Saturday, February 4th:
Opening Night Reception | Post-Show
Join us immediately following the performance for nibbles, drinks and music. Catering provided by 2017 Season Partner Pambiche.
Morrison Lobby
Sunday, February 5th:
COMMUNITY EVENT: Know Your Neighbors: A Conversation with Local Veterans about Service, War and Coming Home | 12:00pm
Mat Chat with the cast of Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue | Post-show
Thursday, February 9th:
Professor Daniel Pollack-Pelzner: Family, History, Cooking, and Music: Quiara Alegría Hudes’s Stage Stew* | 6:55pm
Daniel recently interviewed Quiara for The New Yorker about the ingredients that go into her daring, funny, heartbreaking plays, drawn from her family’s Puerto Rican-Jewish heritage, her Philadelphia barrio, and her music training at Yale. As Profile Theatre starts her Pulitzer-winning Elliot Trilogy, Daniel will share what makes Quiara one of the most exciting, innovative, and community-minded playwrights working today.
Daniel Pollack-Pelzner holds the Ronni Lacroute Chair in Shakespeare Studies at Linfield College, where he teaches courses in literary history, drama, and gender studies. A Portland native, he received his B.A. in History from Yale and his Ph.D. in English from Harvard. His articles on Shakespeare and contemporary culture have recently appeared in The New Yorker, Slate, and The New York Times. A frequent speaker at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, he is the scholar-in-residence at the Portland Shakespeare Project and a consulting scholar for Age and Gender Equity in the Arts.
Morrison Lobby
Friday, February 10th:
Sean Davis: A Baroque Soldier | 6:55pm
The Baroque is often thought of as a period of artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, and grandeur. This is how Mr. Davis tells his war stories. He says “Let’s talk about war and it’s affects on us as individuals, a society, and a nation.”
Sean Davis has fought in a revolution, a war, and helped save lives in New Orleans during Katrina. He is the author of The Wax Bullet War, a Purple Heart Iraq War veteran, and a community leader in Northeast Portland, Oregon. He is the winner of the Legionnaire of the Year Award from the American Legion in 2015 and the recipient of the Emily Gottfried Emerging Leader, Human Rights award from the city of Portland, 2016. His stories, essays, and articles have appeared on Sixty Minutes, Story Corps, Human the Movie, and much more.
Morrison Lobby
Saturday, February 11th:
Madilynn Garcia: Protests to Pulitzers: A Look at Latinix theatre* | 6:55pm
Madilynn Garcia is a native Texan and greatly enjoying her transition to Portland. After studying at UT Austin, she did a Residency at Oregon Shakespeare Festival before moving to Portland. In addition to her work as a freelance production manager, she coordinates the Gateway Program for USITT which seeks to expand opportunities for under-represented designers and technicians in the industry. She’s passionate about Latinx theatre, new plays and promoting diversity (on stage and off) in theatre.
Morrison Lobby
Sunday, February 12th:
Mat Chat with the cast of Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue | Post-show
Wednesday, February 15th:
Jenny Ampersand, Costume Designer for Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue | 6:55pm
Designer Jenny Ampersand shares her process and the inspirations for her designs on this production, including her original conversations with the director, collaboration with other designers and extensive research into specific combat uniforms and how they were and are worn.
Morrison Lobby
Thursday, February 16th:
Michinobu “Mitch” Iimori: Storytelling Through Musical Structure | 6:55pm
Mr. Imori, the flute coach on this production, will discuss musical fugues, major and minor keys and the other aspects of musical structure and theory that are woven into Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue, not just as part of the story of the characters, but fundamental to the way that very story is told.
Mr. Imori is a graduate of the famed Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY in oboe performance, but teaches and performs all the woodwind instruments as well as guitar, banjo (5st, 4st), mandolin, and anything else. Locally, he has performed with Oregon Symphony, Third Angle Contemporary Music Ensemble, Salem Chamber Orchestra, numerous local musicals, and playing banjo with Molly Bloom. He has been an adjunct private music instructor at Lewis & Clark College, Corban College, George Fox University, Univeristy of Portland and Multnomah Arts Center as well as maintaining his own studio.
Morrison Lobby
Friday, February 17th:
Sean Davis: A Baroque Soldier | 6:55pm
The Baroque is often thought of as a period of artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, and grandeur. This is how Mr. Davis tells his war stories. He says “Let’s talk about war and it’s affects on us as individuals, a society, and a nation.”
Sean Davis has fought in a revolution, a war, and helped save lives in New Orleans during Katrina. He is the author of The Wax Bullet War, a Purple Heart Iraq War veteran, and a community leader in Northeast Portland, Oregon. He is the winner of the Legionnaire of the Year Award from the American Legion in 2015 and the recipient of the Emily Gottfried Emerging Leader, Human Rights award from the city of Portland, 2016. His stories, essays, and articles have appeared on Sixty Minutes, Story Corps, Human the Movie, and much more.
Morrison Lobby
Saturday, February 18th:
Professor Roy Perez: Elliott, War, and Latina/o Theater* | 6:55pm
Elliott, A Soldier’s Fugue begins a trilogy about life after war for the Ortiz family. Maybe this is why it sets the most somber tone of the three plays: before we can watch Elliott and his extended family, especially the women, start to heal and thrive, we need to understand how deeply the roots of numerous wars reach into the lives of generations of Latinos and Latinas in the U.S. Indeed, Puerto Rican men and women have served disproportionately in battle since WWII. In this short dialogue before the show, we’ll talk about the legacy of Puerto Rican men and women serving in the U.S. military in order to provide some historical context for the story. But we’ll also talk about the ways in which Elliott, A Soldier’s Fugue transcends some of the conventions of Latina/o theater and uses a history of tragedy to envision new avenues for recovery, family, and artistry.
Roy Pérez is an assistant professor of English at Willamette University. His research and teaching concentrate on literature, art, and performance by Latinas and Latinos in the U.S. He has published numerous poems, essays, and a short film, and is currently working on a book about relationships among Latina/o, Indigenous, and Asian American artists in the U.S., titled Proximities. He lives in Portland, Oregon
(*): These In Dialogue events are one aspect of Profile’s commitment to engaging with our community in conversations about equity, diversity and inclusion, and are a part of our Diversity and Inclusion Initiative.
To see past In Dialogue Events, go here.
