Help us reach our goal of selling 39 Seats in the Main Stage. Contribute to the Armory Theater Fund at Portland Center Stage and be part of our intrepid group of adventurers!

Reserving your seat in the Main Stage will cost you only $1,891 (the year the Armory was built.) We are happy to offer monthly or quarterly payment plans over two years for your convenience. To purchase your own named seat or for more questions contact us at jessyf@pcs.org or call Jessy Friedt at 503/445-3744.

According to our friends at CNRG, the nonprofit clearinghouse for news and information in Portland, this Saturday, February 13 is “Spread the Love PDX” day.

Why limit Valentines Day to one person and one day? Why not spread that love
(beyond a Hallmark card) and share it with all your friends, your community, or
with a random stranger on the street…who think[s] Valentine’s could be better done if
done “Portland” style: random, hopeful and thoughtful.

What we’re doing: Giving you the excuse to do the random acts of kindess you
always wanted to do.

That’s why as a random act of love and hope, we’re offering  our gift of Sounds.Like.Portland to you.

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.

Mark Appelbaum’s The Metaphysics of Notation

This Friday, February 12, we continue our  month-long series of weekly noon-time performances with Third Angle New Music Ensemble .  On Friday, encounter the wild and wooly sound poetry of  Blum Blum Shub Sound Poetry Coincidence (featuring David Abel, Leo Daedalus, and mARK oWEns, a trio of local performer poets).

For these free performances, 3A and PCS invited a bevy of artists to interpret and respond to Mark Applebaum’s dazzling, epic graphic score “The Metaphysics of Notation” –currently installed on the Mezzanine–animating the public spaces of the Gerding Theater’s lobby with all manner of sound, sight and movement. Applebaum’s score, a stunning, 72-foot-long work of visual art teeming with fantastical musical glyphs where the meaning is deliberately left undefined by the composer, was tackled last week by 8th grade drama students from Catlin Gabel School.

Blum Blum Shub, named for a random number generator, said this about their impending performance:

“The Metaphysics of Notation” score comprises three sets of graphic expression:

1) structural marks; 2) marks that are proxies for other marks; 3) indecisive marks

Applying to those sets the methodologies advanced in E. S. Segrob’s Handbook of Unforeseen Categories (El manual de las categorías imprevistas, Naguara, 1936) I will construct a vocal body of filler concepts (see Wirklichstein, Der Füllselbegriff) in blind concordance with the blackbox predicates (Bazzutti, Gli sguardi incombenti; Jäänenä, Miksi kuka?) of my colleagues, Messrs. Abel, Owens, and Nenhum (in absentia).

As deadpan as they are somewhat dada-ist/Fluxus-inspired in their humor, this could very well be either a post-doctoral  theorem for a Martin-Lewis routine  or a recipe for manifesto and revolution.  You’ll need to stop by at High Noon to find out though.

Featuring:
February 12: Blum Blum Shub Sound Poetry Coincidence
February 19: Quadrophonnes Saxophone Quartet
February 26: Dance Artist Linda Austin

“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?”

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

Next Friday: Fierce women with saxophones—The Quadrophonnes vs. Mark Applebaum

So the Portland Center Stage Gala 2010 is just around the corner, March 13 to be exact. Our theme this year is Bollywood! Colorful! Sparkly! Dramatic! What a great theme!

It’ll be a fun, festive night with varied activities, but it all ends with a dance party in the Armory with DJ Anjali.  Not feeling exactly up to speed on the latest south Asian dance moves? Me neither. But it’s not to late to brush up, or start up. Viscount Studios currently offers Bollywood style dance classes! Learn more here

We’ll see you on the dance floor, March 13!

For more information on the gala, or to purchase tickets, email jessyf@pcs.org. Tickets start at $350

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.