We’re gearing up for a very exciting season ahead and in anticipation of our production of Kevin McKeon’s  stage adaptation of David Guterson’s Snow Falling On Cedars coming up in January wanted to give you an APB on a riveting (and Snow-relevant) public program happening this week.

Linda Gordon, NYU historian and Bancroft-prize winning author of  The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction, will give a talk  entitled “Impounded: Dorothea Lange’s Censored Images of Japanese American Internment, ” on Friday, October 9, 4:30 p.m., Vollum lecture hall, at Reed College.

While working on a project about photographer Dorothea Lange and American democracy (Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits, forthcoming, October 2009), Gordon discovered a group of Lange photographs, long unnoticed and never published, of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Although commissioned by the U.S. Army, the photographs had been impounded because they were too critical of the internment policy. Gordon selected 119 of these images and published them, with introductory essays by herself and , as Impounded: Dorothea Lange and Japanese Americans in World War II (2006).

Gordon is in town in conjunction with a new exhibit of Dorothea Lange’s documentary photographs of the Great Depression in Oregon taken in 1939. Dorothea Lange visited Oregon to produce over 500 photos of the people and rural environment of the Willamette Valley, Malheur County, Columbia and Klamath Basins for FDR’s newly created Farm Security Adminstration. She is also speaking about Dorothea Lange’s Farm Security Administration photos at Portland State University and at Wordstock 2009.

Look for more programs on the horizon in conjunction with Snow Falling On Cedars, in partnership with the Multnomah Public Library, Oregon Nikkei Endowment, Colored Pencils,  Literary Arts, the Minidoka Swing Band and much more!

Remember Jayne Taini (who played Sister Aloysius in Doubt)? She just sent us a quick note to let us know that she’ll be playing a guest starring role in this Sunday’s episode of Mad Men!

Here’s her take on the experience:

It was a very fabulous experience. These folks are focused, specific and spot on with their direction and writing.

Truly creates a wonderful look at that moment in time …’62 before anything has hit the fan. And yes I was in period underwear…..girdle and long line bra. Yuk!….but gives a girl a great silhouette.

It plays at other times throughout the following week. Hope you can catch me.

Love,
Jayne

Jayne will be coming back to Portland this winter to be in our production of Snow Falling on Cedars. We look forward to hearing more from her then about her Mad Men adventure!

Catch the deal before it jumps the shark. On Wednesday August 19th Portland web-savvy audiences can catch a secret code for $25 tickets… but only if they are paying attention online.

For one day only, we’ll release – through Twitter, Facebook, blogs and email only – a secret promo code that can be used to purchase $25 tickets to any and all Main Stage performances (Area 2 seats). From midnight to midnight on August 19th, you can translate your social media addictions into real-live “meatspace” social interaction with your “tweeps,” “friends,” “fans,” “followers” (and you know, all that other web 2.0 jargon) … and even with your old-school e-mail distribution lists. To catch the secret code for the sale, follow PCS on Twitter @pcsghost, become a fan on Facebook or sign up for our e-newsletter.

Psssst. Hey! Remember when every funny/awesome thing that hit your inbox got instantly forwarded to everyone on your list? Yeah, we don’t either. But this sale is TOTALLY FORWARD-ABLE. Add a LOLcat so they’ll open the email. Hey! Here’s one! (see above) TOO FUNNYZ.

Offline experiences (aka shows) available for sale at this special price include the majesty and music of turn-of-the-twentieth century America in Ragtime, Rose Riordan’s creepy but carol-rific new interpretation of A Christmas Carol, the book club bestseller Snow Falling on Cedars, the whodunit meets hilarious satire of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, Chaim Potok’s touching tale of friendship The Chosen and the overachiever’s angst (set to catchy tunes) of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Tickets can be purchased by phone at 503.445.3700 or online right here.The $25 price will be good for all Main Stage performance days and times, and there is no limit on the number of tickets per patron that are available through this one day only offer. Seats are restricted to Area 2.

So mark your calendar, and check back right here on August 19th for your secret code. Then BUY BUY BUY.

{All PCS offline experiences are LEED Platinum certified sustainable, locally grown entertainment. No animals were harmed in the making of this entertainment. Some actor egos. But no animals. These productions have not yet been rated by the MPAA. Items may have shifted during flight. Don’t forget to tip yer waitress.}

Some intriguing words and their definitions that cropped up while putting together the season (for the word nerds among you).

Ragtime: The term is a contraction for “ragged time,” denoting a style of playing piano or banjo where the melody is “broken up” into short, syncopated rhythms while a steady overall beat is either played (piano) or implied (banjo). Taking a simple, conventional, and unsyncopated melody and breaking up the rhythm was known as “ragging,” therefore, the resulting music was said to be in “ragged time.”

issei: First generation Japanese immigrants. Were legally barred from owning land in the Oregon in 1923. Their children, the nissei, were American born and therefore could own property, so the family holdings in these families were often put into the children’s names. The day after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Treasury Department ordered all Japanese-owned businesses closed and all issei bank accounts frozen. The bank accounts of first generation German and Italian immigrants were not frozen. In Snow Falling on Cedars, a central unresolved grievance is about the a land contract that was broken between a Japanese-American family and a white family on the island.

Tzitzit or tzitzis: “Fringes” or “tassels” worn by observant Jews on the corners of four-cornered garments, including the tallit (prayer shawl). Why? In Numbers 15:38, it says, “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, that they shall make themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and they shall put on the corner fringe a blue (tekhelet) thread.” The goal is to be reminded of the Exodus. Modern garments do not have four corners, and so are exempt from this requirement. But prayer shawls still contain this ornamentation, and traditional Jewish men wear a small prayer shawl (tallit katan) at all times to keep the commandment. In The Chosen, Danny’s tzitzit is visible under his baseball uniform.

Pastiche: A work of drama, literature or music that imitates the work of a previous artist, often satirically. Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps is a pastiche, as is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and everything Weird Al Yankovic ever wrote.

Crepuscule: The title of the comedy show that inspired The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, crepuscule refers to that part of the day after sunset and before dark. In other words, twilight or gloaming. Gee, I wonder why twilight won out over crepuscule in the competition to become the common term? “Oh, honey…isn’t a walk in the crepuscule romantic?”