Winter theatergoers in Portland want a play that’s windproof, water-resistant, downy-warm yet featherlight and never bunches up.
What better fit than “It’s Not All About Me: The Gert Boyle Story,” Triangle Productions’ new stage biography of the beloved and tough-as-hard-packed-snow head of Columbia Sportswear?
It’s one of 11 winter winners coming to local stages.
From an iconic female figure to an underappreciated one: In “In Clay,” Broadway Rose Theatre Company introduces us to Marie-Berthe Cazin, the unwavering French ceramicist who fought to be seen and heard in the early 20th century.
Jump into one of three road trips driving winter programming: “Racecar Racecar Racecar” at Artists Repertory Theatre; “The Body’s Midnight” from fledgling company 100 Lives Repertory; and Dorothy’s Yellow Brick Road trip in “The Wiz” via Broadway in Portland.
Wind down winter with “A Mirror,” Third Rail Repertory Theatre’s bracing satire reflecting censorship run amok. And pop into a puppeted parody of a treasured children’s program that would never make it past the Standards and Practices team at PBS (“Avenue Q”; Stumptown Stages).
“Macbeth” — Experience Theatre Project
Experience Theatre Project keeps the creepy vibe flowing since its sold-out fall production, “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.”
Untraditionally immersive, the Aloha-company’s new interpretation of the Bard’s macabre chiller unfurls around you. The audience will be situated in the black heart of this swirling cauldron of ambition, madness, murder and ferocious micro-managing by Macbeth’s better half.
Haunting melodies from 1990s “Creep”-sters Radiohead will, fittingly, “hover through the fog and filthy air.” A trio of musicians, including company founder Alisa Stewart on keyboard, perform songs by the band for an eerie post-Jacobean, pre-Grunge soundscape.
Jan. 16-Feb. 22, 18850 S.W. Alexander St., Aloha; experiencetheatreproject.org.
“The Play That Goes Wrong” — Portland Center Stage (a co-production with Seattle Rep)
Props fly, sets fall, lines are flubbed, cues are missed and a corpse refuses to stay still long enough to be pronounced dead in this freewheeling send-up of whodunnits and local theater. A crackling British import, “The Play That Goes Wrong” asks the question, “Does the show really have to go on?”
Like the classic British 1982 physical comedy “Noises Off,” this 2012 behind-the-curtain concoction revels in going off the rails as backstage and on-stage mishaps pile up into an avalanche of hilarity.
You can’t help but root for the scrappy Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society players as they attempt to mount a complex murder mystery. (So sadly underfunded, the fictional troupe was forced to neuter its summer musical from “Cats” to “Cat.”)
Farce? Sure. As PCS races to fundraise $9 million by June to continue operating, you could also be watching a comedic cautionary tale.
Jan. 18-Feb. 15, U.S. Bank Main Stage at the Armory, 128 N.W. 11th Ave.; pcs.org.
“In Clay” — Broadway Rose Theatre Company
Nowhere is it written in stone that musicals must have multiple — or even two — actors.
That one actor can spin a sweeping story — performing all its distinct characters, and nail 11 musical numbers — well, that’s definitely written “In Clay.”
Malia Tippets, who kicked up her heels in “Footloose,” earned deserved “Hallelujahs” for “Nunsense” both for Broadway Rose and killed as the title character in “Carrie” for Stumptown Stages, portrays French ceramicist Marie-Berthe Cazin in this solo musical memoir. Tippets sculpts the artist’s harrowing, humbling and humor-tinged journey through World War I and after. Cazin continually faced systemized sexism in the art world, including from her husband who assigned his name to her beautiful pottery.
Jazz-shaded songs (standouts: “Talent” and “See-through”) punctuate Rebecca Simmonds’ script, evoking place, era and the artist’s dreams and determination.
Jan. 22-Feb. 15, Broadway Rose Theatre New Stage, 12850 S.W. Grant Ave., Tigard; broadwayrose.org.
“Tiger Style!” — Profile Theatre
Third-generation Chinese American siblings Albert and Jennifer Chen are the overachieving cubs of fierce “tiger parents.” (That’s the term author Amy Chua coined to describe a rigid style of Chinese parenting focusing on academic performance and music, and less on nurturing, self-esteem and … fun.)
But their highly accelerated, highly assimilated lives have left the pair feeling empty inside — and they’re roaring mad. Mad enough to finally confront their mother and father.
The familial fur flies as Mike Lew’s cross-cultural comedy takes aim at contemporary Asian stereotypes. Lew lived what he wrote. The son of successful physicians, Lew shocked his strict parents when he swerved from medical school to playwriting.
Bonus: The play also includes a road trip — via airplane, that is — to Shenzhen, China.
Jan. 22-Feb. 8, The Ellyn Bye Studio at The Armory, 128 N.W. 11th Ave.; profiletheatre.org.
“It’s Not All About Me: The Gert Boyle Story” — Triangle Productions
In Oregon in the 1980s, there was no question who the toughest mother in fashion was: Gert Boyle, the matriarch of Columbia Sportswear. In one of the Portland-based company’s “One Tough Mother” print ads, she rolled up her sleeve, flexed her bicep and flaunted her “Born to Nag” tattoo while peering over thick-rimmed spectacles. In TV spots, she put her son Tim through various and hilarious endurance tests to prove the durability of the company’s clothing. (My favorite was the one where she runs over Tim with a Zamboni. His Columbia jacket keeps him warm and cozy under the ice.)
Boyle died in 2019 at the age of 95. In Boyle’s obituary for The Oregonian/OregonLive, columnist Steve Duin wrote: “Boyle is survived by her son, Tim, and two daughters, Sally Bany and Kathy Deggendorfer; her younger sister, Eva Labby; five grandchildren; the 5,300 employees at Columbia Sportswear, and one star-struck Zamboni.”
Just as he did with drag queen extraordinaire Darcelle/Walter Cole, Triangle Productions founder Don Horn has conceived a biographical play for another Oregon legend. Painstakingly researched and carefully cast, Horn’s stage biographies have proven to be some of his best original works. For “It’s Not All About Me: The Gert Boyle Story,” Horn worked with Kerry Tymchuk, the Boyle Family Executive Director of the Oregon Historical Society and co-author of Boyle’s autobiography “One Tough Mother: Taking Charge in Life, Business, and Apple Pies.”
Horn’s play, like its subject, is no-nonsense, no frills: An interviewer (played by former KATU-TV anchor and reporter Paula Gunness) conducts a Q&A with Boyle (Wendy Westerwelle), who recounts her rags-to-bestselling sportswear story.
Jan. 29-Feb. 14, The Sanctuary at Sandy Plaza, 1785 N.E. Sandy Blvd.; trianglepro.org.
“Racecar Racecar Racecar” — Artists Repertory Theatre
She may not embrace the serial comma, as evidenced by her unpunctuated, triple word title – but playwright Kallan Dana absolutely embraces weirdness. It’s expected and probably inherited: She’s from Portland. She also digs word games. “Racecar Racecar Racecar” — a repeated palindrome — is a road-trip story riding the shoulder of reality.
Yes, it’s one of those plays reviewers have and will describe as “challenging” for audiences. It features characters without names, including the two principals known only as “Dad” and “Daughter.” The pair travels from New York to California and then back, bumping into other loosely identified characters who utter cryptic messages pointing back to an earlier journey Dad and Daughter embarked upon but forgot.
So did our travelers unwittingly cross into a multidimensional plane? Or veer off-road into a time-jumping wormhole? Go ahead and try to untangle what’s real from what’s surreal. Or just sit back in the lobby theater of ART’s developing Morrison Street complex and enjoy the trippy ride.
Feb. 3-March 1, Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 S.W. Morrison St.; artistsrep.org.
“The Wiz” — Broadway in Portland
May monkeys chase you across the Burnside Bridge if you if you think “The Wiz” exists in the same Oz as “Wicked.” Even before “Wicked” dropped a house on the conventional storytelling of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” this 1974 all-Black stage musical provided a fresh take on L. Frank Baum’s famous fable.
The wonderfully soulful score for “The Wiz” is Broadway by way of Motown. “Ease on Down the Road” and “Home” have become beloved first and second act showstoppers, respectively.
Comedian/writer Amber Ruffin, part of the team of Black creatives enlisted for this 2024 Broadway reboot, streamlined the plot and sketched out backstories for Dorothy’s trio of travelers, the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion. Jazz infuses the score now; the set design features African art: and JaQuel Knight, who crafted footwork for Beyonce’s videos and world tours, came up with energized, acrobatic choreography that defies genres and often gravity.
Feb. 3-8, Keller Auditorium, 222 S.W. Clay St.; portland.broadway.com.
“The Body’s Midnight” — 100 Lives Repertory
“There’s a new theater company in the Portland area,” is a phrase that hasn’t been spoken nearly enough in the past few years. The chaos of the COVID pandemic and its economic aftereffects wouldn’t seem fertile grounds for incubating fresh arts organizations or entrepreneurs.
Situated in the black box Spotlight Theatre in Southeast Portland, brave newcomer 100 Lives Repertory launched its inaugural season this past fall with the steamy look at extramarital lovers, “Orange Flower Water.”
Now that they’ve got theatergoers’ attention, company founders Annie Kehoe, Blaine Palmer and Brooke Totman present a tender, bittersweet but equally emotively raw road trip.
We join 50-something couple Anne (Sharonlee McLean) and David (Palmer) en route to Minnesota from California to see their daughter Katie, and soon-to-be born grandchild. Because they’re witty banterists, their journey is a joyride — but increasingly, Anne misses beats in their conversation and fumbles for her words.
Tira Palmquist’s cozy car tale literally falls into the lane 100 Lives has carved out for itself in its mission to bring “character driven-plays … centered on the craft of acting and the work of women artists over 40” to its intimate stage.
Feb. 6-March 1, Spotlight Theatre, 1123 S.E. Market St.; 100livesrep.org/ofw.
“Geography of a Horse Dreamer” — Imago Theatre
“True West” and “Fool for Love” may jockey for the lead as Sam Shepard’s best known, most-performed plays (with “A Lie of the Mind” swerving in on the outside lane) so this noir-ish 1974 crime tale is the playwright’s dark horse.
The terrifically pulpy plot revolves around Cody, a psychic cowboy, shackled to a bed by thugs squeezing him for horserace winners. Things veer off-track when Cody suddenly loses his power to pick ponies. Imago’s remounting rescues a thrilling thoroughbred of a work sadly stabled for far too long.
Feb. 13-March 1, Imago Theatre, 17 S.E. Eighth Ave.; imagotheatre.com.
“A Mirror” — Third Rail Repertory Theatre
For her dystopian satire, playwright Sam Holcroft conjures a corrupt and censorious government fixed on stamping out artists who criticize it. It’s a wily fusion of George Orwell’s “1984” and maybe, now? (Just substitute late-night TV talk-show hosts in lieu of the playwrights outlawed in Holcroft’s fictional country.)
Holcroft slams her metaphorical mirror down with comic force. “A Mirror” opens with a frantic wedding taking place —but the blessed event masks the production of a banned play. Switcheroos and surprises continually come at you making for an
intriguingly elliptical theatergoing experience.
Feb. 27-March 15, Third Rail Repertory at CoHo Theatre, 2257 N.W. Raleigh St.; thirdrailrep.org.
“Avenue Q” —Stumptown Stages
Finding descriptors for this 2004 Tony Award-winner for Best Musical is as easy as ABC: Adult, Bawdy and Children under 13 should probably hang back because they won’t get a lot of the humor.
The title locale is a low-rent New York City neighborhood where potty-mouthed puppets and human people daffily coexist. (Imagine “Sesame Street” before its genteel gentrification.)
Jeff Whitty of Coos Bay dreamed up the witty dialogue for both the flesh and fabric characters (nimble actors often double as puppeteers in “Avenue Q”).
Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez (co-composer of Disney’s “Frozen”) penned the score featuring songs with surprising relevance, including “What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?” and “There Is Life Outside Your Apartment.” Other numbers are uproariously unambiguous: “I’m Not Wearing Underwear Today” and “The Internet Is for Porn.”
Naughty nature aside, you can’t say the struggles and friendships in this puppet show aren’t deeply felt.
March 13-April 12, Brunish Theatre, 1111 S.W. Broadway; www.portland5.com/brunish-theatre/events/avenue-q.
— Lee Williams, for The Oregonian/OregonLive