Pamplin Media Group – Daily Life: Broadway in Portland announces 2022-23 schedule
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THURSDAY, APRIL 7
Broadway 2022-23 — Broadway in Portland, which brings Broadway plays and musicals to the Rose City, has announced its 2022-23 season.
It’s highlighted by the 10-time Tony Award-winning “Moulin Rouge! The Musical.”
Subscription renewals go on sale at 10 am April 7, and new subscriptions will be offered later this spring. Patrons can visit www.BroadwayinPortland.com to sign up for the new subscription wait list.
Shows take place at Keller Auditorium.
The lineup:
Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird,” Oct. 18-23; “Jagged Little Pill,” Nov. 15-20; “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” Jan. 4-15, 2023; “Ain’t Too Proud — The Life and Times of The Temptations,” Feb. 7-12, 2023; Lerner & Loewe’s “My Fair Lady,” Feb. 28-March 5, 2023; “Hairspray,” March 28-April 2, 2023; “Come From Away,” May 2-7, 2023 (season option).
Of course, the 2021-22 continues into August:
“Hamilton,” through April 11; “Jesus Christ Superstar,” April 20-25; “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical,” May 18-23; “Pretty Woman: The Musical,” July 28-Aug. 1.
Anniversary tour — The Doobie Brothers are celebrating 50 years as a band with an anniversary tour, and it stops at Moda Center on Sept. 24.
Tickets go on sale at 10 am Friday, April 8 at www.rosequarter.com.
The band will feature Tom Johnston, Michael McDonald, Pat Simmons and John McFee back on the road together for the first time in 25 years.
New director — Portland Baroque Orchestra has announced that David Pearson will take over as interim executive director on April 18.
Abigail McKee, outgoing executive director, moves to be president and CEO of the Britt Music and Arts Festival in Jacksonville, Oregon. She’d been executive director for five years, helping the organization navigate the retirement of longtime Artistic Director Monica Huggett and the COVID-19 pandemic and instituting digital programming and livestreaming.
Pearson has held leadership roles at The Historic Trust in Vancouver, Washington, World of Speed Motorsports Museum in Wilsonville and Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria.
The PBO board of directors will launch an executive director search later this year.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6
Haiku contest — The third annual Spring Gorge Haiku Challenge, put on by Friends of Columbia Gorge, invites nature and poetry lovers to write and share haikus illustrating what they love about the gorge, and how we all can help protect, preserve and be stewards of the area.
It’s conducted during National Poetry Month and in advance of International Haiku Poetry Day (April 17).
So, get your creative juices flowing and you can submit a haiku poem on Facebook by tagging @gorgefriends, Instagram and Twitter with tag @gorgefriends and hashtag #HaikuPoetryDay or emailing it to [email protected]all by 5 pm Thursday April 14.
Friends of Columbia Gorge staff will share their favorite haikus on International Haiku Poetry Day.
Backstreet Boys — One of the bestselling bands of all time, the Backstreet Boys hit the road again and have planned a concert in Portland, Aug. 22 at Moda Center. The tour kicks off this weekend at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
Tickets go on sale at 10 am Friday, April 8. See www.rosequarter.com.
TUESDAY, APRIL 5
New route — The Rose Festival revealed that the Grand Floral Parade will stay on the eastside of Portland rather than cut through downtown.
From the Rose Festival:
The Spirit Mountain Casino Grand Floral Parade is an all-eastside celebration this year, for the first time since the 1948 Vanport Flood forced the festival to move its signature parade. This traditional all-floral parade is unique, in that it starts indoors. Veterans Memorial Coliseum will open its curtains and let the sun shine inside this famous glass palace, as thousands of spectators enjoy the comforts of climate-controlled seating.
The parade will go outside, and onto eastbound Northeast Weidler, before turning south on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The parade will then turn off its traditional path, and go east along Lloyd Boulevard, skirting the northern edge of the Banfield Freeway and passing by the new Earl Blumenauer Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge. It will complete the procession near the Lloyd Center, in the area of Northeast 15th and Multnomah, triumphantly returning to the Lloyd District for the first time in decades.
New scholarship — Oregon Music Hall of Fame has established a new scholarship program for women in graduate school studying broadcasting, teaching, performance or music industry. It’s a $2,500 annual scholarship, and it’s named in honor of Gloria Johnson, a longtime radio personality in Portland who spent many years at KGON 92.3 FM.
She’s the first FM deejay in the United States to play a Def Leppard track, and also played Triumph, Loverboy, Men at Work, Angel City and many others before they hit it big. Johnson died in July 2019.
Each applicant must have received a bachelor’s degree from an Oregon college or university in spring 2022 and be accepted to a master’s program in fall of 2022.
Applications can be found at www.omhof.org/music-education-scholarships. Deadline to apply is May 25.
‘Pretty Woman’ — Tickets for the Broadway show “Pretty Woman: The Musical,” based on the popular movie starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, go on sale Sunday, April 10 at www.BroadwayinPortland.com.
It’ll stage May 31-June 5 at Keller Auditorium.
‘Live Wire’ — For the next stage-radio variety show, 7:30 pm Thursday, April 7 at Alberta Rose Theatre, “Live Wire with Luke Burbank” welcomes author Cecily Wong, chef Gregory Gourdet and musical project No-No Boy by Julian Saporiti.
For more: www.livewireradio.org.
Big numbers — The seventh annual Portland Winter Light Festival, which features large-scale and brilliant illuminated creations, attracted nearly 190,000 visitors, Feb. 4-12. The festival touted the attendance as part of the resurgence of downtown activity.
The survey by Willamette Light Brigade, which manages the festival, said that 14% of attendees were from out of town.
MONDAY, APRIL 4
Chimpanzee passes — The chimpanzee with the sweet demeanor at Oregon Zoo, 47-year-old Leah, died in her sleep Sunday.
She’s the chimpanzee who helped launch a decades-long friendship with renowned primatologist Jane Goodall, who first met Leah as a young chimpanzee in the mid-1970s. Goodall visited regularly, getting to know Leah and others.
Leah was one of the oldest animals at the zoo but still considered the “baby” of Portland’s very elderly chimp group, the zoo said. She is her survived by big sister Delilah, who turns 49 next month, male chimp Jackson (50) and troop leader Chloe (53).
“This is a tough loss for the entire zoo, but especially for her care staff,” said Dr. Carlos Sanchez, the zoo’s lead veterinarian. “I hope knowing that we did everything we could for Leah, and that she passed away peacefully in her sleep, is a comfort. Her remarkable age says a lot about the great care she’s received over the years.”
Last fall, as the chimpanzee group moved into their new Primate Forest home, keepers reflected on Portland’s decades-long connection to Goodall, and looked ahead to a new era of care for chimpanzees and other primates.
“Back during Leah’s first years, Dr. Goodall helped the zoo find funding for a big outdoor area to house all the chimps,” keeper Colleen Reed said.”Primate Forest is a natural outgrowth of those early developments, and we’re so grateful she got to experience it in her lifetime.”
Everclear tour — The longtime Portland-based alternative rock band Everclear has announced additions to its 30th anniversary tour.
Led by Art Alexakis, a pillar in Portland’s music community, Everclear will be touring with Fastball and The Nixons. The set list will run the gamut of the band’s career, including songs from their currently out-of print debut, 1993’s “World of Noise,” which the band has remastered and made available for digital and streaming platforms June 10.
The tour kicks off June 9 in Idaho. Unfortunately, a Portland gig doesn’t look to be on the schedule, yet.
“Three decades as a band is quite the reason for celebration,” Alexakis said. “I’m almost 60 years old. I’ve got MS. I’ve been through the ringer, but I’m still here. The music’s still here. Everclear is still here. Everclear is my band; it always has been. Its faces have changed, but the music stays the same. We’ve got a great band now, we’re tight as hell, we all love and respect each other, and we just go out and put on the best show we can every night. I’m blessed that I get to do this for a living and am truly grateful for my life.”
The band has made 11 studio albums and enjoyed mainstream success with such songs as “Father of Mine,” “I Will Buy You A New Life,” “Wonderful” and “Everything to Everyone.”
Pickathon — Tickets for the popular indie music festival at Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley go on sale at 9 am Tuesday, April 5.
See www.pickathon.com.
Pickathon returns to the woods and meadows of Pendarvis Farm for the first time since 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic caused the festival to be canceled the past two years.
Upcoming events — Some things to consider attending in the next week:
• Lindsey Buckingham, formerly of Fleetwood Mac and a successful solo artist, performs at the Aladdin Theater, April 7.
For more: www.aladdin-theater.com.
• Oregon Ballet Theater explores the mysteries of the subconscious mind with “Dreamland,” with five shows April 8-10 at Newmark Theatre. Included is the return of Matjash Mrozewski’s “The Lost Dance” and OBT premieres “In Dreams” by Trey McIntyre (with music by Roy Orbison) and “Dreamland” by former Australian Ballet star and current choreographer Danielle Rowe.
For more: www.obt.org.
• Created by Thomas Kail, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Anthony Veneziale, “Freestyle Love Supreme,” a national original hip-hop musical, stages at The Armory, starting Friday, April 8, presented by Portland Center Stage. It was the subject of the Hulu documentary “We Are Freestyle Love Supreme.” Performers take audience suggestions and spin them into instantaneous riffs and full-length musical numbers.
For more: www.pcs.org.
• Artists Repertory Theatre’s presentation of “The Children,” by Lucy Kirkwood and about climate change and one’s responsibility, opens with previews April 9 at The Armory; the regular run starts April 16 and goes through May 15.
For more: www.artistsrep.org.
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