News & Press Releases
Press Release for the Premiere of A MAN'S JOURNEY
Mon Feb 28, 2005
At Oregon Stage works, 185 “A” Street, Ashland, Oregon
March 5th 4:00pm and 8:00pm and March 6th 4:00
Tickets: Paddington Station, Ashland, Oregon
An Ashland theatrical premiere that will make you think about life in general.
Lorenzo SantaBarbara has created a master piece we all can identify with
through the mind of a man named Bebe, who eventually surrenders to his truth
and becomes the loving human being that the golden child (his imaginary
son) guides him to be. The show will bring singers, dancers, actors and
musicians to the Oregon Stage Works with the excitement of a Broadway play.
Oregon Stage Works spruces up its new home
Wed Jan 19, 2005 - written by Nancy Golden
Thanks to a major grant from the Meyer Foundation, Oregon Stage Works will
soon sport a new awning to mark its main entrance at 185
A Street in the Ashland Market Place, according to Artistic Director Peter
Alzado.
"It somewhat unusual for a theatre as new as Oregon Stage Works to
receive such a large grant from a notable foundation," he says, "and
it is not the first such grant the theater has received." To date,
Oregon Stage Works has also received grant support from the Sid and Karen
DeBoer Foundation, the Carpenter Foundation, and the Auchincloss Foundation.
"These grants are very gratifying to us, because they show that major
funding sources believe we’re here to stay."
The new awning, constructed with help from Delux Awning, is expected to
be in place for the January 27 opening of Our Town, the latest production
from Oregon Stage Works. "We feel that while the public is already
well aware of our work, and our standing reputation for quality theatre,
the awning will give us and our patrons a tangible sense of home at our
new location," says Alzado.
For its first two seasons, Oregon Stage Works operated without a permanent
home, producing shows in a variety of locations such as the Black Sheep
Pub and the Ashland Springs Hotel. Although the quality of work was high
in those days of transience, Alzado was determined to find a home for the
theater. The A Street Marketplace presented a wonderful opportunity to create
a quality theater in a new and vibrant part of downtown Ashland. The new
facility opened in the spring of 2004 with 94 seats, and has since been
the home to productions of Waiting for Godot, Panama, Beauty Queen of Leenane,
and A Christmas Carol.
Oregon Stage Works' 2005 season opens January 27 with Thornton Wilder’s
Our Town, directed by Douglas Rowe, who also stars as the Stage Manager.
The theater extends a standing invitation to anyone who has ever acted in
this American classic, says Alzado: "If you’ve ever acted in
Our Town, just bring some kind of proof and enjoy our show at half price."
Webster Smalley’s The Boy Who Talked To Whales with music by Michael
Mish will open in March, and Joan Holden's Nickel and Dimed, from the book
by Barbara Ehrenreich, will open in May. Two Tony Award winners follow in
July and September — Proof by David Auburn and Copenhagen by Michael
Frayn. The holiday season will celebrate an original play for the whole
family, Ebenezer, Who? by S.S. Schweizer.
OSW’s Acting Academy offers ongoing
acting classes for all ages, six through adult, and the theater
is home to the Ashland New Plays Festival. According to Alzado, "Oregon
Stage Works is in a unique position to draw on the talents of the many professional
theater artists who live and work in our area, providing them the opportunity
to perform work not otherwise available locally. It’s a wonderful
thing for actors, and it’s even better for audiences."
Oregon Stage works is a registered 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization,
and all donations are tax deductible. OSW can be reached for play and ticketing
information at 541-482-2334 or on the web at www.oregonstageworks.org.
Press Release for the opening of Thornton Wilder's OUR
TOWN
Wed, 26 Jan 2005 - written by Paddy Schweitzer
Oregon Stage Works opens its first full season in its new theater in Ashland’s
A Street Market Place on Thursday, January 27, at 8pm with a vibrant new
production of one of America’s best-loved plays, Thornton Wilder’s
“Our Town.”
“It’s our new beginning,” says OSW’s producing artistic
director, Peter Alzado. “We wanted to underscore our company’s
commitment to great American theater, and “Our Town” is one
of the greatest.”
The play marked a milestone in the development of American theater. Startling
for its minimal use of sets and props, “Our Town” uses its physical
sparseness to highlight the small moments and quiet, crucial joys of family
life in a New England town at the turn of the twentieth century. It was
awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1938.
Director Doug Rowe calls “Our Town” “the quintessential
American play.” “It examines the basics,” he says: “growing
up, marrying, living, dying. It gets down to the honesty of living a day-to-day
life, the value of every moment. Seeing ‘Our Town’ can be a
life-altering event, and not too many plays can claim to be that.”
Rowe has directed “Our Town” three times previously: at the
high school in Laguna Beach, where he was Artistic and Executive Director
of the Laguna Beach Playhouse for over twenty years; at the Grove Theater
in Southern California; and then, four years ago, at Ashland High School.
In addition to directing, Rowe also stars as the Stage Manager in the play,
the fourth time he has taken on the role. It is the only part he has ever
repeated in his long career. “I was cast as the Stage Manager for
the first time when I was 55,” he says. “I hadn’t read
the play or seen it before. It grounded me and expanded me. I keep seeing
new things in it. And old, important things too. I understand these people.
I know the area. I know the town. It’s set within fifty miles of where
I lived as a young man. I feel it’s ‘my town’ as well
as ‘our town.’”
Rowe has worked both on and off Broadway, in regional theater, and in television
and film with such actors as Eva La Gallienne, Harrison Ford, Burt Lancaster,
Angela Lansbury and Walter Matthau. He moved to Ashland after landing the
part of Willy Loman in the Shakespeare Festival’s acclaimed production
of “Death of a Salesman” and falling in love with the area.
Also in the cast is Jackson Rowe, Doug Rowe’s son, who plays one of
the play’s young lovers. Jackson, who has worked in four local films
in the past two years, also had a role in the AHS production of “Our
Town” his father directed. “Jackson’s heading off to Los
Angeles soon and would like to be a filmmaker,” says his father. “I
couldn’t pass up the opportunity to help him get one more valuable
experience in truth before he goes.”
Cast members also include Shayna Marie, last seen in OSW’s “A
Christmas Carol” and Camelot Theater’s “Inherit the Wind”;
Judith Sanford and Holly Weber Neimark, who return to “Our Town”
from a production at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, twelve years ago;
and Meghan McCandless, the young lead actress in the locally-filmed movie,
“Indigo.”
Don Matthews, a voice teacher and noted soloist in the Rogue Valley, appears
again at OSW after roles in “The Nightingale,” “Nickel
and Dimed” and “The Fantastics.” He is joined by Ax Prince,
another veteran of AHS’s “Our Town,” and by Scott Hall,
Jackson Campbell, Robert Hight, Jeff Barry Kevin Berg, Ernie Griswald, Max
Heine, Miko Hughes, Tysin Senestraro, Dayvin Turchiano, Brian Wallace and
Nancy Zufich.
“Our Town,” called America’s most read and most produced
play, has been translated into multiple languages and seen abroad in such
countries as Russia, Germany, Poland, Japan, China and Korea. Most recently,
in 2003, “Our Town” played to sold-out audiences on Broadway
in a production starring Paul Newman as the Stage Manager. The “San
Francisco Chronicle” called the revival “a richly timeless commentary
on nothing less than the tragicomedy of human existence,” and PBS
filmed the production for broadcast as part of Masterpiece Theatre’s
American Collection.
“Our ‘Our Town’ is a community event,” says Doug
Rowe of his latest Ashland production. “It’s true,” he
admits, “I don’t have Newman’s eyes. But this cast is
tremendous,” he adds, “and they’re ours.”
“Our Town” will run at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and
at 2 p.m. Sundays through February 27. Tickets are $17 at Grocery Outlet
in Medford and the Music Coop in Ashland. For more information and reservations,
call 482-2334. Previews, held at 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, January 25
and 26, are $10.
OSW Play Reviews
Published Reviews of Thornton Wilder's OUR TOWN
Everybody's 'Our Town' " by Bill Varble
Sun Jan 23, 2005 - The Mail Tribune - view
online at MT archives
" 'Our Town' still a timeless evening" by Robert H. Miller
Tues Feb 1, 2005 - The Daily Tidings - view
online at DT archives
"Attention must be paid," Tempo Commentary by Richard
Moeschl
Fri Feb 4, 2005 - The Mail Tribune (not available at MT
online archives)
(Article reprint follows:)
Seeing the wonderful production of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town"
now at Oregon Stage Works reminded me why so many people consider it the
consummate American play. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1938, and I first
saw it on television in 1957 with Art Carney as the Stage Manager. In a
1957 preface to his play, Wilder said, "It is an attempt to find a
value above all price for the smallest events in our daily life."
In his preface to "The Skin of Our Teeth," a play written in 1942
four years after "Our Town" and also a recipient of the Pulitzer
Prize, Wilder wrote, that the main character is "the average American
at grips with a destiny, sometimes sour, sometimes sweet. (His family has)
survived fire, flood, pestilence, the seven-year locusts, the ice age, the
black pox and the double feature, a dozen wars and as many depressions.
They run many a gamut, are as durable as radiators, and look upon the future
with a disarming optimism. Alternately bewitched, befuddled and becalmed,
they are the stuff of which heroes are made — heroes and buffoons.
They are true offspring of Adam and Eve, victims of all the ills that flesh
is heir to. They have survived a thousand calamities by the skin of their
teeth. Here is a tribute to their indestructibility."
"Our Town" was written as Nazism and Fascism were stirring across
Europe and beginning to change the shape of the world. By the time "The
Skin of Our Teeth" was written, the world was in the midst of W.W.II.
The final scene of the play takes places on a battlefield. Many people who
were alive in those times thought the world was coming to an end. That humanity
had plummeted to depths once thought unimaginable and from which it could
never recover.
I have even heard those same sentiments expressed about our times. It's
said whenever humanity is under attack, as it always seems to be, somewhere.
"Oh, I've never forgotten for long at a time that living is struggle.
I know that every good and excellent thing in the world stands moment by
moment on the razor-edge of danger and must be fought for — whether
it's a field, or a home, or a country. All I ask is the chance to build
new worlds and God has always given us that second chance and given us voices
to guide us; and the memory of our mistakes to warn us." (from
"The Skin of Our Teeth")
Wilder's plays and books serve as understated love poems to the human race
and its dogged determination to endure and even blossom.
"Now there are some things we all know, but we don't tak'm out
and loot at'm very often. We all know that something is eternal.
And it ain't houses and it ain't names, and it ain't earth, and it ain't
even the stars... everybody knows in their bones that something is
eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest
people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and
yet you'd be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There's
something way down deep that's eternal about every human being."
(from "Our Town")
People don't tend to say those kinds of things in plays very much nowadays.
There's an almost homespun, matter-of-factness about Wilder's worldview
that is deceptively simple. To some it seems sentimental. To others dated.
And to still others, boring. But I would urge a closer hearing, with the
universal rather than the particular in mind.
When I reach back into my memory of the performances of "Our Town"
I saw when I was much younger, a few images stand out. I remember very vividly
the final act, the scene at the cemetery with the stark rows of chairs representing
graves and people representing the dead sitting in the chairs. And I remember
how I cried — and still do — when one of the dead was granted
her wish to revisit a single moment in a day when she was alive. A tragic
decision that revealed how little attention we pay to those moments when
we're alive.
In his play, Wilder himself admits that "very few people ever realize
life while they live it, every, every minute... The saints and the poets,
maybe — they do some."
I'd add: A few playwrights — they do some. I'd go so far as to
suggest that the whole point of writing a play is to pay attention to life.
This is not an original thought. I got it from a play, "Death of a
Salesman," by Arthur Miller. It comes from one of my all-time favorite
lines from the theater spoken by Linda, Willy Loman's wife, just after his
death near the end of the play:
"Attention must be paid."
It's a poignant eulogy. A call to remember his life. All life. To value
it. To find meaning in it.
From the audience's point of view, that is what the play had just done for
us. And that is what "Our Town" does for every generation that
sees it. It pays attention to the lives of each one of the inhabitants of
Grover's Corners and by extension, the lives of each one of us.
"There's something way down deep that's eternal about every human
being."
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