all her trademark sauciness intact, delighted the crowd with a snippet from her musical turn as Christmas Present. She’ll do it again in A Christmas Carol, returning to the PCS Main Stage in December.

Frenetic, iconic images of the space race and the civil rights movement mixed with dance, spoken word, and music in a video montage that unveiled Nancy Keystone’s groundbreaking World Premiere Apollo, which will colonize the mainstage in January.

Meanwhile Ebbe Roe returned to tantalize the audience with instructions on How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found, from Fin Kennedy’s American Premiere production that will hide out in the Studio in February and March.

Brent Harris and Darius Pierce, the comic centerpieces of Twelfth Night and Beard of Avon (currently playing in rep on the PCS Main Stage) enlivened the evening with a frothy bit of fun from Oscar Wilde’s intrepid comedy The Importance of Being Earnest, which will flounce its way to the Main Stage in February.

A musical interlude introduced Storm Large’s World Premiere musical autobiography Crazy Enough (the Lady herself was home battling the flu), which will take the Studio by…storm starting in March.

The evening wrapped up with a pair of fascinating characters: Michael Fisher-Welsh embodied our trickiest President, Richard Nixon, who will be grilled under the glare of studio lights in April’s Main Stage production of Frost/Nixon, and Sharonlee MacLean donned a Little Edie style sweater headdress to sing about today’s ‘revolutionary fashion statement’, from the smash hit musical about Jackie O’s eccentric relatives, Grey Gardens, which will close out the season in May.

After the announcement, everyone was invited to a dessert reception in the lobby, where an astonishing 51% of the audience present at the announcement decided to subscribe on the spot. Ready to subscribe yourself? Download the easy order form here.

Want more details? Full Season Descriptions, Dates and Prices can be found here.

Want to mouth off about the season? Tell us what you think about the season below.