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Recent posts

Wendy Willis's Winter Reading List

December 13 2012

Wendy Willis, author of Blood Sisters of the Republic, has an ambitious winter reading list: “On my nightstand are the beautiful books of two friends—Kim Stafford’s 100 Tricks... More

Jewel Lansing's Favorite Place to Read

December 11 2012

Jewel Lansing, coauthor with Fred Leeson of Multnomah: The Tumultuous Story of Oregon’s Most Populous County, says, “My favorite place to read is an overstuffed chair overlooking... More

James Bernard Frost on Dan DeWeese

December 10 2012

James Bernard Frost, author of A Very Minor Prophet, confesses: “My current man crush is on Dan DeWeese, whose short story collection Disorder recently hit bookstores. No one writes... More

Lois Leveen on Reading Alice Munro

December 07 2012

Lois Leveen, author of TThe Secrets of Mary Bowser, says this of her winter reading plans:

“During dark December I’ll be curling up with Alice Munro’s new book, Dear Life:... More

Happiness Project Lifts Off in La Grande

December 06 2012
Eloise Holland

After participating in Oregon Humanities’ Idea Lab Summer Institute, high school senior Lauren Babcock wondered how people in her community would measure their own... More

Kim Stafford on Michael Chabon

December 05 2012

We asked Kim Stafford, author of several books including 100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do (Trinity University Press) and this recent essay in Oregon Humanities magazine, which book he... More

Theater as an Act of Communion

June 03 2011

The act of gathering together to worship is nothing new. Sometimes that worship takes the form of praising a higher power. Sometimes it takes the form of humans role-playing the... More

Getting to Know Our Places

May 27 2011

In Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, desire path is defined as “the route people have chosen to take across an open place, marking a human pattern upon a... More

The Secret of Life

May 23 2011

In Roald Dahl’s short story “The Hitch-Hiker,” the title character is coy about his line of work, initially telling the narrator only that he is in a skilled trade. “The... More

Tireless Poetry Traveler

May 19 2011

Paulann Petersen, Oregon’s poet laureate, has been on the road for nearly two weeks, traversing the state in an effort to visit as many communities during her tenure as possible.... More

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The Oregon Humanities Blog

Observations from our staff and colleagues.

Theater as an Act of Communion

The act of gathering together to worship is nothing new. Sometimes that worship takes the form of praising a higher power. Sometimes it takes the form of humans role-playing the lives of other humans. Portland Playhouse in northeast Portland is melding the ideas of worship, community, and shared humanity into an energizing and intimate experience.

Housed in a former church, the Portland Playhouse just wrapped up a forty-show run of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. They originally scheduled twenty performances, which sold out so fast they doubled the run. The theater held talk back sessions (supported in part by a Public Programs Grant from Oregon Humanities), during which the audience discussed the play with the actors, achieving powerful results.

Other plays this season addressed Abu Ghraib (Dying City) and how American society deals with the severely disabled (Telethon). Portland Playhouse also works with local alumni of Portland Center Stage’s JAW: A Playwrights Festival. This is community theater in its best sense. What plays have you seen this season that you’ve loved?

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03 June 2011 | Community Grants
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