AN EVENING OF CONVERSATION WITH THREE PORTLAND PERFORMERS
HOST NORA ROBERTSON WITH ADRIENNE FLAGG, LINDA AUSTIN, AND BETH HARPER
The New Oregon Interview Series brought three prominent Portland performance figures together for an evening of intimate conversation. IFCC creative director and actor/director Adrienne Flagg, Performance Works Northwest founder/director and dancer Linda Austin, and Portland Actors Conservatory founder/artistic director and actor Beth Harper sat down to discuss their work and how our performance culture is evolving on September 30th at Urban Grind East. A Drammy winner who trained in NY’s New Actors Workshop, Adrienne Flagg has directed for TCP, Stark Raving Theatre and Integrity Productions and can be seen in the sketch comedy group, Soap St. A presenter at PS 122, the Kitchen, and Danspace Project during two decades in NY before returning to her native Oregon, Linda Austin has performed at Northwest New Works at both On the Boards and as part of PICA’s TBA Festival as well as at Velocity (Seattle), Conduit and the Echo Theatre. Austin’s collaboration with Seth Nehil, Bandage a Knife, premieres November 13-22 at her home studio, Performance Works NorthWest. A Leslie O. Fulton Fellow for Artistic Excellence, Beth Harper directed William Hurt in Drawer Boy at the Artists Repertory Theater and has toured with Arts America.
Host Nora Robertson conceived the New Oregon Interview Series to find out how Portland’s blossoming creative culture has developed and where it’s headed. “A lot has changed in the past decade,” Robertson says. “The best perspective comes from the artists themselves—and the designers, writers, chefs, and venues who make things happen here.” “A lot has changed in the past decade,” Robertson says. “The best perspective comes from the artists themselves—and the designers, writers, chefs, and venues who make things happen here.” The Oregonian's Barry Johnson remarked "at this point, we don't know whether we're headed back where we left off 18 months ago or whether we're going somewhere completely new. That question is at the center of the New Oregon Interview Series."
Audiences can sit in and join the discussions at eight live events, all slated for the last week of each month at Urban Grind East, near NE 20th Ave. and Sandy Boulevard. Over forty interviews will be published in a printed anthology; some are currently available online. The series presents its book night on Wednesday, August 26th, at Urban Grind East, 2214 NE Oregon St., from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m., doors open at 6:00 pm. Beer, wine, coffee, and light snacks will be available for purchase. $5 admission. Letterpress artist and bookmaker Clare Carpenter of Tiger Food Press will also discuss her work creating a limited-edition letterpress broadside based on the interviews.
The New Oregon Interview Series is presented by New Oregon Arts and Letters, a 501c(3) nonprofit organization formerly known as 2GQ, the publishers of 2 Gyrlz Quarterly.
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As the Creative Director of the IFCC, Adrienne Flagg facilitates artistic programming, and develops arts education and artistic partnerships for the IFCC. She is the Artistic Director of The Portland Theatre Brigade and is the former Artistic Director of Toad City Productions. Adrienne trained in New York at SUNY Purchase and the New Actors Workshop with Gene Hackman, Paul Sills, Mike Nichols and Elaine May. In addition to directing many young people’s plays throughout the Northwest and developing new work with playwrights, Adrienne has directed for TCP, Stark Raving Theatre and Integrity Productions. Some of her favorite Portland performances include the lead in The Choice (Stark Raving), Cat in References to Salvador Dali… (Miracle Theatre), Cynthia in The Real Inspector Hound, Jingle Spree (CoHo), Izzy in Rabbit Hole (ART) and the lead in The Waiting Room (Bump in the Road) for which she was awarded a Drammy for best actress in a lead role. She can currently be seen in the sketch comedy group, Soap St.
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Linda Austin returned to her native Oregon in 1998, after two decades in New York, where, from 1983 to 1998, she presented work at venues such as PS 122 and the Danspace Project. In 1999, Linda founded Performance Works NorthWest, an artist-run incubator for live and media arts in Portland, OR. In the last few years, she has performed at Northwest New Works at On the Boards in Seattle and at PICA’s TBA Festival in Portland, where she and Tahni Holt danced their solo adaptations of Deborah Hay’s Room in 2006. Recent Portland projects include an architecturally-defined simultaneous three-part dance in a SE Portland warehouse; as well as a site-specific piece for the Lawrence Halprin-designed Lovejoy Fountain. Her next project, Bandage a Knife, a collaboration with Seth Nehil, premieres Nov. 13-22 at Performance Works NW.
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Beth founded the Portland Actors Conservatory in 1985. As the Conservatory’s Artistic Director, she designs the curriculum for both the Studio and Conservatory training programs, teaches several acting classes, selects the season of plays, and directs one of the season's productions. In addition to leading the Conservatory, Ms. Harper has served as an adjunct faculty member at Lewis & Clark College since 1992. An award-winning actor, Ms. Harper has been involved in local, regional and national theatre for the past 20 years. She has toured Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East with Arts America, and performed in a Northwest tour of Voice of the Oregon Trail. Area directing credits include Drawer Boy featuring William Hurt and Allan Nause at Artists Repertory Theatre, A Piece of My Heart and The Dancers at Lewis & Clark College, Sylvia at Laughing Horse Summer Theatre, and How I Learned to Drive at Artists Repertory Theatre. Ms. Harper did her graduate work in theatre at Portland State University and was a recipient of the 2000 Leslie O. Fulton Fellowship for Artistic Excellence.
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