Quick list of ASL interpreted performances

2023-24 season Theatrical signed performances

A quick list of signed performance dates for the 2023-24 theater season. Check back for updates, as new plays, concerts, readings, and so on...

Monday, March 17, 2014

Portland Center Stage 2014-15 Season Announcement

Last month Portland Center Stage announced their 2014-15 season lineup in a special event. The interpreted performance dates are not yet available, but below is the season to give you a preview. The season ranges from newly written world premieres to classics, musicals and comedies and dramas, and the ever popular Christmas shows -Santaland Diaries and a return this season's Second City's Twist Your Dickens. We will let you know as soon as the interpreted performance dates are set and when you can purchase season tickets.

There are three more interpreted performances this season at PCS - mark you calendars!
- April 24th will be "Othello", as well as the matinee performance on May 1st (currently sold out), interpreted by Rich Hall, Dot Hearn, Carolyn Brockway.
- May 15th will be "The Last Five Years," interpreted by KT Corlett and Jayodin Thompson.
- June 12th will be "Lizzie the Musical," interpreted by Dot Hearn and Dana Walls.

The PCS 2014-15 season will be:

Dreamgirls
Music by Henry Krieger
Book and Lyrics by Tom Eyen
September 20 – November 2, 2014

This groundbreaking musical, loosely based on the career of The Supremes, takes you to a revolutionary time in American music history when rhythm and blues blended with other styles of popular music and created a new American sound—Motown. In the ‘60s, three friends form The Dreamettes and get their big break at an amateur competition, and begin singing backup vocals for a major star. As their own fame grows, however, things begin to spin out of control when their agent’s business maneuvers trump their friendship, and fortune and success take them down a path of heartbreak and turmoil. Over two decades The Dreams, as they become known, learn hard lessons about love, trust and the changing tastes of the American public. 

Winner of 6 Tony Awards, including Best Book of a Musical.


The Typographer’s Dream
By Adam Bock
October 4 – November 16, 2014

A Stenographer, a Geographer, and a Typographer want to share what they do for a living. In their presentations, variably energetic and dispassionate, focused and distracted, it becomes clear that these three may not be strangers … but what is their relationship? What seems to be a simple panel discussion becomes something “funny, provocative, psychologically revealing, intellectually stimulating and thoroughly enjoyable” (San Francisco Chronicle). From the author of The Receptionist and A Small Fire, The Typographer’s Dream is a “smart, hilarious and thoroughly unexpected treat.”


The Second City’s A Christmas Carol: Twist Your Dickens
By Peter Gwinn and Bobby Mort
November 22 – December 24, 2014

Back for a second year of unpredictable mayhem! This complete send-up of the holiday classic, fully festooned with the improvisational genius behind the legendary comedy troupe The Second City, is never the same show twice! Scrooge, Tiny Tim and those know-it-all ghosts find themselves hopelessly mixed up in zany holiday sketches with anachronistic characters, uproarious improv and an ever-changing stable of drop-in local celebrity guests. Updates for 2014, and the audience’s input, means this show changes with every performance and will be a fresh experience for the new season.



The Santaland Diaries
By David Sedaris
Adapted for the stage by Joe Mantello
November 23 – December 28, 2014

Based on the outlandish and true chronicles of David Sedaris’ experience as Crumpet the Elf in Macy’s Santaland display, this hilarious cult classic features comic encounters during the height of the holiday crunch. Portland favorite Darius Pierce returns as Crumpet! Reserve your tickets early—this show consistently sells out.


Mojada
By Luis Alfaro
January 10 – February 8, 2015

“Stunning! Spellbinding! A Triumph!” Chicago Sun-Times

Following the dream for a better life, a family risks the dangers of illegal immigration to leave Mexico for Chicago. But adapting to a new life in America and escaping a past filled with betrayal is hard for Medea, even while husband Jason is succeeding—dangerously so. As Medea struggles to adapt to a new culture and fights to keep her family from splitting apart, the intense love she feels for her husband and child fuels desires that are destined for tragedy. Playwright Alfaro’s stunning modern take on the Euripides classic tackles immigration, family, tradition, mysticism and the explosive moment when they all collide.


Threesome
By Yussef El Guindi
A World Premiere
January 24 – March 8, 2015

Leila and Rashid attempt to solve their relationship issues by inviting a relative stranger into their bedroom to engage in a threesome. What begins as a hilariously awkward evening soon becomes an experience fraught with secrets and tension, raising issues of sexism, possession and independence. El Guindi’s play Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World was the winner of the prestigious Steinberg/American Theater Critics Association’s New Play Award in 2012, and he is also the recipient of the 2010 Middle East America Distinguished Playwright Award. Threesome was a JAW selection in the summer of 2013.


Other Desert Cities
By Jon Robin Baitz
February 21 – March 22, 2015

"All family reunions should be this satisfying… The Best New Play on Broadway!"
Ben Brantley, The New York Times

Polly and Lyman Wyeth are a quintessential California success story. Well-connected politically, comfortable financially, and enjoying their retirement years in Palm Springs, where they can still move in the Republican, old Hollywood social circle of their working years. So what if Polly’s sister and former screenwriting partner is a just-out-of-rehab liberal, and their grown children are also ideological opposites from their parents? Well, families accept these differences, don’t they? But then the Wyeth’s children join them for the holidays, and daughter Brooke announces to her family that she is about to publish a memoir dredging up a pivotal event in the family's history that they would prefer stayed buried. This time, a line is drawn in the desert sands that neither side may be ready to cross. 

From the award-winning playwright (Substance of Fire) and creator of the hit television series “Brothers and Sisters.”


The People’s Republic of Portland
By Lauren Weedman
March 21 – April 19, 2015

Return engagement after a 9-week sold out, hit run in the spring of 2013!

Portland is garnering lots of attention lately—for our leadership in sustainability; for our food scene; for being, well, weird. And now we’ve caught the attention of writer/actor Lauren Weedman. In the few months she spent here in the spring of 2011 performing her play BUST, Lauren’s imagination was captured by all things Portland. And so we asked her to write a play. About Portland. How will this former Daily Show faux-spondent treat us? What does Portland look like through Weedman’s unique lens? Are we brave enough to find out? Lauren is currently a co-star on the new HBO hit series Looking, but returns to Portland for this limited run.

Cyrano
By Edmond Rostand
Translated by Michael Hollinger
Adapted by Michael Hollinger and Aaron Posner
April 4 – May 3, 2015

The romantic comedy classic Cyrano de Bergerac, in a fresh translation and adaptation by Michael Hollinger (Opus) and Aaron Posner (Sometimes a Great Notion, The Chosen). Set in 17th century France, Cyrano tells the story of a great swordsman with a beautiful soul, who is handicapped by a huge nose that makes him believe he is incapable of being loved by the beautiful Roxane.  When he learns that Roxane and a handsome young soldier named Christian are infatuated with each other, he writes beautiful love letters for her suitor that lead to a tragic love triangle. Filled with swordplay and wordplay, Cyrano is beloved for its affirmation of love, friendship, and the power of a well-developed sense of humor.


The Lion
Written and performed by Benjamin Scheuer
May 2 – June 14, 2015

One man, six guitars, and a true story of love, loss, family loyalty and the redemptive power of music. Direct from an award-winning run at the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, writer/performer Benjamin Scheuer (winner of the ASCAP Cole Porter Award for songwriting) shares his gripping coming-of-age tale. Directed by Sean Daniels, whose work has been seen at The Kennedy Center and Actor's Theatre of Louisville, The Lion is a candid, poignant, charming offering from a next-generation troubadour.


Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike
By Christopher Durang
Winner of the 2013 Tony Award for Best Play
May 23 – June 21, 2015

Vanya and his stepsister Sonia (where have we heard those names before?) have only known their family’s farmhouse as home; they’ve lived here their entire lives. Sister Masha, however, lives the glamorous life of a famous movie star, traipsing around the globe and living her life in gossip magazines. When Masha descends upon the family home, her boy toy Spike in tow, the dire predictions of cleaning woman Cassandra (ring a bell?) may be about to come true. In this hysterical mash up of Chekhov's four major plays with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Ingmar Bergman, The Beatles, The Oresteia and even a little Maggie Smith thrown in, “you’re likely to find plenty to make you laugh even if you’ve never read a word of Chekhov” (The New York Times).


All titles subject to change.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

"Spoon River Project" interpreted 3/15 at PCC Sylvania

REMINDER

Portland Community College presents
an interpreted performance of

The Spoon River Project



Saturday, March 15 at 7:30 pm
PCC Sylvania Performing Arts Center Theater (PAC)  
12000 SW 49th Ave., Portland, OR 97219

Tickets $10 general, $8 students & staff; available at the door


In this beautifully haunting play based on Edgar Lee Masters'Spoon River Anthology, the former residents of the small but complex town of Spoon River examine their lives and longings for who they were and what might have been.
As the citizens reflect on the dreams, secrets, and regrets of their lives, they paint a gritty and honest portrait of the town as their pasts are illuminated.Coupled together with beautiful songs of the late 19th century, and costumes of the period, this production will take audiences back to a simpler time and place, but the complexities of the human heart are revealed to have been just as mysterious, beautiful and engaging.
Often compared to Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, this American masterpiece is an Oregon premiere!
Please join us for this exciting, thoughtful and moving theatrical experience.Directed by Guest Director Julie Akers, Vocal and Music Direction by PCC Instructor Julianne Johnson-Weiss.

Friday, March 14, 2014

'Sign Mudras' by Jayanthi Raman Dance Company

Beaverton Mayor Doyle to grace the performance of 'Sign Mudras' by Jayanthi Raman Dance Company



Sign Mudras


Saturday March 22nd & Sunday March 23rd at 4:00 pm  

FREE for all, welcome. Suitable for all ages.

'Sign Mudras' is experimental Dance Theater using indian dance and American Sign Language for story telling.

Jayanthi Raman, Ramya Raman & Natya dancers
With special guest: Dot Hearn, ASL Interpreter.





Concert items:
1. Navarasa Kalinga Nardanam: Dance of Krishna by Jayanthi & Ramya Raman featuring live music performance by Violinist EB Jayaprakash and Mridangist-drummer B. Vijayan.
2. Madhurashtakam by 10 students of Natya
3. 'Seasons' - contemporary modern dance with traditional grounding performed to original music score by Vidwan Ganesh Rajagopalan by Jayanthi Raman & Ramya Raman.

All pieces choreographed by award winning choreographer/performer and recent Arts Leadership award recipient from Beaverton Arts Commission, Jayanthi Raman, assisted by Fulbright scholar Ramya Raman.

Funded in part by Community Program Grant from Beaverton Arts Commission.
The new program is funded by the non profit Beaverton Arts and Culture Foundation.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

"A Small Fire" Interpreted 3/13 at PCS

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Portland Center Stage presents
an interpreted performance of

Written by Adam Bock
Directed by Rose Riordan

DATE & TIME: March 13, 2014 at 7:30 pm
LOCATION: Portland Center Stage, The Armory, 128 NW 11th Ave, Portland, OR. On the main stage.
TICKETS: order online and use promo code SIGN for tickets at the right price, right section, right date; or call the box office at 503-445-3700
INTERPRETERS: Rich Hall and Cheryl Witters
SIGN COACH: Irene Jazowick

SUMMARY:
A Small Fire follows John and Emily Bridges, a long-married couple whose happy, middle-class lives are upended when Emily is overcome by a mysterious disease. As this indomitable woman’s senses are slowly stripped away—smell, taste, sight—she finds herself suddenly and completely dependent on the husband whose endless devotions she had always taken for granted, and their lives transform in ways neither could have imagined.

The show runs 90 minutes with no intermission.

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from a review by Richard Wattenburg in The Oregonian [02 Mar 2014]

A Small Fire Follows a Family’s Struggle With a Strange Isolating Disorder

“Adam Bock’s A Small Fire, currently appearing at Portland Center Stage, might be a small play but it asks some pretty big questions…this lean, spare drama explores the nature of life, love, and human connection — big subjects indeed.”

“Directed by PCS associate artistic director Rose Riordan, who also directed the PCS productions of The Thugs and The Receptionist, the play’s four-member cast works wonderfully well together.

Peggy J. Scott ably portrays Emily’s fiery feistiness and her irascibility, and yet even from the start she allows us to see that beneath the crusty exterior there is a woman, who in her own way really means well. As Emily’s disabilities reduce her to helplessness, some of the abrasive edge that is predominant early on gives way to a reluctant patience and finally at play’s end to something approaching a subdued ecstasy.

Scott’s Emily is nicely complemented by Tom Bloom’s John Bridges. Bloom’s Tom is low-keyed, even tempered. His movements are restrained, thoughtful, and deliberate, and he speaks with an unruffled easy rhythm. Sure, occasionally he allows us a glimpse of a tortured grimace but only when no one else on stage could possibly detect his dismay. As Billy, Emily’s construction company employee, Isaac Lamb gives us a good-hearted teddy bear of a man, and Holleye Gilbert, as John and Emily’s daughter Jenny, very ably conveys the frustrated deep-seated ambivalence she feels toward her mother — a woman who could never offer Jenny the tenderness she so desperately sought.”
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Monday, March 3, 2014

free performance: Sign Mudras, March 22 & 23

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Mark your calendars: 
Sign Mudras: March 22nd & 23rd 
www.jayanthiraman.com 

Sign Mudras: Experimental Dance Theater of Indian classical dance and American Sign Language.


Saturday 22 & Sunday 23 March 2014 at 4:00 pm
Beaverton City Library Auditorium 
Jayanthi Raman, Ramya Raman & Natya dancers 
With special guest: Dot Hearn, ASL Interpreter. 

FREE for all, Welcome.

Funded in part by Community Program Grant from Beaverton Arts Commission. The new program is funded by the non profit Beaverton Arts and Culture Foundation.
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