PORTLAND ACTORS CONSERVATORY ANNOUNCES
20th ANNIVERSARY - THE 2005 CONSERVATORY SEASON

The Portland Actors Conservatory is now celebrating 20 yearsof providing quality arts programming to the community.  This significant anniversary provides the opportunity for PAC to highlight its many accomplishments, recognize and reward many of our graduates through their participation in this season, and celebrate our sheer determination and hard work.  This year is also a homecoming for PAC alumni who will participate in most of the plays produced. 

The casts of the three shows will primarily feature members of the Conservatory Program, PAC’s Professional Actor Training Program:  Lauren Bair, Deborah Blume, Michael Chambers, Jane Hamilton, Gilberto Martin del Campo, Rosalie Miller, Christina Reynolds, Nalita Sebring, and James Tincher.  The large cast of Our Town will provide many PAC alumni the opportunity to revisit their training ground, which will thrill audience members who remember them from earlier days.

Season subscriptions to the Portland Actors Conservatory Season of Plays are available at the following rates:  $44 for Previews, $50 for Thursday nights and Sunday matinees, or $60 for Friday or Saturday night performances.  Subscription orders may be made by calling (503) 274-1717 or by fax at (503) 274-0511.  Single tickets are also available.

PICNIC
by William Inge
Directed by Beth Harper

We begin our 20th Anniversary celebration with a revival of the first play PAC produced as a conservatory.  Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Critics Circle Award, Picnictakes place in the joint back yards of two middle aged, small town Kansas women.  Both have been deserted by their husbands.  Enter the drifter, and the sexually charged play begins.

"What can you do with the love you feel?  Where is there you can take it?” 
- William Inge, Picnic

Award-winning Artistic Director Beth Harper will direct Picnic.  She directed the critically acclaimed Drawer Boy with William Hurt at Artists Repertory Theatre.  Last spring she also appeared with Peter Paige (former PAC teacher now starring in Queer as Folk on HBO) in the film Donut Hole.  Ms. Harper has performed locally, nationally, and internationally and was a recipient of the Leslie O. Fulton Fellowship for Artistic Achievement from the Portland Civic Theatre Guild.

Professional guest artist Maureen Porter, PAC Graduate (Class of 1994), will reprise her critically acclaimed role as Rosemary in Picnic.  Ms. Porter is now an equity actress working both in Portland and New York City as a member of the well-known Queen’s Company.  She was seen recently in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Portland Centre Stage.

Previews February 16,17
February 18,19,24,25,26,27, March 3,4,5,6
Wednesdays & Thursdays 7:00 pm; Fridays & Saturdays 8:00 pm; Sundays 2:00 pm
Single Ticket Prices: $12 Previews, $15 Thursday & Sunday; $20 Friday & Saturday

DEFYING GRAVITY
by Jane Anderson
Directed by Connor Kerns

“A clever and uplifting fantasy” (N.Y. Times), this play features seven fictional characters, among them a school teacher, a NASA ground crew worker, and the impressionist painter Claude Monet.  They create a poignant montage of hope and faith, the thirst for knowledge and experience, and the worth of our dreams measured against the risks and the costs of reaching for them.

“I always dreamed of seeing the earth from high above.  Not just a bird’s eye view, but God’s view.  And when I died, that was the last thing I had on my mind.”
- Jane Anderson, Defying Gravity

Guest directors this season include Connor Kerns, who will be directing Defying Gravity.  Mr. Kerns has been teaching at Portland Actors Conservatory for 15 years and is the Artistic Director of Quintessance Theatre.

Previews April 13,14
April 15,16,21,22,23,24,28,29,30, May 1
Wednesdays & Thursdays 7:00 pm; Fridays & Saturdays 8:00 pm; Sundays 2:00 pm
Single Ticket Prices: $12 Previews, $15 Thursday & Sunday; $20 Friday & Saturday

OUR TOWN
by Thornton Wilder
Directed by Jane Bement Geesman

Lauded as the greatest American play ever written, Pulitzer Prize winner Our Town illuminates the simple events of human life by finding value, above all, in the smallest of moments we call every day life.  It embraces memory and identity, family and community, the now life and the after life – in other words, the entire universe and beyond.  And yet its action is as simple as taking a breath.

“Some people ain’t made for small town life. I don’t know how that’ll end; but there’s nothing we can do but leave it alone.”
- Thornton Wilder, Our Town

San Francisco director Jane Bement Geesman will be helming Our Town.  Ms. Bement Geesman taught at PAC prior to her move to San Francisco where she has established a successful career as a director. 

Previews June 8,9
June 10,11,16,17,18,19,23,24,25,26
Wednesdays & Thursdays 7:00 pm; Fridays & Saturdays 8:00 pm; Sundays 2:00 pm
Single Ticket Prices: $12 Previews, $15 Thursday & Sunday; $20 Friday & Saturday