Actor Peter Macon at OSF and Filmmaker Brian Lindstrom

In this edition of Stage & Studio Host/Producer Dmae Roberts talks with Actor Peter Macon, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. And producer Macon Reed presents a feature about Filmmaker Brian Lindstrom, the debut story in the "Pushing Boundaries" series.

Peter Macon has been acting with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival since 2008. He's portrayedOthello and his favorite role Macbeth. This season he's in The African Company Presents Richard III, but currently he's portraying Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird--the show has already been sold out for months. Macon and Roberts discuss the racial issues that the play raises. Of Tom's relationship with Mayella, the white woman Tom is accused of raping, Macon says, "by virtue of them being friends, they're breaking the law of the South in a such a profound way. But it needed to be broken." Macon also shares a bit of his family history. His great-grandfather married a white woman in Alabama and both were chased out of town on horseback. Macon describes how that history impacted his portrayal of Tom Robinson.

In the second part of the show: Filmmaker Brian Lindstrom who makes films about people he says we put an ex through: ex-cons, people with long histories of drug addiction, mental illness, and homelessness. He uses his films to start conversations because he believes that when we witness another’s story, we can become invested in their lives. Lindstrom is currently working on Alien Boy, a documentary about Jim Chasse, whose death in the custody of Portland law enforcement officers in 2006 caused an outcry about civil rights and interactions between police and the mentally ill. 

Producer Macon Reed speaks withLindstrom about Alien Boy in the debut of a new, year-long Stage and Studio series called “Pushing Boundaries,” that profiles artists and organizations pushing physical, emotional, and artistic boundaries in their work.

This series is funded by the Regional Arts and Culture Council.

Macon Reed is a graduate of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, where she studied radio documentary production. She recently came back to Oregon after traveling throughout the country with her students as a documentary instructor at the Brown Ledge Gap Year Program.

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