PHAME + Claire Willett

Dmae Roberts presents two new world premiere stage plays in August. First up we feature PHAME and their first commissioned play by Debbie Lamedman with music by Laura Gibson called Up the Fall, on Aug 22-29, 2015 at Artists Repertory Theatre.We’ll talk with Debbie Lamedman, PHAME’S artistic director Jessica Dart and Eliza Jensen, actor and PHAME student.  And in the second part of the show, we hear from playwright Claire Willett whose new play Dear Galileo is being given a world premiere by Playwrights West at Coho Productions. 

(Aired 11am Tues 8/4/15 on KBOO 90.7FM and StageNStudio.com.)

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The story of Up the Fall takes place in both Portland and a mythical other world. When the nefarious Graeae Sisters kidnap the three animal spirits that are responsible for the passage of time, the world’s salvation falls into the hands of Diana, a young woman living in Portland. Together with a squirrel spirit named Ratatoskr, Diana travels to this land in order to help save it.

PHAME presents a World Premiere of Up the Fall, a new play with music commissioned by the organization premiering for five performances only Aug 22-29, 2015 at Artists Repertory Theatre’s Morrison Stage

Oregon playwright Debbie Lamedman and Portland-based internationally touring singer-songwriter Laura Gibson collaborate on a new musical play starring PHAME actors with and without disabilities. This is the first collaborative venture with local professional actors in collaboration with PHAME actors, as well as a guest director, Drammy-award winning stage director Matthew B. Zrebski and PHAME’s artistic director, Jessica Dart, serving as dramaturge.
Up the Fall, presented by Ronni Lacroute and Willakenzie Estate, opens on Saturday, August 22, and runs for two weekends, August 23, 27, 28, and 29. Shows are 7:30 PM, except for August 23, a Sunday matinee at 2:00 PM. The production will be at the Artists Repertory Theater’s Morrison Stage, at 1515 SW Morrison, Portland, Oregon.

Tickets are $28 for adults, and $22 for students and seniors. Tickets are on sale now, and can be purchased at http://www.artistsrep.org/default.aspx or by calling 503-241-1278.

About PHAME
PHAME is a community where adults with disabilities and their families come to engage, learn, and grow in an environment that is supportive and comfortable. Built upon the belief that art is for all, PHAME brings passion, joy, and celebration to arts education and performance. PHAME serves young and older adults with developmental disabilities, ages 17 to 70+.
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Dear Galileo
A World Premiere Production
Written by Playwrights West Company Member Claire Willett
Directed by Stephanie Mulligan

Playwrights West in association with CoHo Productions, presents the World Premiere of Claire Willett’s Dear Galileo, directed by Stephanie Mulligan. In the words of the author, Dear Galileo is “a play about science, religion, fathers and daughters, sex, creationism, and the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope.”

VIP Benefit Performance: Friday, August 7, 2015 (tickets $40, includes post-show talkback and reception)
Opening Night: August 8, 2015
Dates: August 8–29, 2015
Time: 7:30 PM Thursday to Saturday; 2:00 PM Sunday
Venue: CoHo Theatre (2257 NW Raleigh St)
Tickets: “Thrifty Thursdays” $15 all tickets (Thursday performances include post-show talkbacks). Friday-Sunday $25 for adults, $20 for students/educators/seniors.
Tickets Available At: http://www.playwrightswest.org/dear-galileo or through the CoHo Box Office at (503) 220-2646 (http://www.cohoproductions.org).

More about the playwright: Claire Willett has been the recipient of the Oregon Literary Fellow for Drama and an Oregon Arts Commission Career Opportunity Grant.  She was also named the summer 2011 Writer-In-Residence at the I-Park Artists’ Colony in East Haddam, CT.  A founding artist of Portland’s annual Fertile Ground Festival of New Work, she has produced a staged reading in every year of the festival, including Dear Galileo (2012) and Carter Hall(2014), both produced by Artists Repertory Theatre.  Dear Galileo was produced in March 2013 in the Hothouse New Play Development Series at California’s historic Pasadena Playhouse, starring Lawrence Pressman and Robert Picardo.  Other works include Upon Waking; How the Light Gets In; That Was the River, This Is the Sea (co-written with Gilberto Martin del Campo); The Witch of the Iron Wood, a chamber opera based on Norse mythology co-written with local composer Evan Lewis; Carter Hall, a contemporary adaptation of the fairy tale “Tam Lin” featuring traditional Scottish folk songs; and a world premiere adaptation of W.H. Auden’s 1942 poetic oratorio For the Time Being.   She has a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Whitman College in Washington, and is a graduate of the Paul A. Kaplan Theatre Management Program at Manhattan Theatre Club in New York City.

More about her at her site: clairewillettwrites.com

ABOUT DEAR GALILEO

Cast: Nathan Dunkin, Kate Mura, Agatha Olson, Walter Petryk, Chris Porter, Gary Powell, and Nena Salazar.

Production Team: Sarah Kindler (Scenic & Properties Designer), JD Sandifer (Lighting Designer), Ashton Grace Hull (Costume Designer), Annalise Albright Woods (Sound Designer), Nicole Gladwin (Stage Manager).

Synopsis: A little girl with big questions about the universe writes a letter in her diary to a long-dead scientist. So begins a dialogue that bridges faith and science, wonder and doubt, present and past, as three very different women in three different eras grapple with the legacies of their famous fathers:

·      A 10-year-old girl in a small town in Texas discovers a newfound passion for science that pulls her from the Biblical teachings of her upbringing.
·     A pregnant New York sculptor in Swift Trail Junction, Arizona, home of the Vatican Observatory’s U.S. outpost, arrives to find her estranged father, world-renowned astrophysicist Jasper Willows, has gone missing.
·       And Celeste Galilei  in Renaissance Italy, lives under house arrest with her elderly father Galileo—the disgraced astronomer imprisoned for defying the Pope and seeking to defy the Inquisition by publishing one last book.

As the three stories move towards a point of convergence, each family’s destiny becomes inextricably bound with the others, linked across time by love, loss, faith, the search for identity, and the mysteries of the stars.

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