Portland Spring and Summer Plays and Dance Performances
The Tony-winning Broadway production of Some Like It Hot is coming to the Keller Auditorium in September.
Shakespeare winds up on most theater calendars, one way or another. And his 400-and-something-year-old plays show up a few places in Portland this spring and summer: BodyVox is reworking two plays as dance, leaning into the interplay of mortality and joy; later in the season, a touring Broadway production swaps out Romeo for aughts pop jams. Outside of Shakespeare, the theme of looking back and rehashing old masterworks carries into most of the city’s programming. There’s an upcoming experimental piece that takes on Dante, another that moves Oscar Wilde into the present. Other shows look to a more recent, local past, revisiting Portland’s Black (Precipice: re-membering, forgetting, and claiming home) and queer (That’s No Lady) histories. Across the centuries, here are the shows we’re checking out in the coming seasons.
Death and Delight
May 8–17 | BodyVox Dance Center, $10–50
Billed as “high farce,” Portland theatrical dance company BodyVox’s late spring performance, Death and Delight, blends Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream into a tragicomic medley of Shakespeare-inspired choreography.
Precipice: re-membering, forgetting, and claiming home
May 16–JunE 1 | CoHo Theatre, $2–55.50 (pay what you will available)
Premiered at last year’s Vanport Mosaic Festival, this magical-realist, one-person play from Third Rail Repertory Theatre explores inheritance and legacy, both in terms of its protagonist’s family and her hometown as a third-generation Portlander. Damaris Webb stars and conceived of the play, though it was written by Chris Gonzalez.
Sheen.
May 16–23 | Open Space Creative Container, $72–108 (season subscription)
Local dance company Open Space continues its run of bringing exciting talents from across the country into its intimate performance space this May. For Sheen., choreographer and dancer Keelan Whitmore, who once danced in the Alonzo King Lines Ballet and currently works with Philadelphia’s BalletX, will stage Who Lights the Sun, a work based on the hero’s journey, alongside several numbers from Open Space.
The Importance of Being Earnest
JunE 1–29 | Portland Center Stage, $24–93
Oscar Wilde subtitled his famous satire “a trivial comedy for serious people.” Kamilah Bush, Portland Center Stage’s literary manager, seems to have followed suit with this modernization; among the show notes is an “If you like” section, listing Sense & Sensibility, Bridgerton, Saltburn, and Gossip Girl as similar titles.
That’s No Lady
June 5–28 | Sanctuary at Sandy Plaza, $20–40
Triangle Productions! is bringing back its tribute to the inimitable drag pioneer Darcelle, who died two years ago this March. “No sequin has been spared,” Lee Williams wrote in the Oregonian reviewing the 2019 premiere. This reprisal, put on by the original cast and crew, promises to glitter just as well.
Aw, Hell
June 26–July 12 | Reed College Performing Arts Building, $0–60
Dante’s Inferno is the jumping off point for the Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble’s torrid summer romp through hell. It’s about—what else?—“the messy, disgusting, offensive truth of the human condition.” Renowned clown Emily Newton joins PETE company members onstage and clown dramaturge Sascha Blocker collaborated on the production with playwright Chris Gonzalez and director Jacob Coleman. This will be quite weird, if that’s at all unclear.
On Broadway
Various dates | Keller Auditorium
Portland’s Broadway calendar picks up in the sunny months, bringing nationally touring productions to the Keller. In & Juliet (August 5–10), Shakespeare’s tragic heroine doesn’t off herself; instead, she lives her best life belting out Britney, Backstreet Boys, and NSYNC bops. Some Like It Hot (September 2–7) brings the 1959 cross-dressing Billy Wilder movie to the musical theater stage. And then the classic of modern classics, Disney’s The Lion King (September 17–28), is in town showcasing Oregonian Michael Curry’s famous puppets.
Time-Based Art Festival
Sept (precise dates TBA) | Portland Institute for Contemporary Art
Sometimes absurd, and always fun, PICA’s annual festival of experimental performance is the long-form art party of the season. Last year, it featured horror movie drag, stand-up, a postmodern play about a podcast about a murder mystery, and a petition to move the equator. Blurring divides between artist and audience, performance and just hanging out, the fest brings to town dancers, playwrights, comics, and all manner of multihyphenates from across the globe.
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