Dmae Roberts talks with Portland comedian, musician and Fertile Ground/Second City alum auGi and award-winning PBS writer Slash Coleman about Big Plastic Heroes– Warning: Trying to be Your Idol is Dangerous.

Hear some great stories from their monologues and auGi promises to sing live! The production is being presented as part of the Fertile Ground Festival of New Works 2012.

Set against the backdrop of two small towns in the 1980s, the show, which starts January 21st with six shows and runs through February 4, features two autobiographical solo-performances that highlight what bad things can happen when oddball teen boys try to be their action-hero idols.

Growing up in a tiny Michigan town surrounded by endless cornfields isn’t exactly the life of an action hero. auGi reveals how he and a group of oddball friends formed a fantasy commando squad with very real consequences. This funny, humbling, true-life story proves that being yourself is all the adventure you need.

Bicentennial fever finds Slash Coleman, creator of the PBS special, revealing the story of his eccentric family, his obsession with Evel Knievel, and a crush on his third-grade teacher that lands him in the hospital.

Each night also includes appearances by two Portland storytellers who will tell their own 10-minute “misplaced hero” story. Local stortytellers include: Stacey Hallal, Meg Worden, Ry Stroud, Andrew Bynum, Jimmy Radosta, Karol Collymore, Cory Huff, Meagan Kate, Penny Walter and Molly Norton.

Performance dates: Jan 21, 26, 27, 28; February 3, 4 at 7:30 pm
Venue: The Sanctuary at Sandy Plaza which is located at 1785 NE Sandy Blvd Portland, OR 97232
Tickets: $15 – $17.50; www.BigPlasticHeroes.com or call (804) 353-3799.
Limited reserved seating available. Advance tickets are recommended.

auGi – Performer/Playwright/Producer
Called “…a brilliant funnyman” by the Producer of The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn andEntertainment Tonight, auGi created, wrote, produced, and performed in hundreds of shows at both The Second City and the world famous Improv in Hollywood, was a regular feature on “The Best of the Worst” on NBC’s Last Comic Standing, and appeared on Comedy Central and E! auGi co-wrote and starred in his autobiographical solo show, SexyNurd: Rockstar Trapped in a Nurd’s Body, which played to sold-out audiences during both the 2010 Fertile Ground and Singlehandedly festivals, was a Willamette Week pick.

Slash – Performer/Playwright
WGBH Boston says, “Slash has the power to change the way people think.” Best known for his PBS special and Off-Broadway one man show, The Neon Man and Me, Slash’s most recent performances include shows at The International Storytelling Center, The National Storytelling Festival, and Pete Seeger’s Clearwater Festival. He’s also a blogger for Psychology Today and a regular contributor to Storytelling Magazine.

Coleman lived in southeast Portland from 1997 – 2001, and worked as a visual artist, an educator and a performing artist. His production company About Vision Entertainment, created with Stash Tea CEO Tom Lisicki, which produced over a dozen multidisciplinary products with ties to the city, was based in Portland until 2004. Slash currently lives in New York City where he continues to write and develop material for the stage, film and TV.

You can hear Stage & Studio on the official website: StagenStudio.com

Don't want to miss one single episode? Subscribe to Stage & Studio on iTunes!

And join us on Facebook!  

Tuesday Nov. 22nd 11am on Stage & Studio, Dmae Roberts visits with Robin Lane, the Founder and Artistic Director of Do Jump! Extremely Physical Theatre. This holiday season, Do Jump! presents their new holiday show, Ahhh HA!

Dmae will also feature a piece from Hand2Mouth ensemble member Erin Leddy, highlighting her return to Portland after touring to Seattle and New Orleans with "My Mind Is Like An Open Meadow." The show won five Portland Drammy awards including Outstanding Production of 2010-11.

Robin Lane & Do Jump!
For over one-third of a century, Founder and Artistic Director Robin Lane has led the Do Jump! "actorbats" in creating a unique blend of theatre, dance, aerial work, acrobatics, dynamic visuals and live music that defies categorization. Celebrating both individual creativity and community spirit, Do Jump! has thrilled audiences throughout North America.

Robin Lane is the recipient of the RACC Individual Artist Fellowship in Performing Arts 2010. Lane’s work is accessible to audiences of all ages -- playful, poetic and profoundly humorous, and has toured the United States and Canada for nearly three decades. She has taught generations of children and teachers acro-aerial and ensemble performance through the Do Jump! school and youth company.

Debuting in 2010 as Greatest Hits for the Holidays, Ahhh HA! has been renamed, refined and hand picked to feature in the New Victory's 2012-2013 season programming. Ahhh HA! features audience favorites from over 35-years of Do Jump!'s performance history. This Holiday Show will also feature two new guest artists, Jeff George of BodyVox-2 and Kailee McMurran of SubRosa Dance Collective.

The show runs from November 26 –January 1 @ The Echo Theatre located at 1515 SE 37th Ave in Portland. Ticket prices are: $32.00 Adults/$26.00 Seniors (62 and over)/$20.00 Youth (12 and under). The box office is open Monday-Friday 10am-4pm. Buy tickets online atdojump.org, or for more informations, contact the Box Office at 503-231-1232.

Erin Leddy - "My Mind is Like an Open Meadow"
For the last 8 years, Erin has been a Company Member of Hand2Mouth Theatre, creating, performing and touring new theatre. In 2001, she lived with her grandmother for a year and recorded her memoirs. These tapes form the bones for this solo performance: a meditation on consciousness, memory and things passed down through generations. "My Mind Is Like An Open Meadow" exists in a strange control station of the mind where stories, songs and dances appear and vanish, conveying the inner life of both Erin and her grandmother.

"My Mind Is like An Open Meadow" is directed by Hand2Mouth Artistic Director Jonathan Walters. Together Walters, Leddy and collaborators Chris Kuhl, Ash Black Bufflo, Holcombe Waller and Jane Paik craft a sonic and visual world where memory overcomes the live performance and the two realms begin to blur into an elegant mixture of lighting, pre‐recorded voice, music, dance and scenery.

It runs from December 1 - 11: Thursday - Sunday at 8pm and December 10 and 11 at 2pm at Ethos at IFCC/5340 N Interstate Ave. Tickets are $12-18. Find more information at: hand2mouththeatre.org

You can hear Stage & Studio live at the KBOO.FM or on 90.7FM live at 11am Tuesdays.

And tune into re-broadcasts of Stage & Studio at Portland's Cascade Community Radio at  Radio23.org.

Or you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes so you don’t have to miss a show.

And always browse our archive of shows at the official Stage and Studio website.

 Dmae Roberts records a personal concert with The Julians, a female genre-defying quartet. This new Portland group blends contemporary song, jazz, Indian pop tunes and classical choral music to create their own style of powerhouse singing. Go behind the scenes and hear four songs you're not likely to forget.

Kristin Buhler, Liz Bacon, Maria Karlin and Vakare Petrolinaite are four hard-working classically trained singers who regularly sing with a variety of Portland groups. For the last year, they've been rehearsing and singing their own unique sound as The Julians.

Kristin Buhler says The Julians fill a specific niche that has been "lacking" and though "the scene in Portland is so vibrant for vocal performers,they "found a parking space and parked in it."  The group is named after a  female mystic in the 14th century named Julian of Norwich in England who called for optimism and compassion in a time of turmoil.

The Julians new concert He Said, She Said explores male and female composers as "musical gender study" presenting different ideas about gender through the songs. The group will be singing music that runs the gamut from Bjork to Brahams.

He Said, She Said is for one afternoon only on Nov. 20th at 2pm at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish located at 1432 SW 13th in Portland (on the corner of SW 13th & Clay).

Get a sneak peek at their concert with Dmae as The Julians sing four of their songs and get the inside scoop on what it takes to have a unique vocal group.

You can hear Stage & Studio  live at the KBOO.FM or on 90.7FM live at 11am Tuesdays.

And tune into re-broadcasts of Stage & Studio at Portland's Cascade Community Radio at  Radio23.org.

Or you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes so you don’t have to miss a show.

And always browse our archive of shows at the official Stage and Studio website.

Dmae Roberts visits with playwright Sandra de Helen who’s receiving a reading of her play in NYC. We’ll also spotlight a community celebration of breast cancer survivors at the Worship In Pink event in the Legacy Emanuel Medical Center Atrium.

Featured music by NW musician Molly Bauchham from her new CD Maid on the Shore. Hear her music at HarperMolly.com.

Portland writer Sandra de Helen’s play Blue Roses is being featured in a reading at the Dramatists Guild of America Friday Night Footlights program in October.Blue Roses tells the story of an imagined meeting of Tennessee William’s sister and Rosemary Kennedy at a mental instititution in Missouri. Blue Roses was previously presented in the PlayLab at the Great Plains Theatre Conference and in a Portland reading directed by Matt Zrebski.

De Helen’s previous work includes TheGodmother staged as part of Fertile Ground: New Works Festival. She also performed her play Copperheads and Common Women in 2009 at CoHo Theatre Company and Fertile Ground. Her 10-minute play The Thing Is was produced by Artists Repertory Theatre. De Helen is part of the multicultural playwriting group Penplay.

Dmae also features a short piece from her documentary The Breast Cancer Monologues. To hear the whole documentary, visit MediaRites Productions store at MediaRites.org.

The we hear from Kathy Kendrix, organizer of Worship in Pink, a community celebration that takes place on Sunday, October 30,  2- 6 p.m. in the Legacy Emanuel Medical Center Atrium.

The event honors breast cancer survivors with exhibitors, booths, speakers, a reading of  The Breast Cancer Monologues by Dmae Roberts and a special performance by Sisters in Survival, a chorus of breast cancer survivors led by Julianne R. Johnson. For more information about Worship in Pink see the website,

You can hear Stage & Studio  live at the KBOO.FM or on 90.7FM live at 11am Tuesdays.

And tune into re-broadcasts of Stage & Studio at Portland’s Cascade Community Radio at  Radio23.org.

Or you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes so you don’t have to miss a show.

And always browse our archive of shows at the official Stage and Studio website.