{photo: Plan birthday bash. Check. Escape uncouth co-workers. Check. Keep book club out of bathroom. Check and check. Who knew PCS could be so handy?}

Got a social datebook crammed with parties to plan, people to host and charities to support? Jackie Kennedy managed it all with the help of a social secretary. Now so can you. We’ve put our heads together and gathered our top 5 ways you can use Portland Center Stage as your personal social secretary for the coming season.

5. Find something less sweaty to do with your co-workers.

Bowling parties, softball teams, picnics, BBQs; I’ve bet you’ve got one penciled into your date book already for next year, probably designed by some well intentioned HR person to “promote employee camaraderie and good communication.” The problem? That guy from sales who was on the college varsity team and always makes everyone else look like they’ve got two left feet. Plus, unless you work in landscaping or construction, sweating in front of co-workers is never a good idea.

Suggest to your HR person that your next corporate outing should be a nice air-conditioned, non-competitive trip to the theater. Not only will How to Disappear Completely without Being Found make you (and your boss) completely re-examine the stakes involved in your next Power Point presentation, you’ll be able to limit your required amount of small talk with that Battlestar Galactica obsessed guy from IT down to one digestible 15 minute intermission.

{Can’t stomach the thought of a corporate mixer without competition of some kind? Our rental coordinator Heather Burkhalter (heatherb@pcs.org) helped one company set up a series of Wii game stations and flat screen TVs for their sales team to unwind on our mezzanine. I bet she could help you too.}

4. Birthdays are better with “jazz hands.”

Debating whether to make your birthday celebration a candlit, “dinner and a show” type affair or a full on blow-out bash? Do both. A variety of patrons (including Rep. Earl Blumenauer) have used our mezzanine for a swanky cocktail birthday bashes. Include tickets to the current show as part of your evening and your party guests will be too caught up in the emotions of the show to think up more eye rollers about how “over-the-hill” you are.

Some birthday themes to consider:

If you are a Libra, your timing is perfect for a “Luck be a Lady” party with vintage cocktails and bite sized versions of New York favorites for noshing before the classic American musical Guys and Dolls (it runs through Oct. 26th). After the show you could arrange a little speakeasy game of blackjack or a little Sinatra-themed karaoke and keep the fun rolling along.

Aquarians of an age could blast off with a “Space Race” party in honor of the world premiere of Apollo, Nancy Keystone’s multimedia re-examination of the space race. For nibbles, consider some Huntsville, Alabama-style southern comfort food…and for fun before the show, have your guests recount where they were when Armstrong uttered those immortal words.

3. Chalk up your Good Samaritan Points for the year.

On the board of a nonprofit that’s been bugging you to give, get, or get off? Let us help you host a fundraiser. You’ll get a bucket of tickets to sell at a great price, the non-profit will get a portion of the proceeds and you’ll have a blast earning brownie points and supporting your pet cause.

You can even fit the show to the mission: Environmental groups will dig Buckminster Fuller, organizations for at risk youth could learn some rockin’ life lessons from Storm Large and every political action committee you’ve ever given $5 to on a street corner could learn a thing or two about politics and the media from Frost/Nixon. (Junior Leaguers? Yeah, we’re thinking they’ll get a kick out of the crazy but classy Bouvier sisters in Grey Gardens).

2. A book club meeting you don’t have to clean the bathroom for.

See if you can sneak one of the titles from Powells Books’ list of recommended reading for the season into your book club’s agenda for the year. Then, when it’s your turn to host, invite the group to join you for a matinee performance of the show related to the book.

You can come early; discuss the book on the mezzanine couches with some good espresso from the Armory Café and a tart or two from Two Tarts Bakery. Then have a blast at the show, end up looking like a classy dame (or guy), and not have to worry at all about what they might see if they peek into your medicine cabinet.

1. And last but not least, actually ENJOY your own holiday party.

My parents used to rent a trolley and pay to have their friends and relatives go caroling through the balmy neighborhoods of our South Florida resort town. My mom would bake a turkey and spend HOURS scraping little bits of caramelized nuts off the mincemeat pie tins. You could do that.

Or you could let experts do the caroling and invite friends and family to join you for a fabulous private holiday buffet on our mezzanine, followed by A Christmas Carol, a delightful family holiday drama (and not of the “we have to keep Aunt Marge away from the liquor cabinet” variety). You can even arrange to have each of your guests go home with a holiday gift package including a pair of tickets to see something else in the season.

This one is like a social secretary trifecta: You’ve fulfilled all your family holiday entertaining obligations in one glorious (clean-up free) evening, enjoyed a delightful holiday entertainment tradition with your near and dears, and saved yourself hours of shopping for people who would otherwise probably re-gift it all anyway.

Inspired? Email Group Sales Manager Rhianna (rhianna@pcs.org). She’ll help you organize the logistics of your event, save you up to 30% on the tickets and work with you, our preferred caterers and our rental coordinator Heather to make sure that your co-workers, friends and family are fed, lubricated and utterly delighted by your generosity (while having no idea what a great deal you got on the whole thing).

Email her right now, and start crossing things off your social planning to-do list. With the time you save you could… slip away for a cozy dinner for two and a romantic night at the theater!

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{A snapshot from the workshop of Nancy Keystone’s Apollo.}

Frank Barter (our Teleservices Manager) ran across this intriguing interview in the LAist with Nancy Keystone, the writer/director who will be bringing her world premiere multi-media theater piece about the space race to Portland Center Stage in January.

Here’s an excerpt (Thanks Frank!):

The play chronicles the intersection of the Space Race and the Civil Rights movement in the United States. Where did the idea to explore the relationship between these two seemingly unconnected moments in U.S. history come from? Why did you want to explore it?

NK: The idea came from the facts, themselves, proving yet again that truth is stranger than fiction. The U.S. Army brought a group of German (Nazi) rocket engineers to the U.S. through a secret and illegal intelligence program at the end of WWII in order to teach us how to make ballistic missiles. They were originally brought to Fort Bliss, TX, and in 1950 they were moved to Huntsville, AL where they later headed the NASA program to design the Saturn V moon rocket for the Apollo missions. They were there throughout the decades of the 50s and 60s and some of them still live there. I was utterly fascinated by the crazy collision of these former Nazis and the Civil Rights movement in the deep South. And it struck me that these two movements—the Space Race and the Civil Rights Movement– were happening literally at the same time in the same place, but that somehow in the American psyche, they are two completely separate mythologies. So, that was the first impulse.

And then, I realized that Jules Verne had written his famous book, From the Earth to the Moon, which profoundly influenced every rocket engineer (and which prophesized the details of the rocket launch to an astonishing degree) in 1865, partly as a response to the U.S. Civil War. In his story he uses guncotton to fuel his rocket, and I got to thinking about what Huntsville was like in 1865, and the direct correlation between the expansion of the cotton industry with the expansion of slavery, and how the country was built on the backs of slaves. And I thought about all that cotton carrying this latent explosive power. Read the rest of the interview.

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Starting September 23rd PCS will be giving you the opportunity to get to know a whole bevy of wild-eyed scientists, rock divas, gangsters, rakes and eccentrics (plus some of the most fascinating public figures of the 20th century).

But for now, the sun is still shining, and the evenings are more likely to find you with in a beach chair than a theater seat, curled up with a good book. To that end, our friends at Powells have proposed some intriguing summer reading to help you get prepped for the season:

Just for fun, we’ll go in reverse season order, starting with the season closer, Grey Gardens, the smash hit musical about Jackie Kennedy’s eccentric East Hampton relatives, the Bouvier Beales:

Grey Gardens: The Complete Book and Lyrics of the Broadway Musical

Get a taste of the spectacle to come, and impress your friends by singing along to the grand finale on opening night when you prep with this complete script of the musical.

My Life at Grey Gardens: Thirteen Months and Beyond

You can direct download this memoir from an artist friend of the Bouvier Beales who stayed with them in the East Hamptons until she could no longer stand the fleas.

Maysles Scrapbook: Photographs/Cinemagraphs/Documents

Already a fan of the cult hit documentary Grey Gardens (the starting point for the musical?) This interesting multimedia “scrapbook” includes several photos from the movie Grey Gardens, Gimme Shelter & Salesman, all Maysles Brother films.

Moving along to another eccentric mid-twentieth century sort of fellow, here’s a few takes on Tricky Dick to prepare you for Frost/Nixon, which will open in April:

Frost/Nixon by Sir David Frost

Not the play, but rather an engrossing account from journalist David Frost himself of the days leading up to his breakthrough interview with Richard Nixon.

One of Us by Tom Wicker

Tom Wicker, a whose career has spanned biographies and analyses of a broad swath of American public figures, weighs in on the subject of Richard Milhaus Nixon.

But don’t just take his word for it. There’s also…

Richard Milhous Nixon by Roger Morris

Always considered yourself more of a gentleman than a politician? Brush up on your Wildean wit and impress friends at bar (or the clerk on your next trip to the Plaid Pantry) with this book of classic quips from the man who helped a world to truly understand The Importance of Being Ernest:

Oscar Wilde’s Wit and Wisdom A Book of Quotations

And finally, no summer reading list is complete without a good villain. Dive into the biography of the most fascinating former Nazi member of NASA you’ve never heard of, in preparation for January’s World Premiere production of Apollo:

Von Braun: Dreamer of Space Engineer of War

Warner Von Braun is the former Nazi scientist who was central to the German V-2 Rocket project and the Apollo trip to the moon. Some say he sold his soul to Himmler, others say his brilliance was worth the political discomfort. What will you say?

What’s on your nightstand at the moment? Tell us all about it.

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{photo:A Rauschenberg collage at the Blue Sky Gallery}

We’re taking the month off from our FREE First Thursday concerts, but here’s a great opportunity to whet your appetite for the artistic pleasures awaiting you next season at PCS, with some help from Blue Sky Gallery.

Next season’s world premiere of Nancy Keystone’s Apollo will feature a dreamlike collage of photography, dance, spoken word and moving image delving into the hidden ramifications of America’s mission to the moon (and the former Nazi scientists who were arguably instrumental to its success).

Keystone’s style has been compared to collage work of the late, great visual artist Robert Rauschenberg. Never seen any of his mind-bending work?

Lucky for you, local photography gallery the Blue Sky Gallery is currently showing a series of prints based on photographs he took of China in the 1980s.

Join the crowds at tonight’s First Thursday opening or wander in with a gelato on your next lazy long lunch- we guarantee it will whet your appetite for Keystone’s ground-breaking coup de theatre next January.

Plus, it may make you itch to create your own incisive social commentary using that box of cards, magazine clippings and photos you found too interesting to throw away and too random to display…

In fact, if you do get inspired to bust out the modge podge, here’s a summer project idea that could win you dinner in the pearl and tickets to a show:

1. Pick a theme based on a show coming to PCS next season
(gangsters? Nixon? rock divas? Dymaxion files? East Hamptons? Forged documentation? moon landings? Nazis? geodesic domes? gosh the possibilities are endless!)

2. Build a Rauschenberg-style collage, including somewhere in it the PCS brochure image from the show you picked.

3. Mail it attn: Trisha Pancio, Portland Center Stage, 128 NW 11th Ave, PDX 97209 (be sure to include your name and address so we can give you proper credit for your work!)

We’ll post every collage we receive to the PCS blog, and our favorite collage artist will win dinner and a show of your choice at PCS next season.

Happy cutting and pasting!