photo: Ken Babbs and Ken Kesey with Further (courtesy Ken Babbs)

As both a singular voice of Northwest literature and a restless, animating spirit of the ‘60s counter-culture, Ken Kesey widened perceptions and challenged American values at many turnpikes over the last several decades.

Which is why the world-premiere staging of Sometimes a Great Notion was an ideal opportunity to not only ask questions about Kesey, the importance of this book–considered by many “the quintessential Oregon Novel” and a landmark statement about the West–as a seminal work of art, and moreover understand a little more about who we are and how we define our place in the landscape of the Northwest.

Throughout April we’ll take a broad look at Sometimes A Great Notion and Kesey’s impact on literature, ideas, and other great notions around regionalism, nature, labor and activism, family, and sustainability.

Saturday April 5 2 pm
Never Give A Inch: Kesey on Stage, Screen, and Beyond
An exploration of Kesey’s vital legacy and its transformation to stage, screen and beyond with KEN BABBS, Merry Prankster and co-author with Kesey of The Last Go ‘Round, Sometimes A Great Notion playwright/director AARON POSNER, and filmmaker GUS VAN SANT, who is working on a film adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, about Kesey’s trip with the Merry Pranksters.On the Mainstage

Sunday April 6 12 pm
Kesey and the Regional Spirit: Oregon in Life and Letters
Sometimes A Great Notion-inspired discussion of sustainability, forestry, labor, family and ideas about the “Oregon character” set the stage for a conversation with esteemed historian and author WILLIAM G. ROBBINS, nature essayist/poet DAVID OATES, Native poet-artist ELIZABETH WOODY, Director of Ecotrust’s Indigenous Leadership Program.
In the Studio

Plus:

Sunday, April 6, Post-matinee discussion

PCS & Oregon Psychoanalytic Center present
Formative Stages: Theater and the Life of the Mind
“Sometimes A Great Notion” with Scott Murray, MD.

With wit and acumen our Murray will delve into the play’s pathos, humor, the primitive drive of the pleasure-loving id, intimacy, trust and the limits of belief, family dynamics and power, taboos, and all the curious nooks and crannies that Notion inhabits–revealing that theater is truly a microcosm of life.

Ken Kesey: On the Page/On the Stage at the Public Library
Sunday April 13 2 pm
DAVID SUMNER, director of Linfield College’s Writing program and WENDY WILLIS, Social Sustainability program manager at Oregon Solutions lead a discussion of Kesey’s novel, Sometimes a Great Notion.

Wednesday April 16 6 pm
A discussion of Sometimes a Great Notion through the lens of regional identity, eco-criticism and sustainability with JOE BOWERSOX, Dempsey Professor of Environmental Policy and Director, Center for Sustainable Communities at Willamette University.

Multnomah Central Public Library (US Bank Room), 801 SW 10th Avenue. FREE ADMISSION

All events are free and open to the public.

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This project was made possible in part by a grant from the Oregon Council for the Humanities, a statewide nonprofit organization and an independent affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, which funds OCH’s grants program. This project also made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.