Adventures in Artslandia With Susannah Mars

A note from Susannah about this week’s podcast featuring Chantal DeGroat and Lily Burnett of The Color Of Now: Recent events have made it important that this podcast be broadcast immediately; it was slated for a few weeks in future. As I listened and edited, I lamented some of the lighthearted nature of it. We recorded last week before the tragic events had unfolded. Chantal DeGroat said “We can do better” during our podcast taping before I heard our president say it on Thursday, July 7th, in response to tragic events. What can we do? We can start by listening to voices like Chantal DeGroat and Lily Burnett of The Color Of Now. From there, we can make every effort to (paraphrasing Gandhi and MLK) “be the change.”

This is usually where you’d find our weekly Adventures in Artslandia podcast from Susannah Mars, but right now Susannah’s off on an adventure of her own! She’s busy playing Mrs. Lovett in Portland Opera’s Sweeney Todd, which opened last weekend and continues into this one. In this hilarious and (semi) sympathetic role, she cops a Cockney accent, sings several rollicking songs, and makes a failed attempt to woo Sweeney before meeting an untimely and violent end! Go see her! And meanwhile, don’t fret: we still have a broadcast for your eager ears! And it even still stars Susannah! Listen to Susannah and fellow cast mates in a special Sweeney Todd segment she recorded with Portland’s All Classical.

This week, Susannah speaks with Danielle Weathers from The Reading Parlor, a relaxed new play-reading series at CoHo Theater.

Triangle Productions, who certainly know their way arund a musical, have just tackled a post-911 punk-rock masterpiece: Green Day’s American Idiot. They tell Susannah Mars about updates to the story, working with young actors, and donating proceeds to Orlando.

Corey Brunish does it all—acting, directing and producing—both in Portland and on Broadway! Susannah Mars jumped at a chance to talk shop with this Portland luminary the day before The Tony Awards.

Get reacquainted with  Jane Vogel, Karla Mason Smith and  Jacklyn Maddux, all of whom are doing exciting work for AGE; Age and Gender Equality in the Arts. Learn more here ageinthearts.org

The effervescent Sarah Slipper, Artistic Director of Northwest Dance Project, has plenty of excitement to share with our host Susannah Mars. Still glowing from her company’s January debut at New York’s The Joyce the tireless A.D. and choreographer also gives us the scoop on NWDP’s annual installment of Summer Splendors: three female choreographers will be featured, herself included, and her latest muse, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, will be a theme.

Meet Mr. Todd London, a treasure in our American theater. He’s a writer, scholar, and currently the Executive Director of the University of Washington’s School of Drama. Read him, listen to him, and get inspired about what theater can do in our community and in our lives!

This week Susannah chats with Portland Center Stage Artistic Director, Chris Coleman about his creative process of adapting Peter Stark’s Astoria for the stage in advance of its world premiere at PCS in January 2017.

One of America’s oldest chamber orchestras, the Portland Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1947 by Finnish composer and conductor, Boris Sirpo, who came to Portland after leaving his war-torn native country, and the orchestra was initially composed entirely of his music students at Lewis and Clark College. Charismatic Maestro Yaakov Bergman talks about the PCO mission and thrilling future projects.