On the Hot Seat: Susannah Mars and Stephanie Schneiderman

Tommy Gaffney, a Portland poet and cheerleader to the arts recently sat down with two of the greatest performers in town, Susannah Mars—currently starring in Mars on Life: The Holiday Edition at Artists Rep—and Stephanie Schneiderman, from Dirty Martini, who had just begun an ambitious humanitarian concert series.

TG: Performance and the holidays seem to go well together. What is it about the holidays that marry those things?
SS: It’s because you can be with your family and not have to talk to each other. [laughter] No, I think that’s one of the great things about going out for the holidays—going out for a nice dinner, out to a concert, to The Nutcracker—you can watch pretty things and not have to say anything. Plus you’re in public, so you’re protected. [laughter]
TG: What do you guys think of the performance scene here in Portland?
SM: It’s lively. There’s so much going on.
SS: But I think the caliber of all the musicians, songwriters, performers and actors and dance—in a sense, it’s such a small city, but it’s loaded. You know, PICA and the T:BA festival, so many fascinating things coming through. You go into any bar on any random night and you can find a great songwriter.
SM: Yeah. You really can.
SS: In the few performances I have seen from different songwriters, I feel like it’s really intimate. I feel like they are giving me something—maybe a side of themselves they only show to themselves, except they are doing it onstage in front of a huge crowd. There’s such a level of abandon that I admire.
TG: Do you guys have any traditions in your house or your family that are kind of unique to you?
SS: Well, one holiday tradition that my family does that I love—because we used to do it with my grandmother and it makes me feel connected—is the lighting of the candles.
SM: The only thing I can think of that’s kind of fun is that my dad—when he made Thanksgiving dinner 10 years ago—dropped the turkey. Now we ask him every year if he bounced the turkey. And he always says yes. I’m not sure if he really does.
TG: Did you guys eat the turkey after it was dropped.
SM: Oh yeah, it was almost finished.
TG: It reminds me of the Bumpus Family from A Christmas Story.
SM: I guess that’s funny that our tradition is eating. But it’s where [families] can do something that everyone enjoys. Sitting down to a meal is really sacred.
SS: Yeah.
SM: It reminds me of all our good fortune. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah, Passover...all of them have a food associated with them. That’s the one consistent thing. That, and you have to fry everything for Chanukah.
TG: Ok, let’s just do one more question here and then we’ll get to eating.
SM: We weren’t supposed to eat yet?
TG: Oh. I wouldn’t stop you. So ladies, fruitcake or plum pudding?
SM: Well, I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t think I have ever had plum pudding.
SS: Isn’t it like a cake thing?
[long silence]
TG: Well, it doesn’t have plums in it. That’s what I heard.
SS: Yeah, well, my answer is always chocolate.
SM: Oh! And I do like a big kugel.

Editor's Note - October 08

The first time I picked up a copy of PDX Magazine (the March 2006 issue, left), I was surprised I hadn’t heard of it. The glossy photos, the super-handy happy hour guide and the subject matter (tattoos, fashion and late night dining) seemed right up my alley.

Of course, I hadn’t heard of the magazine because at that time it was only six months old. It was only two days later that I saw their ad for an editorial intern.

Things have changed a lot since then. We have seen many of our co-workers move on to other things. We’ve seen the readership grow more numerous and more diverse. We’ve seen the pages inside the magazine change a lot, too, thanks to the remarkable work of our Art Director, Joel Masters (who has, by the way, been here since the magazine’s debut). When I see how far we’ve come in such a short time, frankly, I’m pretty proud to be a part of it. In fact (as we celebrate our third birthday) I am positively brimming with pride.

It hasn’t always been easy, of course. Times are tough for publications whether they are The New York Times or a little start up like us. Like anyone else, we’ve hit a few roadblocks (like the month we had to pack up our 40,000 magazines in trucks and deliver them ourselves!) but, in spite of it all, we are still going strong.

For me, I owe a tremendous amount of gratitude (and food, booze, prizes, money, etc) to my two assistant editors, Nathan Peasley and Jeremy Lloyd. There’s simply not enough that I can say about those guys and their ability to get the job done while still making me laugh. It’s pretty remarkable to get through a particularly grueling press cycle and still want to hang out with anyone from the office, but these guys are just that cool. And when the proverbial you-know-what hits the fan, they are just the sort of guys you want backing you up.

As we move forward, I am excited about the changes we have in store. Never the sort of publication to rest on our laurels, we approached this advent with more of a question of “what’s next?” than a sense of self-congratulatory relief. To be honest, I expected the latter. I have heard apocryphal tales of magazines surviving after three years, as if that were some magical threshold that had to be crossed.

Around here, though, we are simply glad to be around and glad to have the opportunity to express our creativity and share the things that we love about this city. Frankly, when it comes to creating a “where to go, what to do” magazine, there’s not a better city to be in.

Poetry I Was Never Forced to Read

There was a discussion recently on ReadWritePoem that touched on the poetry we were drawn to (not assigned to) in our earlier years. I had a few. Of course, I also grew up on Shel Silverstein, as was mentioned in the blog.

On that same vein, I was also quite fond of

1. Jack Prelutsky as a kid. His poetry was whimsical, silly and occasionally, kind of scary.

2. I also loved (and occasionally feared) Lewis Carroll. I think I dreamed about the Jabberwoky right up until my 20s. I still practically have The Walrus and the Carpenter memorized, but that may be because The Dark Lord (a.k.a. Benjamin Fisher) frequently recites it at open mics. I also quite loved Father William, who I kind of wish had been my grandparent.

3. I was (and am) a lifelong fan of A.A. Milne. Of course, I grew up on the Pooh stories, but I loved his poetry too. Some favorites are Halfway Down (which I used to say summed up my political stance), The Dormouse and the Doctor, The End, and The Invaders, which is tough to find online, so I'll post it here:

The Invaders

In careless patches through the wood
the clumps of yellow primrose stood,
and sheets of white anemones,
like driven snow against the trees,
had covered up the violet,
but left the blue-bell bluer yet.

Along the narrow carpet ride,
with primroses on either side,
between their shadows and the sun,
the cows came slowly, one by one,
breathing the early morning air
and leaving it still sweeter there.

And one by one, intent upon
their purposes, they followed on
in ordered silence…and were gone.

But all the little wood was still,
as if it waited so, until
some blackbird on an outpost yew,
watching the slow procession through,
lifted his yellow beak at last
to whistle that the line had passed…
then all the wood began to sing
it’s morning anthem to the spring.

-A.A. Milne

I once used that poem in a term paper to describe a Nazi invasion.

4. As I got older, my tastes changed. I went through an Edgar Allen Poe phase, but I never liked The Raven and rather preferred his short stories like The Tell-Tale Heart and The Pit and the Pendulum.

5. I also had a e.e. cummings phase after I discovered a line from one of his poems in a painting I had. The line was "it is most mad and moonly and less it shall unbe" from the poem love is more thicker than forget.

6. I still love Rudyard Kipling and have been reading his Just So Stories to my kids. His poem If was very inspiring to me years ago when I embarked on the career journey that led me to where I am now; and, after re-reading it today, I find the advice is just as sound.

7. And still, one of my all-time favorites is Pattiann Rogers. It's odd to me that I like her work so much, especially since she tends to focus on science. Her poems are said to be "intelligent, highly detailed, exuberant poems that examine the phenomena of science and faith." I have many favorite poems of hers, among them are Nearing Autobiography, A Philosopher of Verbs and Their Godliness Contemplates First Causes, and the deeply erotic Come, Drink Here.

That's just a few. I tend to be too ADD-tastic to settle on any one poet for any particular length of time. Usually, I just love a poem and then skitter over the rest of someone's work until something calls out to me. What say you?

On the Hot Seat: Mead Hunter and Trisha Pancio

I sat down for lunch with Mead Hunter, Literary Manager for Portland Center Stage and Trisha Pancio, Marketing Director for Artists Repertory Theatre to discuss Portland’s identity as a place for new works. Little did I know, I wouldn’t be able to shut them up.

THE STATE OF THE THEATRE

MH: I think the best thing to acknowledge right away is what an amazing number of theatre companies there are in Portland. I think the last count from PATA [Portland Area Theatre Alliance] was 110. Is that right?

TP: Yes.

MH: A hundred and ten companies. In LA, we had slightly over 100 when I left five years ago. So, we are essentially neck and neck with a city like Los Angeles. It really is incredible.

TP: So, if we have those kinds of numbers, what’s really astonishing is that we continually get an audience for all 110 companies. For as much as actors like to complain about playing to empty houses, I would say that in Portland, you rarely have that problem. Even if you do have that situation, when you consider how many options [audiences] have on a given night to see a live performance, you can see that it really is well supported.

MH: You know, I’m glad you mentioned that, because when I was in LA, there were many times when I was in the audience and the cast had to come out and have that conversation about whether or not to do a show for two people, and that doesn’t happen in Portland. Of course, not all that is new work. New work is relatively in the minority, but proportionally, when you think of the size of this community, it’s amazing how much new work goes on here.

TP: Now, do you feel like the literary community in Portland feeds that relationship? Do you think we have more new works, in part because we have more working writers?

MH: I’m not sure. You would think so. But in practice, I have been surprised to find that the literary community seems to be unaware of what’s happening in the theatre community. Whereas, the theatre community seems very aware of what’s happening in the writing circles a lot more. But there’s great curiosity amongst the writers in how they can bridge that gap. I’m on the advisory board for the Literary Arts now—which is great fun—and the reason they wanted me there was because they wanted to attract writers, dramatists into literary arts and help them take advantage of it. So, I think we may start to see a change in people realizing that there’s a resource in literary arts.

TP: Do you feel like the changes that have happened with venues are making an impact on our ability to have new places to try new things?

MH: I think I’d be interested in what you think about that because in a way we’ve had some profits, but we’ve also had some losses.

TP: Right. Well, certainly losing Stark Raving Theatre was a huge loss. To have a company that was devoted to new plays was extraordinary for Portland and some great playwrights came out of there. I mean Joseph Fisher, who did, what, three or four seasons with them is now writing for Disney. So, that’s definitely been a loss, but what I see as a real opportunity is now that PCS commands its own destiny with two venues and lobby space that can be used for meetings and such...

MH: ART’s new theatre.

TP: ART has a new theatre and we’re completely renovating our space so that we’ll have more rehearsal space that can be used for table readings and public readings. So, I think there would be anchor spaces if we were going to create more opportunities for new works, not only to be tried out the way work often is around a table with a bunch of actors, but to actually be able to present it without having to use union stagehands and all those expenses.

MH: Yeah. We’re often put in an ironic position in that of course we want to support artists. We respect that Equity exists to do that, to give them a living wage, but at the same time, we really want to stimulate what’s going on in the theatre. We want to encourage having as much going on as possible, so we’re actually a divided self. So to get around Equity and to honor Equity is very conflicting.

TP: Right, so what we really want is for more new works to achieve full production, right? And what we really, really want is for those full productions that take place here in Portland to have a life beyond Portland, because that’s where we really start to be of service to the national theatre conversation. And I think that we’re in a better position to do that now as a community than we have been for our whole history.

MH: Definitely. I think it’s a major shift in the history of Portland theatre and where it’s at. I had an earlier incarnation in this community when I worked for Storefront for three years in the 70s. In those days there was really remarkable work going on, but it was incredibly insulated. It didn’t care what was going on, it didn’t know what was going on, it was just really great theatre for itself. Which is beautiful, actually. There’s something wonderful about the idea that they just wanted to generate something amazing and bring it to the community. But the shift that has happened in recent years has been an interest in getting attention for the work beyond Portland, getting national attention, not for it’s own sake, but because it creates pride here for the work that we are doing. So, it’s not parochial. It’s not a purely local interest. It’s been happening more and more.

ON CREATING A FESTIVAL

TP: Now, I know that you run the JAW/West festival. How many years have you been doing that now?

MH: I came in five years ago, working with Rose [Riordan] to make this something that would take that jump. The central core of JAW is always to give an opportunity to writers to work on their plays in a pure environment, so to speak. They call the shots. They dictate how rehearsals are going to go and how that is mediated, which is great. But at the same time—and I’m glad you asked that—we really want to bring in plays that potentially have legs for future work here and elsewhere because, again, that helps the writers.

TP: Do you find that you have had better success finding writers that have those kinds of legs to come to JAW and submit work now that you’re in the new space?

MH: Oh in the new space? You know, I think that’s a nice thing, but I don’t think it really matters because the playwrights just want a place where they can work. It’s not going to be in the public eye until the last minute. But beyond that, what is great for them is that the more [viable] the festival becomes, the more people from out of town want to come to it and the more people realize that out-of-towners are going to see each other there, the more it becomes its own destination on a national level. It becomes its own little conference for theatre-makers.

TP: What can we do to encourage that?

MH: I think to make it a destination for out-of-towners, they have to know what’s in it for them. So, on the very base level, they can say. “Ok, I’m going to get to know these writers and I’m going to see some of my colleagues.” Beyond that, I’d like to see us set up the festival in such a way that people could come to it and get around to everything else that’s going on here. This year, for example, Hand2Mouth is doing Repeat After Me and new show from Sojourn will be up at Lewis and Clark and Sojourn has set up a bus system so that people can go from the festival out to Lewis and Clark. Oregon Children’s Theatre will have a commissioned piece. It’s having a workshop during that time. So, I think that people can come here and say, “Sure, I can see the festival, but I can also get away from PCS and see what else is going on in Portland.” That’s really great.

TP: I think that’s really great. I would say we could make JAW/West the jewel of an opportunity for different companies to showcase their own individual take on new works. ART just hired a literary manager a year and a half ago, and Stephanie [Mulligan] has been working very diligently to put together pieces that could be presented on that scale. And she’s been working on her relationships with playwrights. The kinds of playwrights that have relationships with Allen [Nause] our artistic director and Stephanie have a very different take on writing and what they are about than a lot of the playwrights that are at JAW/West. And I think there’s an interesting contrast there, because what I love about Portland are the different views. You have Repeat After Me, which is karaoke turned into world-premiere theatre. That’s not something ART would come up with. It’s not something PCS would necessarily ever think to do, but it’s really vibrant and then, of course, Sojourn creates these political pieces that are really speaking to community ideas. What I love is the idea that we could create something where the anchor companies have enough interesting things going on that’s worthwhile for people to drive from out of town for and then we can set them loose on the streets. We happen to be one of the top places for independent music right now as well as being one of the top ten restaurant destinations in the states. Gourmet keeps trying to give us number one. All of those things come back to the same basic thread, which is that creative capital right now in Portland is exploding. Theatre is a huge piece of that because the work we do doesn’t just entertain people, but it reflects the community that we are in. I would love to see JAW/West be a tool for leverage to make people say once a year, “Oh, we’ve got to go find out what’s going on in Portland.”

MH: Well, you know, I am hoping that it could eventually be moved out so that it’s not just PCS’s thing, but a city-wide theatre festival that happens around that event. That’s why you’re so incredible. You’re such a visionary. Because what you’re talking about in terms of the festival is so easy to do. Wouldn’t it be great to talk to Allen and say, “this is something that we could organize in such a way that it did overlap with JAW/West.” Then essentially, ART would be a stop on a fabulous itinerary of theatre over ten days.

TP: Yeah, and I would coordinate it in such a way that somebody coming in from out of town who only has four days to try to catch as much as they can would be able to hit the highlights without having to choose too much. I mean, it can be a bit like herding cats, right? Getting a bunch of artists to agree on a schedule and a marketing plan but I think the benefits...

MH: I think it would have to be someone like yourself who maybe didn’t seem to have such a vested interest. I mean, I’m always going to have other reasons for wanting that to be a success. I mean, ultimately, to bring attention back to PCS, but the way the festival works is that at the beginning, we have a lot of hoopla and there’s about a week where the festival is essentially a private occasion because all the rehearsals are going on. So you could have a whole week where people could go all over town.

TP: Yeah, I think that could really work. So, basically, we just move them around for a week, be theatre tour guides, create a tour bus and say, “come see a strand of work being done by this company and this company.” And they could come away from Portland saying...

MH: “Wow! What a city!”

TP: Right.

MH: You and I have talked in the past about how music is so visible here. Film is so visible here and then right under people’s noses is all this incredible theatre going on and it seems to be invisible. When we did the Portland Theatre Tour, a lot of people that participated in said that they didn’t know that these things were going on. We did a thing where Darius Pierce and I organized essentially a theatre appreciation class for Portland and we went to PCS and ART. We went to many of the small theatres. The whole thing was a big success, but it was really a victim of it’s own success because we tried to do it the second year and most people were subscribers to all those places already.

TP: That’s just what you want and then it’s just a question of how to get the fresh blood in there.

MH: That’s why I think the festival idea is such a good one because I think we need something to draw attention to the fact that this is a very viable theatre community. And it’s all over the map. They can see a piece at PCS if they are here or they can go to Sojourn and see something that they never would have thought of, or they can see Susannah Mars at ART. All those things are different.

PLAYWRIGHTS ARE GODS

MH: You asked at one point about what’s in it for the local artists and I think that’s an important thing to address because all actors will tell you that there’s nothing like writing on a new piece of paper. It’s great to do Chekhov, it’s great to do Shakespeare, but when you work on a new piece, you are the first person to have originated that piece. Oh, that’s redundant, isn’t it? The first person to have originated that piece. But no one else will ever have as much impact on the play again as you have. So, for Joe Fisher to work on The New House, that’s a play that is going to have many productions, but no one will ever effect the play the way those actors did. The way Jon Kretzu did by working with Joe on it. So, it’s heaven on earth for actors and it’s always a bit of a brass ring to get to work on a new play. Not all actors are constitutionally into doing it, you know. Some people just want to show up and do their job and they don’t want to touch the playwright...

TP: They don’t want to have new script pages every day.

MH: Right. But wouldn’t you say for the majority of actors, that’s why they went into the business?

TP: Oh absolutely.

MH: Because they are working at the top of their capacity as a creative artist.

TP: Well, most of the work that you do in the theatre, you don’t have an opportunity to talk to the playwright and say, “why did you make her say this?” And I think with a new work, you have that process and you feel like as an actor, who is an instinctual creature by design, when they have somebody to respond to them about the questions and ideas and impulses around their character and what they are all for, it’s like getting to sit in a room every night and have a conversation with God. “So, God, why did you give me curly hair? And do I have to be this loud and obnoxious all the time? Is that just who I am?” And then maybe God says, “You know, maybe you’re right. Maybe we’ll trim this a little and maybe we’ll give you the ability to paint.” If only we all had that in our lives. But for a performance, since what we are trying to do is give people a vision of what life could be, it’s really nice to be able to have that artistic opportunity to create complexity.

MH: It’s the difference between being a hired hand and being a collaborator.

WHY SHOULD PORTLAND CARE?

TP: And having new works for Portland...why would it be important for Portland? That’s the other question, right? Because I would say that the majority of people living in Portland have maybe never seen a play in their lives. They may see films and movies everyday, but don’t necessarily see that it is relevant for them to see a live performance. How it’s relevant for Portland is when you have a new work created within a community, it’s going to take on the values, ideals, the particular flavor of that community. I mean, look at the work that Steppenwolf did when they were founded. Everything that we know about Chicago is largely defined by some of the work that came out of John Malkovich, Gary Sinise and Amy Morton and the work that they were producing at that time, they were doing a lot of new works by Chicago playwrights like Sam Shepard and David Mamet and they were creating work that has become iconic. Not just for Chicago, but nationally. They were telling the world who Chicago was and many of those performers, because of that unique voice were able to go on and have film careers. Many of those plays were turned into films. So, suddenly Chicago has a place in the national imagination. That’s what I would love to see for Portland. We know that Portland has it right in places where so many other cities get it wrong. We’re livable, sustainable, we’re focused on values that make a city and a country great and we don’t have many platforms at this point to share that with the nation. Up until recently, we didn’t even want to. The worst thing in the world was that people would come here and then they’d want to move here because it’s so great, right?

MH: Right.

TP: Well, maybe they don’t have to move here. If they can experience new works that were created here that can take those values and inspire people with them.

THE PORTLAND IDENTITY

MH: Do you think there could ever be a Portland identity that was centered around theatre or perhaps playwriting? Because, when I think of Chicago, I do think of a very definite aesthetic. I know what it looks like in my mind’s eye. And the playwrighting has that certain kind of tendency.

TP: It’s very distinctive.

MH: And I wonder if we could have that same kind of distinction here.

TP: I think we could. I absolutely do. You talk to anyone on the street, you meet a vast majority of people under 30 who have moved here in the last five years. Portland has the highest per capita ratio of people under 30 in the United States. All of those people moved here because they shared a common point of view. There is a Portland point of view and if we tap into it, the art that is created in this town will be very compelling to people outside of it.

MH: You know what’s funny is, I watch Jeopardy regularly and anytime there is someone from Portland, they look like they are from Portland. I swear to God. Especially the young ones. But even if they’re older, like myself, there is something about their clothes or something about them that makes you say, “Yeah, she’s from Portland.”

GO WEST, YOUNG MAN

MH: One way that I think it really manifests itself in Portland theatre is the incredible strength of ensemble work. And that’s unusual. When I think of New York or I think of L.A., they have some ensemble groups, but not to the extent that we have here.

TP: Because it’s the actor’s identity that generates work.

MH: Yeah, but there is something about the people who are attracted to Portland. And when I think about the best of our ensemble groups, like Liminal, certainly, Sojourn, Theatre Vertigo in a different way, these are all made up of people who came from another state and decided consciously that they were going to move their companies to Portland to create work.

TP: Well, that’s what the west is, right? Nobody was here and then a bunch of people who shared a common belief that it must be better “over there.” Those are the people who make up Portland whether their families have been here for ten generations or one. It’s that kind of spirit, that sense of “I’m going to pack up my things and go west and when I get there, I know I am going to have to build everything from scratch. Nobody’s going to help me, but what I am going to create is going to be better for me.”

MH: Are you from here?

TP: I’m not. I’m from Florida.

MH: Really?

TP: Yeah, I’m one of those who packed up my things and said, “I think Portland...”

MH: And what was it about Portland? What did that mean to you?

TP: I’d never been to Oregon, and I’d certainly never been to Portland, but I’d gotten this impression even then that Portland was this place that was great for individual expression, that it was very fertile. Not just literally because everything was so clean, but the ideas pop like popcorn. That was really my impression from the people I talked to and the literature I read. So, when I had to choose where to go to school, I was being courted by all the usual Northeast institutions, but I didn’t feel like there were new ideas coming out of those places. Those places might teach me to be an upright citizen, but they weren’t going to teach me how to think for myself. They weren’t going to give me the opportunity to create something that never existed. I could build on someone’s existing work and maybe even get higher than I could in Portland, but I wouldn’t generate something that was brand new. That’s what I really wanted.

MH: That’s so Trisha.

TP: I want to grow something brand new and have it succeed.

MH: To transfer that to theatre, I just think it’s interesting the companies as a group look around and say, “we’re going to choose this city and see what happens.” To me, that’s really new. When I was their age, I never would have thought of doing that. Looking at people like Joe Fisher and Matt Zrebski who moved here from Texas. That’s another one. It’s out-of-towners who came here as a conscious deliberate choice.

TP: And I think what is also interesting is that the people who have been here for 20 years, like Allen Nause, are taking on a lot of those values and are actually shifting. Allen’s been talking a lot lately about trying to create a standing ensemble company for ART.

MH: Wow.

TP: You know, not necessarily on the Sojourn model where it’s the same actors in every performance, but more on the model of Steppenwolf where you have a company of actors that are known as the company members and they have the opportunity to have first crack at the roles available. The audience will develop a personal relationship with these performers and the performers have a greater role and a greater stake in the artistic development of the company. And Artists Rep started as a collaboration of artists. That’s what we want to be. We want to explore how to get back to that place.

MH: Well, you look like that already. Do you mean taking it on more formally?

TP: More formal, yeah. There certainly are artists that we are used to seeing on the ART stage. I mean, we’ve really been focused on supporting the local performer. But until this conversation, I’d never really thought about it from the stand-point of us going back to something of old, but in a way, we’re taking on what the new generation of artists who are coming here and generating ensemble work have brought to us. When I started working in Portland, there wasn’t really an instinct that you had to get a group of people together to do a show. There was sort of an impresario model for theatre.

MH: Right

TP: You know, you have one visionary, a charismatic leader who would dictate how it was going to go. And I think there has been a real shift.

MH: There definitely has.

THEATRE BEGETS THEATRE

MH: Going back to ancient history, you know, with Storefront, the sense of competition was fierce. It was the feeling that there were only a few people who were going to go to theatre and you don’t want to share them with everyone else. So, when the Pacific Guild opened up, there was resentment. I mean that’s such a funny idea to me, that we could resent a company for opening. Now, I think it’s just the reverse, I think we applaud a new company. We embrace the idea, because there’s the belief that the more theatre there is, the more it generates work and audience for it. And I believe that actually.

TP: I do, too. I definitely believe that audience begets audience. You know, get them in the door at one institution and they are ten times more likely to go see someone else.

MH: That’s right. Unless it’s Merchant of Venice.

TP: Now, you say that...

MH: No, I’m kidding, because we did get new audiences. We gained some, lost some.

TP: You transformed the mindset of a significant segment of the theatre community who thought that theatre could never be like that and now they are going out and experiencing the kind of theatre that is like that.

MH: I had my quibbles with it artistically. I liked some things about it. I didn’t like some things about it. But what was really great was when I would go out around town or to a restaurant, I would hear people talking about it. It made me feel like I was in New York to hear people talking about theatre. So, in that sense, it’s nice, even if it’s a thorn in someone’s side. At least it gets them thinking about the art form.

TP: Well, that show gave Portland Center Stage permission to do shows that I don’t think you would have tackled otherwise. I’m not sure that if Merchant of Venice never happened, that anyone at PCS would have been willing to take on Pillowman and that was a great production.

MH: I’m sure you’re right.

TP: It said, “yes, there is an impact for this level of controversy and yes, we can survive it.” I also get the impression that making the larger production, the more classical production and how you play with people’s expectations has gotten more deliberate.

MH: What’s that joke going around right now? If you want to do an avant guard production of Shakespeare, you set it in the original time period.

OUR INFERIORITY COMPLEX

MH: Portland really has grown as a community and I’ve been lucky, I think to see it. It’s grown rather radically just in the short time I’ve been here and I believe that there is a sense that we are in it together now. So, you see lots of collaboration between different companies. You see them talking to each other about what they are doing. And I think it all goes toward getting a civic sense of pride and awareness of each other.

TP: And just think about how different that is from five years ago. We had a real inferiority complex as a theatre community.

MH: Really?

TP: Oh, yeah. The most common thing you would hear from people was, “I’m just here until I can get enough credits to move to Chicago, New York or L.A. Any of the top echelon of people working in town, that’s what they were doing. Doing good work here was not necessarily something to be proud of. Doing good work here was just something to put on their resume until they could get a better job. And I think that dynamic is really changing.

MH: Sure.

TP: We still have our boomerang artists. We still have people like Scott Coopwood, who stick around for a few years and then go make their way in New York and Chicago, but what we are finding more and more is that people are coming back. You know, Michael Mendelson did that. He got very successful here in Portland, went to New York for a few years and came back. And now he has really staked a claim that this is where he wants to do his work. Eleanor O’Brien did the same thing.

MH: Or what Amy Palomino mentioned at the Drammys. She said she thought moving here meant that she wouldn’t work anymore. She was surprised to find out that she now works more than she did in New York.
A nice thing, just as an aside is that we had a play last year at JAW called The Feminine Ending that Blair Brown directed. They wound up scooping us on the world premiere, but it’s all right. They so much liked the guy that played the main character that Casey McFeron has been invited to be in the New York production. He’s going to be in the world premiere in New York City because he was in something here.

TP: And weren’t there two Oregon residents who were nominated for Tonys this year? Did you hear that?

MH: Who else?

TP: It was Brooks Ashmanskas and...Oh, I’d have to look it up, but there were two. [Note: Portland-native Kelly Grant is in the cast of the Tony-winning production of Company] Two people who got their training in Portland, one of them went to Beaverton High School. When stuff came out about them, it referenced their background in Portland theatre, much like it would reference a Chicago background. You know, “Chicago-area actor...” When would that have been possible before? As we develop an identity for Portland theatre that is nationally recognized for its style, perspective and point of view, I think we’re going to hear that more and more. There are going to be people who come to Portland to find great new plays.

ON PLAYWRIGHTS

MH: You know that’s the thing, too. We do think of Chicago “actors.” That’s an important part of their fame, but also you think right away about Chicago playwrights. And I wonder if we could get to a place here where there was that awareness of a certain style, of a certain aesthetic or maybe even that there’s just a lot of playwrighting coming out of a one community.

TP: And you’re working on that, aren’t you? You have this great group with local playwrights.

MH: That’s right. They do really well.

TP: And several of them have created work that’s kind of gone out there a bit, hasn’t it? I mean, Steve Patterson’s having great success.

MH: That’s right. He’s about to do a production in Los Angeles, which is great.

TP: And who else is involved with that group? Well, Ebbe Roe [Smith].

MH: Who won a Drammy the other night, so that was nice. They are all doing very well. They are a really cool group of people. Without my suggestion, the group of them has decided to do a group show around Halloween that has to do with food.

TP: Cool.

HM: I’ve heard of that. Is that the playwrighting group that Patrick Wohlmut is involved in, too?

MH: Yes, he is in that.

HM: I’ve heard a lot of exciting things about that.

MH: Oh, he’s really a good writer. And, as another aside, when he said that he was interested in the group and that he had written some things, I thought, “Oh my god.” You know, here’s someone you know as an actor who has “written a few things.”

TP: Yeah, “I’m an actor, but I really want to be a playwright.”

MH: Yeah, there you go. How often do you hear that? I said, “Sure, I’d like to read it,” but I imagined the painful discussion that would be just around the corner. It turned out, he’s really good. I mean, he’s so good that there are a few writers that are a little bit afraid of him right now. I mean, they have to look at him a little bit differently because they suddenly realize that he’s had these thoughts going around in his head all this time that are just now getting onto paper. So, it is cool when it happens, but I think it can happen any city anywhere so long as there is a nexus for the writers to organize, because they really can’t do anything in a vacuum, there has to be an artistic home. That’s what I’m trying to do at PCS, that’s what you’re doing at ART. That makes all the difference. People can feel like they are welcome.

TP: Yeah, we really want to break down the idea of there being a great bastion that has to be stormed by the playwright or by the actor for that matter. That idea of, “well, if we keep throwing script pages at them long enough, you might get a meeting with the literary manager.” Because that’s not how it works.

MH: Right. You know, you can call us up.

WE’RE ALL IN IT TOGETHER

MH: You did a wonderful thing about a year ago, I think on pdxbackstage [a yahoo-based theatre community group] when there were some people complaining about something. I forget what it was about but they referenced PCS and ART both and you said this wonderful thing like “You know, I just want to point out that the people who are working there are people and they are actually working in the community with you.”

TP: Yeah.

MH: They are your friends.

TP: You act with them, you drink with them. They work with you. They are not some big bad “other” that is out to prevent you from having a career. They are just hard-working people trying to achieve the goals of their organization.

MH: Right. So, you very sweetly let them know. The subtext was great because it was saying, “don’t you think we want to work with you?”

TP: Right. I mean that’s the whole point. What makes our community interesting, the reason why so many people move here is because the people that you get to work with and drink coffee with are the kind of people you want to know. They have interesting ideas and an interesting approach to life. That’s why we’re all here. Whatever we can do to foster that artists’ community is just giving you somebody more interesting to talk to when you’re waiting for coffee. I mean wouldn’t you rather be standing next to an actor, who is also a playwright who is working on a play about black holes?

MH: You know, I have to say something about playwrights that is so different from other writers in the other spheres of writing, certainly in novel writing. There is probably intense jealousy and worry about someone making it before you, but I think, relatively speaking, in playwrighting, there really is a sense of everybody wanting to support everybody else. It really is great.

TP: Yeah, it is.

THE GOOD, BAD & UGLY

MH: So, it occurs to me Trish that we have been talking about what we love about Portland theatre. Is there anything that we really would like to see different? What do we really hate?

TP: Well, I would really like to see more stability. I would like to feel that Portland was a town that new companies could move to and get a couple of shows under their belts, but also that they could feel like their next year’s budget was secure. I would love to see that. Because in every other art form, in every other institution, there is a mechanism for artists to go from small and scrappy to represented, I mean, maybe it’s an artist who gets picked up by a gallery that’s going to advocate for them locally and nationally. We don’t have any mechanism for an upstart creative theatre person to get their feet under them, to know they’ve arrived, to feel like there is somebody batting for them besides themselves, whether it’s a theatre company or an individual artist. And that really bothers me. You know, in any market, you have companies that wink in and wink out, but in Portland, we have companies that have been working for ten years and have never pushed past that barrier of being just a scrappy little theatre. ART pushed past that barrier, but it took a major capital campaign and several companies in town falling by the wayside before we were able to burst through that ceiling and say, “We have stability. We have growth. Pay attention to us.” And I think that there are several smaller companies in Portland that don’t have that, even now. You know, Miracle is an amazing company, doing something truly unique. They world premiere more Latino-themed work than any other company on the west coast that I know of. They are just now starting to move past the place where it was a struggle for them to get more than 20 or 30 people to come to their theatre on a given night. I think it is great that they are moving, but boy, where would they be now if that had happened five or six years ago. If they had that floor, that influx of capital, that launching pad to take that next step sooner…Theatre Vertigo is another example. They’ve been in business for, what, ten years? The number of ten-year-old businesses in this town is astonishing considering how many of them are not much bigger than they were when they started.

MH: Which lends to another problem we have with Portland in that we have a couple of large theatres and we have a lot of small theatres, but we have virtually no mid-sized theatres, which means that it is hard for Vertigo to move beyond where they are in terms of earned income. Miracle is a good example because they have a nice space that works really well for them, but the last time I saw a show there, they turned people away. It was the Mexican play.

TP: Oh yeah, the bi-lingual one.

MH: Right. They couldn’t seat all the people. So, it’s very dangerous to think about moving to a mid-sized venue because you have to think about whether or not you can fill it.

CREATIVE CAPACITY

TP: Right. And coming from a completely different perspective for something like Third Floor, which is nationally-recognized sketch comedy. They routinely sell out their shows, but their performers don’t make a living as part of that company. So, they can sell out that size of a venue, but they don’t have a half step up venue to go to. In Portland we have a lot of 50 or 60 seat venues and we have a lot of 200 and up houses, but those mid-range venues don’t exist. It’s a challenge that Sam Adams is taking on with his Creative Capacity...did you have an opportunity to go to that event?

MH: I didn’t, even though it was downstairs. I had something else...Oh, it was the playgroup meeting that night. But from what I understand, he acknowledged a lot of what was great here, but he put out a challenge for us to get organized. He challenged us to get it together basically.

TP: Right. So that we can assert whatever we want, whether it’s stable, mid-sized venues or it’s capital investment grants to help smaller companies with a proven track record get bigger, we can identify that and he will give us the tools to get that to pass and he’s telling us—and this shocked me—he’s telling us that there are millions of dollars here to be raised. Let’s not talk about nickels and dimes. Don’t raise your hand and tell me, “the city wouldn’t have to spend any money if they would just blah, blah, blah…” Let’s get past that mentality and ask “what do we need to make it to the next level?” He’s saying, “give me a goal that’s got some muscle in it.” Yeah, it takes money, but if it’s going to change the face of the city, then it’s worth it.

MH: I think we should tell Sam—because we talk about it all the time—“let’s go back to the idea of a city-wide festival. Give us the resources to make this a truly civic event that brings attention to theatre”

TP: Right.

MH: Make people realize that it is an undercapitalized resource and it’s fun. They could have fun.

TP: Right. They already know that with other industries. [The Business Association] routinely creates delegations and junkets for people in different industries to come and see what Portland’s got going on. They could do that for the arts if they choose to.

MH: They already do that for some things. It makes sense for them to throw a lot of money behind something like film because the idea is that people are going to come and drop a lot of money on Portland when they produce here. But I would argue that with theatre, it’s a different kind of investment, which is that if they can help us get to that level where Portland is perceived as a theatre town, we would have many reasons for people to come here to see theatre. I know that people go to Chicago to see theatre.

TP: People go to Seattle just to see theatre.

MH: Oh really? I know they go there for opera. They go there for theatre, too?

TP: With the stuff that Seattle Rep has been doing for the last couple of years, people know they can see it there before it goes to Broadway. Those relationships that they have been able to develop, to be a theatre community for those larger towns—Well, it’s like South Coast Rep. Costa Mesa, California is considered a destination for theatre? Well, not before they were there.

MH: Yeah, it’s got two things now. It has the mall and it’s got SCR. So you can go to theatre and then go over to the boutique and buy something there.

TP: But people go there to see what they’ve got going on, because what they have going on will be the thing that’s plastered all over the scene in a couple of seasons.

MH: And I keep talking about civic pride, but that’s part of it. People in Orange County are very proud of South Coast Rep. You go to a reading of a new play—just a reading—and they will have 400 people there. They will actually fill the mainstage space just to hear a new play.

TP: Yeah, that’s really exciting.

MH: And I think that’s the kind of thing we want and can have here. You know, there’s always going to be someone who is going to think, “I don’t want to see a new play. I’ll wait until it’s on Broadway.” But other people love the idea that they were in there at the beginning. And with the post-play discussions, the opportunities for interaction, they may be effective in that way.

TP: Yeah. I definitely agree with that. And I think that’s another need that the Portland community has. We need to create public conversation about what theatre means to us, because for a town that is as full as it is of creative workers and do-it-yourself [people] we have not been very effective in bridging the gap between what they already love—which is creating new things and experiencing art as a way of life—and what we do. There’s still a large perception in the greater Portland community that theatre is an art form for old people or that theatre is a “traditional” art form. The last three shows I’ve seen were anything but traditional.

MH: And what’s so good about certain companies in Portland is that they are really good at theatre as an event. Certainly, Hand2Mouth is like that. You go there and it’s going to be this big uproarious experience. I love that and that does attract younger people. My mother would not go to that; she wants to see Shaw. She wants to feel comfortable with the relationship between her and the playwright. But for everybody else...

TP: Right, I think there’s really something to be gained there. And I think there’s something to be gained by translating to people that the experience they have at a great independent film is equivalent to the experience they have in a theatre with a new work. And the only distinction there with an independent film is that they’re not going to interact with the performance in any way. Whereas, with a live performance, particularly with new works, they can literally impact how that work develops every night. So, when it does go off to the rest of the world, they have participated in an act of creation, instead of just passively experiencing a completed creation. Portlanders love that.

MH: I’m wondering if there are things we haven’t touched on.

HM: I think you’ve given me way more than I will be able to fit in the space. Thank you both.

Dear Editor

A poem...pieced together from actual emails I have gotten in my time as an editor here at PDX Magazine.

Dear Editor

“The existence of you…”
“…seems to be fictional”

“You’re named after something that has nothing to do with you. And your…”
“breadth and depth is surprising for something so small.”

“While both are correct spellings, your use is inconsistent”
“And I find it ridiculous that you got it wrong in two different ways”

“Your magazine is GREAT! Especially in regard …”
to the people you use on a daily basis.”

“You are both refreshing and welcome…
…out there in the trenches.”

“I admire your advocacy,
…ignored emails and lack of integrity

“Thank so much for sharing…
…your vapid, uninteresting life.”

“Cheers to you, for your consistent, reliable voice.”
“You sure sound like a whiny California transplant.”

“Thanks for telling me about…”
“Molly Maguire’s. It burned down several years ago.”
“You make me feel RIGHT at home in my new home!!!

“I was very amused by…”
“the careless and clumsy homophobia in last month’s article “On the Rocks.’”

“Horror! Shame on you!”
“And well, thanks. Today's everlasting hangover was worth it.

“If you want the whole story you should talk to me, because I…”
“hang out with men who consider ‘Nancy Boy’ an insult.”

“We are a admirable group that has been around longer than you’ve been alive…”
…helping to make life miserable for people like you who steal my creative services.”

“I emailed you last week and you wouldn't answer me....... booooooooo,
hissssssssss.”
“So, I am emailing you one more time to please tell me if that hottie I met last night is single? He has the best TOOSH in Portland…”
“And your attempts to edit out such obviousness are misleading and just plain wrong. Boo on you.”

“Once again, thank you for your…”
“disappointing coverage and remarkable disregard for the environment.”

“I hope this letter finds you well, and I hope…”
“you suffer as much embarrassment and inconvenience as I feel you deserve.”

Sincerely,

You readership.

P.S. The hearing is scheduled for August 25th at 1:30pm

On the Hot Seat: Marc Acito

Having happy hour drinks with Marc Acito is like having a brush with celebrity. Mere seconds after walking into Bluehour (250 NW 13th Ave, 226-3394, bluehouronline.com) he is greeted with hugs and kiss-kisses by a neighboring table. Other people simply wave from across the room. By the time our drinks arrive, a handsome waiter (and local artist) has come to the table to say hello and inform him that the kitchen staff has burst into song on his behalf (David Bowie, in case you were wondering).
Truth be told, Acito is a celebrity. He has just released his second book Attack of the Theater People, a follow-up to his pseudo-biographical debut novel, How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft. Friendship and Musical Theater, which is currently in development with Columbia Pictures. He is also in the midst of preparing for the debut of his first play, Holidazed, which will open this November at Artists Repertory Theatre (1515 SW Morrison, 241-1278, artistsrep.org).

By the time our food arrives, I understand why the author, playwright, reformed opera singer, humorist and blogger-extraordinaire is so terribly popular. He’s affable, witty, self-effacing and impish all at once. You can’t help but hug him and hope that a wee bit of his spirit (or success) will rub off on you.

MA: I’ve decided that everyone who takes a picture with me has to do jazz hands. What inspired me is that the very last person I had a photo taken with was Salman Rushdie.
PDX: Oh nice! Did he do jazz hands?
MA: No! I thought of it on the plane. I just got back from San Francisco last night. I thought “Ah! I should have had him do jazz hands!”
HA: That would have been?
MA: Awesome! The picture alone?Oh my god, the sublime and the ridiculous meet. When worlds collide, Marc and Salman together at last. But I thought of it afterwards. So from now on, everybody does the jazz hands picture. I don’t care who you are.
[We pause for photo op]
PDX: I like that we start there with photos. Maybe we’ll scale back…eh…maybe we won’t.
MA: Eventually, there will be pictures of you on the floor.
PDX: Yeah. [laughs] So, I was cramming [indicates Acito’s books] before you got here. I’ve got both of your books.
MA: Oh. I hear they’re very good.
PDX: So, um?
MA: Hey, did you want to record this?
PDX: Oh, it’s going. It’s been going.
MA: Oh my. Everything I’ve said has been on the record. I hope I haven’t said anything too scandalous.
PDX: Don’t worry. I’m careful.
MA: I’m not.

CAREERS AND CUPCAKES
PDX: So, what came first for you? Were you a writer first or was it theatre?
MA: Theatre person. I trained to be an actor and, like my hero [Edward Zanni of Acito’s books], I was kicked out of acting school over artistic differences. I thought I could act, the faculty didn’t.
PDX: Ah ha. They didn’t agree? [laughs]
MA: And then I had a very misguided career as an opera singer for the bulk of my 20s, where I pretty much scratched my way to the middle. When I turned 30, it was like a biological clock going off. Seriously. I just felt like I needed to create the art myself instead of interpreting somebody else’s. I just didn’t want to be a thread in somebody else’s tapestry any longer. And I dabbled with writing in my 20s, but it was always something that I put aside in a drawer. In my 30s, I just couldn’t resist it any longer.
PDX: I understand that completely.
MA: That’s when I reinvented myself as a writer. That’s what led me to…what you see before you.
PDX: What brought you to Portland?
MA: My partner got a job here. Floyd [Sklaver] got a job at Catlin Gable back in 1990. So, I have been here ever since I graduated from college. It’s the?like a lot of people who move to Portland after they graduate from college never guessing that?[to photographer]?Oh, did you get the t-shirt? Let’s get one more jazz hands shot so we can get the Cupcake Jones t-shirt. They’re really good people. You will not find nicer people than Peter and Lisa over at Cupcake Jones (307 NW 10th Ave, 222-4404, cupcakejones.net). And I happen to really dig the shirt, too…as you can see. It’s getting all pilly.
PDX: Covered in cupcake?
MA: Yeah. You may have to do a little Photoshop. Now, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, like so many people who come to Portland, I was just one of those people who showed up after college, never thinking I’d stay. But it’s such…Portland is such a nourishing and nurturing environment to be a young artist in. And now that I’m not a young artist any more, I think it’s a great place to be established. It’s a great home base because it’s affordable, stimulating and yet, not overwhelming at the same time.

PLATE GATE 2008 (with Holidazed spoilers)
PDX: Do you ever see yourself writing a Portland-based story?
MA: I keep trying. But it hasn’t come together yet. I worked on one, which was set in Beaverton, a holiday novel which was called Holidazed.
PDX: Is that the one that’s now…
MA: That’s the one that’s now the play. So, I developed it as a novel first but I realized that it would work better on the stage than on the page. So, I set it aside and re-wrote it with screenwriter C.S. Whitcomb. And now it’s going to have its premiere this fall at Artists Repertory Theatre.
PDX: In November?
MA: In November. Yup. It’s their holiday show.
PDX: Oh. You’ve ousted Susannah Mars?
MA: No, it’s starring Susannah Mars. We’ve combined forces.
PDX: Oh really?
MA: If you mention that, you’ll probably be the first. She just got cast.
PDX: I love that. Oh, and a funny story about ART…the “Plate Gate 2008,” I think it’s being called.
MA: Now, this story has been added to Portland cultural lore. I mean, the life of this story is unbelievable.
PDX: Do you want to tell the story?
MA: Long story short, my partner Floyd and I were at the opening of A Streetcar Named Desire and there’s a moment in the second act when Stella says to Stanley, “Your hands and face are disgusting. Go wash up and come back and clear the table.” Something like that. Then he says, “You wanna see how I clear the table?” And then he’s supposed to throw all the dishes. In this particular production, he picks up a plate and he tosses it down the chute where the audience enters, but he misfired and this plate came hurtling through the air heading straight for Floyd’s face. He turns his head at the last minute and?it was one of those things where it just goes into slow motion?all eyes were watching this plate go. It felt like it took forever. He turns his head and this thing hits him square on the side of his head. A big thick plastic plate. It’s dead silence and then Floyd suddenly utters an expletive that can’t appear in the magazine, but immediately transformed the experience from a Tennessee Williams play to a David Mamet play. The actor completely broke character and made sure he was okay. We hung out for a little while, but he was staring to develop a goose egg on the side of his head, so we decided to leave. It was surreal. And that same night there was another theatre that had a plate incident as well. [A plate hurled by the lead actress in Timon of Athens of Northwest Classical Theatre Company] Also that night someone from Cirque du Soleil fell.
PDX: It was one of those nights. Everything was off. Plate Gate 2008. Have you and Floyd switched to paper plates for safety’s sake?
MA: [laughs] I’m surprised that they’re still throwing plates. This is something else that no one’s talked about, but after the show, the folks at Portland Center Stage sent Floyd a plate that was signed by the entire cast with a chocolate cake on it and a catcher’s mitt. And the cake was baked by Stephanie [Mulligan’s] partner, Laura, who is a pastry chef.
PDX: So, when you say, PCS, you mean ART.
MA: When I say PCS, in this context, I mean ART.
PDX: Ok. Because I was thinking, “Ooh. PCS! They’re getting all sassy”
MA: Yeah. [laughs] It’s like, “Come over here. Come see our show. We won’t hit you with anything.” No, no. It was ART. Sorry about that. It was that other three-letter theatre in Portland. See, I’m not even drinking. Listen to me.

HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD
PDX: Ok, so now, the first book is getting a lot of buzz because of the?
MA: The movie. Yeah, the movie is still in development. We have a script. I haven’t read it yet. The movie is being developed by Laura Ziskin from Columbia Pictures. She’s the producer of the Spiderman movies; and our second writer for the project, he’s the head writer for The Family Guy. We submitted a script, but I won’t see it for probably a couple of months. Hollywood’s a big hurry-up-and-wait kind of place.
PDX: So, what are you doing next?
MA: I’m working on part three.
PDX: Oh really?
MA: As we speak. I was typing away on it before I arrived here. I’m a few chapters into it. It’s called The Jazz Hands of God. In this one, I take my merry band of miscreants out to Hollywood.
PDX: Really? Is there any influence from your Hollywood involvement?
MA: Yeah. It certainly has got me thinking and asking a lot of people the right questions. It’s not based on my experience with Hollywood right now, but I have enough friends working in the industry who have been able to give me some insider information, you know, some access. I’ve been on all the studios. I’ve taken meetings. I understand how it works.
PDX: Yeah.
MA: Sorry, that’s not a very funny or interesting answer.

HOLIDAZED
PDX: [laughs] So, are you having any involvement with Holidazed?
MA: [Cynthia and I] will be in on rehearsals because we’ll be writing. And plus, it’s so much fun. I work alone normally, so to be in a room collaborating with a group of people?
PDX: Well, rehearsal is the best part of doing a show. It’s always been my favorite part. Where you’re in the trenches together, learning?
MA: Exploring…
PDX: Discovering each other.
MA: We’ll be in on casting as well. There are limited decisions to be made because we have three of the company actors that will be in the show. Todd Van Vorris, Michael…
PDX: Mendelson.
MA: Yes. And Velma…
PDX: Vana O’Brien?
MA: Yes, Vana O’Brien. Where’d I get Velma?
PDX: Scooby gang. It’s the ART Scooby gang.
MA: So between them and Susannah, that already covers four of the roles.
PDX: Is it a musical?
MA: No. But there are some musical numbers.
PDX: Wait. Huh?
MA: I’m not capable of writing anything where people don’t burst into song occasionally. So, there are a couple of “musical moments.” So, we just need to cast two more actors and then children. It’s six actors, four children.
PDX: Wow. Children.
MA: Can’t do a Christmas show without children.
PDX: Well, they pack the houses so well. You know, all the aunts, uncles and grandparents.
MA: Yeah, even though it has a subversive take on the holidays, we still?well, the show is about a beleaguered soccer mom. You can’t get fed up with the holidays unless you have children and in this case, she has three because we need her to be really fed up with the holidays.
PDX: God. It’s a show about me.
MA: You have kids?
PDX: I have two boys, ten and seven.
MA: See, you have just reached that point when you get sick of Christmas. The magic has worn off. Am I right?
PDX: Mm-hmm.
MA: We deliberately made the kids 10, eight and six because we determined that would be about the time when the magic would start to wear off. Ten years of this and…ugh…and yet you still have to keep it up. There’s always this pressure when you have children to make it a magical holiday.
PDX: I’ve always been a bit non-festive about the holidays.
MA: Well, I hope you’ll consider doing and interview with me and Cynthia for Holidazed.
PDX: I’d love that!
MA: She’s really good company and she’s a fascinating person in her own right. She’s a well-respected Hollywood screenwriter. She’s had 29 television movies of the week made, but her first love is theatre. Now that her kids are grown, she’s returned to it. I took her class, which is where I met Chuck Palahniuk, which is how I got my agent. So, Cynthia has been an integral part of my trajectory as a writer. Then, over the course of a few years, we started to read each other’s stuff and eventually decided that we should collaborate. We really have a sort of Edward and Paula kind of relationship.
PDX: Oh that’s nice. That makes it easier when you’re working together.
MA: We both talk in short hand. We both see the same show. We have the same taste. It’s been a lot of fun.

JAZZ HANDS AT THE READY
[Marc now fusses over our photographer who has been leaning over to capture a picture. Assured, he moves on.]
MA: I’m a bit of a people pleaser. I want to make sure everyone’s happy. You, the waiter, my friends across the way, my other friend over there who is a famous artist. Oh, and he’s really good.
PDX: He was at the Froelick Gallery?
MA: Yeah. His name is Leiv…Oh, I’ll get it wrong. I can’t remember Leiv’s last name. [Leiv Fagereng, currently showing at San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery]
PDX: What would you like to see come out of the movie? I mean, you probably don’t have a lot of artistic control, but what would you like to see?
MA: No, you have to be J.K. Rowling to have that kind of control. What I want to see is for it to be in movie theaters around the nation. [laughs] From there, I’m flexible.
PDX: Have you thought about casting?
MA: That’s the problem, there doesn’t seem to be any young, teen actor on the horizon now. I think David Archuleta from American Idol would be really cute.
PDX: [laughs] Yeah, I can see that.
MA: But, again, I have no clout and I don’t know if he can act or not. But he sure is?
PDX: He’s got the jazz hands.
MA: He’s very “jazz hands.” He was almost “too jazz hands” for American Idol. [laughs] Or Sanjaya. That would be interesting to see. He’s “too jazz hands” for the world. [laughs] So, we’ll see. There’s no shortage of guys who are just like the character in the book. One of the things I learned since the first book came out is that I am a type. I used to think that I was a wholly original person. It turns out, I’m not at all. There are, seriously, thousands of people just like me who are “too jazz hands” for the world.
PDX: Actually, I think I dated you in high school. [laughs]
MA: Yes, I was a really good prom date in high school. I get a lot of people saying that I remind them of their gay best friend. I get a lot of emails from these guys. Go to my MySpace or my Facebook page and you can pretty much pick out all the Edwards and the Paulas. I would say that it accounts for the majority of my fans right now.

SOMETHING NEW
PDX: So, on account of the Plate Gate thing and your new book [Attack of the Theater People], your name been coming up a lot. I wrote an entry in my blog about your project to do something new every day and I thought, “Oh, that’s such a good idea.” I mean, I couldn’t do it. But it’s a good idea.
MA: You could do it once a week. [laughs] Yeah, I’ve been inspiring people around the world to do something new every day. I was in a rut and it’s really invigorating. I mean, there is a certain amount of stress in doing it, because it’s every single day. But, you see, sometimes, it’s quite small. Sometimes they creep up on me and I don’t even realize it. I’ve become conditioned now, like a heat seeking missile to find experience. It’s definitely made my life richer. I mean, as a writer, I feel I need constant stimulation. Wouldn’t you agree?
PDX: Yes. I agree. So, other than your show, do you have things you’re excited about for next season?
MA: Things coming up? Oh yeah. I’ve been lucky to get early glimpses of Storm Large’s show, because she is in my writing group. We asked her to join us. I have a writing group with me, Cynthia [Whitcomb], Courtney Hameister of LiveWire! Radio and McKinley from Dirty Martini who is developing a piece for ART for the following season.
PDX: Oh wow.
MA: And Daniel Wilson, who is not a theatre guy. He writes funny books about robots. He has a PhD in robotics from Carnegie Mellon and he’s written these hilarious books about robots and science. Well, we invited Storm to join the group and so every two weeks or so, I get to hear a chunk of Storm’s show.
PDX: And she’s premiering some of it at JAW? [Just Add Water Festival at PCS]
MA: At Jaw, yeah. It’s thrilling, yeah. I mean you’re not going to be able to say this in the magazine?or maybe you can if it’s online?but just last night we were singing along to “My Vagina is Eight Miles Wide.”
PDX: [laughs] Oh, she’s a charming lass.
MA: Well, to me, she is representative of everything that’s great about Portland. The independence of our artists. The eccentricities and the originalities. The fact that we can be such a small city and yet, every little house in Southeast has someone inside it creating some original and exciting new thing. I wish that were a better sentence, sorry. But it’s just a part of the atmosphere here.
PDX: Why do you think they are all landing here?
MA: [pauses] I’m trying to think of the best answer for that question. Seriously, why are young artists moving here? I think it is the most affordable creative city in the country. The challenge of a city like San Francisco, New York or Los Angeles, for that matter, is that the young artists can’t afford to live there. I think they are coming here for the lifestyle and the affordability. One of the challenges is for us to keep it affordable so that we can maintain that vitality.
PDX: Do you think it’s sustainable?
MA: Well, let’s just put it this way, I’m really glad that Sam Adams is the mayor, because he gets it. He understands the power of a creative city and an affordable city. I mean, right here in the Pearl, there are people who earn less than $30,000 a year living in apartments across the street from people who paid a million dollars for those condos. That’s part of the engineering for this city. That gives me a certain amount of hope. And with the urban growth boundary, there are areas that are affordable. I’m optimistic that we’re engineering it right and that we’re not going to end up like New York City where everyone had to go to Williamsburg and now Williamsburg is too expensive. I don’t see everyone moving out to Clackamas or Gresham tomorrow because they have to get out of the inner city. I just don’t see that happening. We have enough neighborhoods that are still cool. I mean, North Portland is where it’s happening. Everyone I know who bought a house this last year bought one in North Portland.

STORM WATCHERS
PDX: So, did you have a favorite thing that you saw this last season? I mean, you see a lot of theatre.
MA: I do see a lot of theatre. [pauses] I don’t want to give another Storm Large answer. “The thing I loved most about last season was Storm Large in Cabaret and the thing I’m gonna love most about next season is Storm Large!”
PDX: Well, it was a fabulous show.
MA: I think that the strongest thing I saw this year was Little Dog Laughed.
PDX: Yeah.
MA: I mean it reflects my own personal bias towards comedy. These kinds of plays don’t get written any longer. Not too long ago Neil Simon and his like were a staple of a theatre season. You know, those comedies, those intelligent, cosmopolitan comedies.
PDX: Ripe with one-liners.
MA: Yeah, and they kind of went out of vogue. Well, they didn’t kinda go out of vogue. They did go out of vogue. And as someone who really relishes witty writing, it was a real pleasure for me to see something that quotable, that dry, that funny?that had full frontal nudity.
PDX: Well, I told Mead [Hunter, Literary Director of PCS] that I came for the shoes, but stayed for the show. [laughs] I enjoyed it.
MA: What did you like this season?
PDX: I’m a big fan of what Third Rail does.
MA: I keep meaning to get over there.
PDX: Yeah, they really have yet to fail.
PDX: But I also liked Little Dog way more than I expected to.
MA: Well, certainly the thing I most look forward to every year is the JAW Festival. It’s pure theatre. Something I write about in the book is that?well, if I mention [Jerzy] Grotowski, I’m going to sound pretentious?but the idea of a simple, stripped down experience?actors, words, audience. That’s what really interests me. I’m not interested in spectacle. I appreciate something theatrical, but what I appreciate more is simplicity.
PDX: I love attending readings for that reason, because it’s just so raw.

EPICURIOUS (OR NOT) IN PDX
[Cute waiter Jeremy arrives to refresh our drinks]
PDX: I felt like I should have something swanky at the Bluehour.
MA: Yeah, if you’re going to come to the Bluehour... Good suggestion, by the way. I need to come here more often.
PDX: I like this place.
MA: I do too. Yeah, I’m gonna blurb this place too. I have an article this week for gay.com about Portland. It’s about gay spots to hang out in Portland, but you know, if you were coming from out of town, this is the kind of place you’d want to visit. What I’m trying to do is find a balance between the kinds of things that would appeal to tourists because they are…hoity-toity and the places that are really authentically Portland. But this is the kind of lovely place that you would find?But that’s what’s great about it for Portland. We have this sort of cosmopolitan, continental environment. I wouldn’t say this is distinctly Portland as opposed to some of the places that feel truly Oregonian.
PDX: Do you have a favorite Portland restaurant?
MA: I’m not much of a foodie.
PDX: Really? No?
MA: No, no I’m not.
PDX: Do you have favorite Portland bars then? Hangouts?
MA: No, I’m a big house party person. I like to linger over dinner for a really long time. Well, I mentioned earlier, I’m a big people pleaser. I was a waiter. I still haven’t gotten over the whole idea of whether I’m spending enough money to justify sitting in this seat. I just feel much better going over to somebody’s house to hang out. It’s a strange little anxiety. And I’m also really cheap, too. Oh! I do really like Justa Pasta. Have you been over there? It’s fresh and it’s inexpensive.
PDX: I’m a creature of habit. My friends tease me because no matter where we go, I order the same thing. I’ll look at the drink menu and then say, “You know, I think I’ll have a vodka and diet.” They’re like, “ I love how you always present it like it’s the first time. Like you actually had to consider whether or not you were going to have the vodka and diet.”
MA: That’s the key to good acting. You make it seem fresh and new.
PDX: Until they ask me what kind of vodka I want and I’m like “Oh. Er…”
MA: The answer’s always well. Seriously, if you’re going to mix it, don’t pay for the top shelf stuff. You’re not going to taste it. It’s a waste. Words to live by. Did you get that on tape? I have a whole series of rules for life and that’s just one of many…Or, I must have an unsophisticated palate.
PDX: I am with you right there.
MA: When I was down in Ashland, I went to one of the vineyards and they have that case where you can smell the different scents and develop your palate. I’m smelling stuff and thinking, “I don’t recognize it” then I look at the bottle and it says “lemon.” [laughs] So, it’s wasted on me. One of my other rules for life is “If you can’t hide it, put a flag on it.”
PDX: That’s a good theory.
MA: “You want what somebody has? Do what they do.” That’s another one.

Our interview consisted of many such exchanges like this (many of which did not make it to print). We skittered around from theatre to politics, touched on nepotism and rounded back to the topic of Portland.
The amazing thing about Acito is that the qualities that make him so fun to interview also lend themselves to making him the caliber of artist he is. It’s impossible to feel small in his presence. He’s just too gregarious. In a couple of hours, he managed to collect my life story as well (not to mention our photographer’s and our waiter’s). Despite his claim that he is “too jazz hands for the world” he is a success because of his insatiable curiosity and his enviable passion for life.

Bad Writer. Bad, bad writer!

I've been a really bad poet lately. Bad in the sense of, "um...did she really mean to say, 'the universe whispers to me' or is she being ironic?" and bad in the sense of not actually writing. The trouble is, I got derailed by some criticism last December. It wasn't really a big deal, but I basically turned it into a one-woman union strike.

So, the progress of my book with Patrick has been, well, suffering to say the least, in the wake of this unintentional strike. But I got a lovely, unexpected message from Mike G the other day which said, "You will get this done. You will be proud of it. It will be beautiful and high-quality, an aspect of yourself made manifest in the world...you have gifts to share and it's good and right to share them."

It's a good thing he sent that message because moments before, I was busy chewing on my hair and rocking under my desk. It's press week and the coffee machine is broken (see above pic). So, I have already managed to yell or growl at everyone who has been unfortunate enough to come into my office. On Monday, I had to go the Chevron and buy my assistant editor coffee and cigarettes because I was nasty to him. I didn't mean to be. I actually like him.

So, I've been a little off my mark lately. It's been a classic case of "all work and no play," which has turned me into one dull little Hollyanna. While on this hiatus from writing, I have been flooded with advice from well-meaning friends and acquaintances hoping to get me back on the wagon. Among them:

"Write something every day. Even if it's crap."

"Go back to the basics. Write an acrostic poem about your name."

"Take your favorite song and re-write it into a poem."

"Stand at the bus stop and listen to other people's conversation. Write about that."

"Go to every open mic you can find. Get there early. Stay until the last poet has read. Don't even get up for cigarettes." (Personally, I can't think of anything more frightening)

"Write down a random, stream-of-conscience sentence every hour for 8 hours. Put them together into a poem."

"Do poem exchanges with your friends."

"Fuck poetry. Start writing limericks."

And my personal favorite,

"Fuck poetry. Fuck open mics. Let's go get a drink."

Some people go with the standard, "Keep you pen moving" advice, which I get. It just doesn't really work for me. I have recently come to find out that I'm not a real poet. By that I mean, I don't live the poet lifestyle. I don't live down in the muck and mire. I get in, I do my thing, and I get out. (Jaime and I got into a deep discussion about this last night where I drunkenly compared it to bowel movements, but I'll spare you the details.) My point is, I usually wait until inspiration strikes, hammer out a poem or a story in an hour or so and then walk away from it.

So, the question remains: What to do when inspiration doesn't strike? Do I set up residency in the muck? Am I even capable of doing that? Do I wait it out? Or do I take my friend's advice and get a drink?

The jury's still out. Until then, I'll be in the bar.

On the Hot Seat: Portland Picks

Two years ago, we interviewed Kathi O’Neil, publisher of PortlandPicks.com (June of 2006), a free website devoted to sharing the best shopping, dining and entertainment tips for Portland. Besides doubling their subscriber base since then, they have also launched Picks sites in Seattle, Phoenix, Chicago and Minneapolis. What’s more, in December of 2007, the unstoppable team launched PortlandPicksforMen.com—to much success.

I joined Alisa Sloan, Editor-in-Chief for CityPicksGroup.com and Justin Valdivia, managing editor of PortlandPicksforMen.com at Kell’s Irish Restaurant mere days before St. Patrick’s Day. We dished on the journalism business, our fine city, our love of smoky bars and, well…reality TV. We had so much fun, I kind of forgot to interview them. But here’s the news that was fit to print.

PDX: So [Justin] how’d you get involved with Portland Picks?

JV: This one. [indicates Alisa]

AS: We know each other. We were launching Portland Picks for Men and we were trying to think of someone who had a good grasp of fashion, things that are happening in town, the bar and restaurant scene—

JV: And they couldn’t find that, so I took the job. [laughs]

AS: And it’s hard in Portland because you want to get the manly-man but still have a little bit of edge. It’s a weird line that you have to walk.

PDX: Any plans to do a Picks for Men in Chicago or—

AS: No, we just have the Picks for women in Chicago, but we are launching a Seattle Picks for Men. That’s going to be our next adventure.

PDX: You don’t stop at all, do you?

AS: I know. So much for not being a workaholic.

JV: Yeah. Seattle’s going to be a bit more challenging because I’m not there. I’m trusting the writers. I really had to get a feel for them. I can go online and look up a business that they’re writing about, but there’s only so much you can glean without going. I can send a writer [in Portland] to someplace I know, because it fits our readership and I think it’s someplace that they will like, but it’s harder [when you’re not there]. It’s an element of the unknown.

PDX: There’s a lot going on in Seattle.

JV: There’s a lot of stuff happening. So, we’ll do bi-weekly at first, just deliver the good stuff and see how it goes.

PDX: So, how has the response been for Portland Picks for Men?

JV: Really good.

AS: Yeah. We’re up over 3,500 [subscribers].

PDX: Oh wow.

JV: Yeah, initially there were something like a thousand or so women who were signing up their guy friends. But whenever we write someone up we try to tie in with them, get them to write a little blurb about us, use our logo in their newsletter or things like that.

AS: But I think the big thing is finding that connection with the readers. In those first few issues, you’re trying to establish who is going to read it and what they are going to get out of it. And having that connection—when you get those emails from people saying, “I really liked that article” or “I really liked that place.” We had someone send us 1,000 words on a shaving product and their favorite way to shave. And I thought, “Now, that’s dedication.” [laughs] No, it was great. You want the intimacy with your readers. And I think that’s the reason—aside from being online—that we really do try to establish that BFF kind of relationship with them. You know, we want to be able to tell our readers that they can respond and tell us what they think of what we wrote.

PDX: I just re-read today—we interviewed Kathi in 2006—not too long after Portland Picks was launched and she said that she was basically writing to herself.

AS: Yup. She was. [laughs]

PDX: What was the motivation for launching in other cities?

AS: Well, Portland is wonderful. I love it. It’s home base. But we were getting emails constantly saying, “I live in Boston. Where’s my Boston picks?” It wasn’t really a master plan. We probably would have been content to just stick to Portland and do what we do better, but the requests were coming in fast and furious.

PDX: And you’re doing all of them. You’re the editor for all the cities?

AS: Yeah. I’ve probably done more work in the last year and a half than I’ve done in the last 10 years. I’ll work until 10 o’clock at night and I’ll have to turn off the computer and say, “That’s it! No more!”

PDX: So what’s the reward in that, with so much work?

AS: Oh! I love it!

Learning to Breathe

The last time I wrote something was January 14. That may not seem like that long ago, but for me, it's an eternity. I have even stopped going to the open mics, frustrated with the fact that I have nothing new to share. It's not exactly writer's block, because the words are there. But somehow, I just haven't been able to bring myself to write...well, anything. I haven't even blogged in who knows how long. Of course, I am still writing my editorial notes each month, but even those have felt a little forced.
Last night, I was describing that for me, not being able to write is like trying to breathe underwater. This ended up being a better comparison than I expected. Jaime expanded on it, recalling his experience with learning to scuba dive. For him breathing with the regulator, despite all its newness and strangeness, still felt natural. Others would surface, gasping for air, having chosen to hold their breath rather than trust the apparatus that would supply them oxygen.
From an outside perspective, it seems silly. Why would anyone deprive themselves of something they know they need when it is (quite literally) in front of their face? If my comparison holds up, I would say that it's because breathing in this bizarre new way feels so foreign, it's as if you have to learn how to breathe all over again.
When I get this disconnected from writing, I get fluttery–-a hummingbird, flitting from flower to flower but never lingering long enough to drink. When I try to dive back in, those first breaths are gasping, panicky breaths. In order to survive it, I have to slow down, trust the apparatus that keeps me alive (in this case a small stack of writing exercise books) and hope that I don't get the bends.
So, I apologize to all of you for my long absence, from the poetry sites, from the open mics, from active conversation, etc. I'm still here, but I'm still figuring out how best to angle my body so that the oxygen can reach my lungs.

One of the authors I'm reading right now is Susan Wooldridge. I like her approach to writing because it's all about words and sounds. I discovered her over a decade ago, when I first read her book, Poemcrazy; and it gave me the freedom to chuck my ideas of structure and really start playing around. It was the first time I really liked what I wrote. In one of her newer books, "Foolsgold" (I'm not sure what it is with her and the scrunched-together-words titles), in a chapter called “Moving the Dishes”, she writes:

The creative, it seems, is spawned from emptiness. Giving over to silence, waiting, allowing, listening. Coming to emptiness may mean coming through grief. Something has been lost, a marriage, a child, a house, a city, a world. An idea of who we are. Whatever seems familiar, tried and true.

In the emptiness we may get an inkling—as if something lights up and twinkles—of how we’ll begin to form and open to who we’re becoming, who we most truly are. We need to leave space both for what we will discover and what will emerge to discover us.

In Poemcrazy, she went into great detail about how the creative, for her, came from joy. Well, not specifically. She was most inspired by joy and felt most connected to the poems that she had written from a place of sheer joy and connectedness. The above passage seems to say something different. Maybe she's changed a lot in the last decade, or maybe she's just still learning to breathe like the rest of us. I think both are true and I am guessing (though I've never met her) that she probably still believes in both as well. True inspiration, the kind that buzzes in your head, comes from honest, raw emotion; real connectedness (to ourselves, each other, the world, etc) and from memory. It yells just as loud whether its coming from utter terror, uncontainable joy or bleak depression. But I think in any form, what we are left with is the choice to embrace it or not. We have the apparatus in front of our face, pumping oxygen across our noses and lips. And we have the choice to use it and explore the depths, or swim to the surface and gasp for air.

On the Hot Seat: Mel Brown

Jazz drummer Mel Brown has been keeping the beat in Portland’s jazz scene for over 40 years. He started playing in clubs at the age of 17, but Brown’s talent soon led him straight to Motown, where he played with such legends as the Temptations, the Supremes and Diana Ross. Jazz aficionado Jarod Bishop talked with Brown at Salty’s, where his trio performs every Friday and Saturday night.

JB: What brought you to jazz after being a Motown drummer?
MB: Well, I was doing the jazz before I even got to Motown. I left Portland in ’65 and started traveling with organist Earl Grant...Later I was traveling with Bobby Taylor through Vancouver, Canada, and one night Martha and the Vandellas were in town. Her manager and Redd Fox came down to the club and said, “Wow, is that the drummer that played for Earl Grant?” So he called Martha at 4 o’clock in the morning and said, “You better come down to hear this drummer!” She got out of bed and came down and said, “Oh my god! I’m taking this one!” And that’s how I got to Motown.
JB: So did you go with the group or by yourself?
MB: No it was just me. After I left and got with Martha, the group finally got signed, had one or two hit records, and then they broke up. Our guitar player ended up being a comedian. And that’s actually Tommy Chong from Cheech and Chong.
JB: What got you started on the drums?
MB: I started playing in grade school, and in high school started learning from a lot of musicians in my neighborhood, down by Broadway and MLK. I was the paper boy…running newspapers early in the morning. I’d go by the club and…see people inside dancing, musicians playing. The older musicians, they’d say, “Come here little kid, let me show you how to play this.” That’s how it got started.
JB: When did you decide you wanted to be a musician?
MB: Actually it was my senior year. I started playing in clubs. Downtown on 11th and Jefferson there used to be a place called the Mural Room. My first night on the job, I started to play and they said, “Drummer, give me a roll!” Then right next to the drum, a door opens up, and here comes a lady walking out pulling her clothes off and I’m saying, “Hey guys, look at this nut over here!” They said, “Drummer, shut your mouth! And every time she pulls something off...and it hits the floor, hit the cymbal!” I was like, what? I thought I was going to play jazz, but it was a strip club!
JB: What was it like performing with Diana Ross?
MB: Oh, it was good, because Diana and I, we kind of grew up together, age-wise in Motown. She’s very demanding, she’s an Aries and I’m a Leo so we can butt heads at times because her ego was so big she’d get upset sometimes. When I joined Diane I owned a drum shop over on Stark and Grand. Diana called and said, “Hey listen, I got a couple of one nighters, can you come out?” And I said I had a business to run and she was like, “Nah, I just need you for a couple one nighters.” All right. So I go on the road and they hand me an itinerary and I’m like, “Wait a minute, I won’t be home for six months!” She said, “Yeah, that’s the only way I could get you out of Portland! So here’s some money, just buy some more clothes.” So from ’79 to ’91, you know, I was there with her. It was quite a thing.
JB: You’ve been called the “Gentleman of Jazz.” Where did that come from?
MB: I think it was the ladies. I don’t think anyone’s ever really seen me scream or holler, or be embarrassing, you know, so when they look at me I’m kind of even tempered. One of my idols is Sydney Poitier. And that’s why they say, “Oh, the gentleman of jazz. He tries to be like Sidney Poitier.” I kinda like that, you know? And plus, when I play the gig, I like to dress. You know, coming from being around the East Coast, everybody’s sharp. And that’s what I think...gives me a little longevity. Because women, if they like what they see, they’re going to come back and see you time and time again! And if the women are there, the guys are gonna be there chasin’ the women!
JB: So you’ve seen a lot of changes in Portland in the last 50 years. How has the music scene changed here?
MB: It’s changed a lot. When I came back in ’75, we didn’t really have any jazz here. It was a lot of country western. I was going to move back to New York. But my mom she told me, “Mel, don’t run from your problems, you solve the problem.” So I started changing what was happening around here. I went over to an Elk’s club over in NW, not far from the Crystal Ballroom, and started having jam sessions on Sundays. I put together a band, and I geared it for kids between 17 and 21.
JB: What was the response like?
MB: It got real big real quick. And then a place on the east side started having jam sessions, and after three or four places got going, I went to Japan with the Supremes. When I came back, things had dropped off. So I just went down to a place downtown called the Prima Donna. I talked to the club owner, I said, “Hey listen, I’m going to get off the road but I’m still kinda working with the Supremes. So I want to start a little jazz thing.” And on Thursday night all the musicians in Portland were saying, “Hey, Mel Brown just came back. We gotta go down and see him! From that point on it just started going crazy.
JB: And would you say that was sort of a jazz resurgence in Portland?
MB: Yeah...we kind of got some things going...jazz really took off, in the early 80s. At one point we had 25 clubs. Things were poppin around here! But then...we started getting…certain musicians that would move up from California, or move from another place…And they would come in and they’d have attitudes about things. And it was almost like it was, “I’m so hip. All you people that are here you came to listen to me and…adore me. And they came in with attitudes, and it started turning people off!
Then we had other people who were really, more, they had just gotten out of school. They didn’t work 6 nights a week in a club. They wanted to play some music that they had learned in college...some different music, something new. How can I force something I wrote that you’ve never heard before, down your throat? And you came to the club just to relax.
JB: Do you find that happens a lot, that young musicians trying to branch out and be unique lose a connection to the audience?
MB: Yeah, it’s very sad. You know, in order to be a very good musician, you have to find out where the music came from. I equate it with building a house. Everybody wants to start on the 2nd floor! You’ve gotta get the basement together first, to get the heat going, cause it gets cold in the winter. You know, and guys, they don’t think that way because they just weren’t raised that way, not around older musicians who really helped them out. Now it’s more like a competition. Guys say “I can play louder and faster than you can.” Instead of, “well, can we work together and make somebody out there smile or dance?”

(The above painting of Mr. Brown was created by Portland artist Diane Russell, www.dianerussell.net)