GHOSTIES! Thats the cast of How to Stop Dying. Theyre hiding.
  • Pat Moran
  • GHOSTIES! That's the cast of How to Stop Dying. They're hiding.

The Simpsons invaded Portland Playhouse in PEN/Laura Pels Award winner Anne Washburn's post-apocalyptic Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, and Thomas Ross was there to witness it. "Director Brian Weaver and the company at Portland Playhouse seem to be a perfect match for a wild, experimental playwright like Washburn... This is what you might call a play of ideas," he writes. "It's not a story. Sure, the first two acts have the trappings of narrative: There are characters and events—time passes. But it feels architectural, like preemptive footnotes or a prologue. Or just a cheat sheet for what's to come."

Something of a definitive history of Dead Kennedys' Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, Michael Stewart Foley's identically titled contribution to Bloomsbury's music-themed series, 33 1/3, provides serious insight into the San Francisco of the late-'70s that made Jello Biafra and Co.'s seminal piece of hardcore punk. "Foley tells the story of Dead Kennedys' debut album from a historian's perspective, himself an award-winning historian and professor of American history at the University of Groningen," Santi Elijah Holley writes of Foley's book. "But, far from being a dry, academic history book, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables is an absorbing look at how the turbulence of San Francisco in the late '70s was ripe for a band like Dead Kennedys."

Action/Adventure Theatre deviated from their usual serialized theater format with Noah Dunham's How to Stop Dying. It opens with a drag queen Whitney Houston doing her very best "I Will Always Love You." Also there are fog machines. And a character who's basically an Ed Hardy sweatshirt if it could talk. The play itself is an exercise in existential dread and high camp (although it gets a little bogged down by FEELINGS, I mean, as one does). My full review is here.

In The Lion at Portland Center Stage, Haley Martin watched folk musician Benjamin Sheuer sing and play guitar to share some surprisingly dark stories from his childhood. If that sounds hokey, to you, Haley writes, "Coldhearted skeptics should steer clear, but Scheuer’s undeniably touching story is a welcome reminder for many... Scheuer’s performance, while sappy at times, can offer a change in perspective if you let it."

Chris Burden, one of the OG pioneers of conceptual art, died last week at age 69. Long may he freak out art history majors in their first contemporary art classes through the recording of his genre-defining performance, "Shoot," the constraints of which had Burden shot in the arm by a friend. He survived, and went on to work in large-scale sculpture. I'll always remember seeing "Shoot" for the first time in college, and being like, okay, how is that art. But it really is!

My imaginary best friend (and maybe yours too?), Emily Heller, is just the latest stand-up to join Kill Rock Stars' growing comedy retinue. In celebration, check out her latest podcast, with guest-star Ian Karmel, here (with curtsies to Blogtown tipper Aestro).