For starters, tonight we kick off Envisioning America: Jews and the Broadway Musical, our season-long partnership with the Mittelman Jewish Community Center (and supporting partner, the Multnomah Public Library) at how Jewish artists contributed to the genesis and growth of that singular American art form, the Broadway Musical.

Tonight, tape the debate and come listen to Marc Acito, Alan Berg and Dave Frishberg/Rebecca Kilgore navigate the journey of Berlin, Gershwin, Loesser, Jerry Herman among others to the lights of Broadway.

Why else is this night different? I can’t for the life of me remember when as a city we had to decide between staying home and listening to people discuss politics or going out to experience art, music, theater and culture. Only in Portland.

The Envisioning America series is made possible in part by grants from the Andrew W.  Mellon Foundation, Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund, and the Oregon Community Foundation

Live, local First Thursday music by some of indie Portland pop’s finest returns to the Armory this week with GREY ANNE–a captivating, seductively sardonic, lyrical talent imbued with a high-thread count of deadpan whimsy (imagine, if you can,  the musical progeny of Buck Henry and Blythe Danner).  Music kicks off in the Main Lobby from 6-7:15 pm and is free, all-ages and open to the public.

The artist formerly known as Per Se, Grey Anne is the the wing-wearing, wisecracking, emotionally-charged musical alter-ego of one, Anne Adams, whom the Willamette Week lauds as:

“a sweet-voiced angel. . .and one of [Portland's] greatest unknown pop treasures.”

Recently adopting Grey Anne as a  new stage moniker (”not only because it evokes pigeons, cobblestones, and foggy morality, but because I was called that as a kid”), Adams is gearing up for  a soon-to-be released album Facts ‘n’ Figurines in the works (rumored to be available in November) which will feature such audience faves and Guys and Dolls-relevant titles  as Adelaide.

Wanna sample? Try this on for size.

Before Guys and Dolls or after work, sample a spectacular array of art from the Mark Woolley and Beppu Wiarda galleries on the PGE Gallery and Ellyn Bye Studio lobby levels and relax with a drink from the Armory Café.

Our free First Thursday series is made possible in part by grants from the Andrew W.  Mellon Foundation, Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund, and the Oregon Community Foundation

Spring might finally have sprung–the reason we know? The Armory is busting out all over. Doubt is off and running with fantastic critical and popular kapow! ; The Little Dog Laughed is putting the pop back in paparazzi ; The Vera Katz Park had an amazing dedication and community celebration;and as June hits, we’re full-up with all manner of live art and conversation. So what’s up this week?

Luba Zarembinska/Bruno Schulz Panel
Monday, June 2, 7 pm
On the Mezzanine, The Gerding Theater at the Armory
Tonight we co-present (along with our friends from Hand2Mouth Theatre) a panel discussion with Luba Zarembinska, the Artistic Director of Poland’s Teatr Stacja Szamocin. She’ll be joined by several local theater and literary artists to look at Polish literary legend Bruno Schulz’s history and artistry, and Zarembinska’s transformative approach in bringing Schulz’s mesmerizing, idea-rich stories to the stage (in the H2M/Szamocin coproduction of From a Dream to a Dream running through June 8 at Artist Repertory Theatre’s Morrison Theater).

In Residence: NW Professional Dance Project
Monday, June 2-Friday, June 13, Open Rehearsals daily (times vary)
Rehearsal Hall
Throughout the next two weeks the NW Professional Dance Project takes up residence in our Rehearsal Hall pairing a handful of lucky professional and pre-professional dancers ages 16 to 25 with leading dance makers. While at PCS they’ll be working with a slew of guest choreographers–a who’s who of NW dance as we know it–Gregg Bielemeier,Lane Hunter, Mary Oslund, Jonathan Sadony, Sarah Slipper and the estimable James Canfield. Rehearsals are open to the public.

Now in its fifth year, the NWPDP gives rising dancers real-world experience, allowing them close-up face-time in direct collaboration with world-class directors, choreographers, mentors and luminaries like Thaddeus Davis (of Donald Byrd/The Group fame), from Chicago’s Hubbard Street Dance Lucas Crandall and Alejandro Cerrudo, Spanish wunderkind Cayetano Soto, Canadian-born, NY-based Aszure Barton, Barishnikov protegee and rising talent and our own golden son, Jamey Hampton of BodyVox, among others.

A short aside: while he won’t be here at PCS, but keep your eyes peeled around town in July/August for legendary African-American dancemaker Donald McKayle. For more than 50 years his vibrant work (e.g. his 1951 “Games” and 1959’s “Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulder,” fer instance) has been breaking ground. A generous artist and visionary, McKayle authored the permission slip for subsequent generations–with a bold embracing of social protest, raw searing, poetry and a masterful blend of folk form and Graham-Primus-Cunningham modernist movement. He’s a true national arts treasure.

Greenbag Lecture
Setting the stage: Stormwater & Green practice in the Vera Katz Park
Thursday, June 5, 12 – 1 pm
Vera Katz Park
Event is free and open to the public
Join Josh Lighthipe (KPFF Consulting Engineers), Creon Thorne (Portland Center Stage), Mike O’Brien (Portland Office of Sustainable Development) for a lively noontime talk focusing on stormwater conservation, Green building, and public space—from engineering, project management and overall green building perspectives—outdoors in the recently dedicated Vera Katz Park (north façade of the Gerding Theater at the Armory running along NW Davis Street between 10th and 11th Avenues). Cosponsored with AIA/COTE (Committee on the Environment)

First Thursday: Nick Jaina
Main Lobby, Gerding Theater at the Armory
6-7:15 pm
Free to the public
This Thursday, Nick Jaina, one of the keystones of Portland’s indie-pop scene alongside folks like Laura Gibson, Loch Lomond, and Menomena,performs his evocative music that OPB says is “full of the kinds of songs that sound as if they could have been written in any one of the past several decades, as comfortable next to Cole Porter as they are Tom Waits or (to a lesser degree) the Black Heart Procession.”

Visual Art spotlight: Bullseye Gallery presents the exuberant chromaticism of glass artist Ted Sawyer; and recent paintings by Michael Schultheis from the Charles Froelick Gallery throughout the Mezzanine, Lower Gallery and Studio Lobbies.

Ali Ippolito (of Heroes and Villians, Nick Jaina fame) writes music with a haunting poetry and quiet authority that simultaneously tugs, pulls, coaxes, vexes, and inspires. A mezmerizing singer, Ippolito accompanies herself on piano, accordion, and the curious banjolele, giving us fading, sepia-tinged sonic postcards of love and loss.

Her simmering music–as captivating as Tom Waits’ universe of tattooed,angel-headed sinners and hipster saints, Carlos Gardel’s tango-longing or Edith Piaf’s fragile lyric ache– to paraphrase the poet Mina Loy, “infects us with unendurable ease/touching nerve-terminals.” That’s a good thing.

The Good News from on High is that you can hear Ms. Ippolito for the low-low-cost of FREE in the Lobby of the Gerding Theater at the Armory on First Thursday, May 1, 6-7:15 pm.

Held Over: A mini-expo of iconic paintings by award-winning Northwest artist Michael Brophy, presented in conjunction with the extension of our run-away hit Sometimes A Great Notion.

“A painter of anti-heroic subject matter on a heroic scale, wittily and effectively chronicling the fate of our environment.”
—Art in America

Coming mid-May: Bullseye Gallery presents the exuberant chromaticism of glass artist Ted Sawyer; and selections from the Charles Froelick Gallery.

TS Eliot once said that April was the cruelest month, but that was probably because he never got to participate in a free legal workshop for scribble-centric modernists and other creatives…who knows, perhaps The Wasteland might’ve been populated with a few more hopeful Frostian roads less traveled.

Ever had a big idea swept away from you by a nemesis, wished you’d copyrighted that recording, negotiated for digital rights on your tell-all, or wondered what-the-heck’s a 501(c)(3)?!

Then join us for high tea on the legal high seas on Thursday, April 3 for a Community Artist Lab—So Sue Me: Sound Advice from Peter Vaughan Shaver, Esq.—a free, informal, legal workshop geared for actors, performers, artists, band managers, cartoonists/designers, filmmakers, writers, and, yes, even big-time theater directors.

The Community Artist Lab takes place at 4 pm in the Lobby of the Gerding Theater at the Armory. FREE ADMISSION

Peter Vaughan Shaver is Portland-based arts & entertainment attorney with a fully packed bandolero of legal expertise. His firm Sound Advice, LLC is a go-to for a plethora of creative people and businesses of all kinds and he lectures regularly on topics like copyrights, trademarks, music and art law, non-profits, Internet law, licensing, and business creation widely at schools, arts organizations, and for many educational and community groups.

Ebullient, knowledgeable, and savvy, Shaver will tell it plainly: “Protecting yourself as an artist. . ..understanding copyrights and contracts. . .these are the facts of life in the art business.” He’ll take the “YER” out of Lawyer, demystify the arcane “Legalese” and point artists and creators toward the path of empowerment and sustainability.

An important step for every artist and creative professional is solidifying the nuts-and-bolts business end of showbiz—and that means becoming the master of your fate, the captain of your destiny (plus residuals).

So consider this your one-stop intro to art law, entertainment and music law, intellectual property, nonprofit organizations, publishing and contracts and even–gulp!–wills.

COMMUNITY ARTIST LAB—So Sue Me: Sound Advice from Peter Vaughan Shaver, Esq. takes place just prior to First Thursday, featuring the music of Leviethan Cecil. Coffee, tea, wine, or other tonic for your torpor available at the Armory Café.

The event is free and open to all. Call Tim DuRoche, Community Outreach Coordinator at 503-445-3794 or email timd@pcs.org to RSVP.