Gossip should have no friends

[April 16th, 2008]

• PLATEGATE: Was there a china sale at Macy’s? The Portland Tribune reported on Monday that Just Out columnist Floyd Slaver was hit in the face with a plate flung by Mic Matarrese (playing Stanley Kowalski) at the opening night performance of Artists Rep’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire. But the ceramics weren’t flying just there. An audience member was struck the following evening during Northwest Classical Theatre’s production of Timon of Athens by a plate hurled by Elizabeth Young (Timon). Who says there’s no risk in contemporary theater?

• AIR PDX: What’s the exchange rate for glowing global press coverage to PR value these days? Well, if you convert it to American dollars, a super-sized, 25-plus-page editorial spread on Portland in the most recent issue of Hong Kong-based travel publication Airport Magazine (for affluent Chinese business travelers) equals about $146,957 worth of paid magazine advertising. Wow. According to Travel Portland, the mega-sized article by former Portlander Nora Yu, both in English and Chinese, was kick-started by a connection at Mayor Tom Potter’s office. No word if descriptions of Portland’s various nightlife activities—strip clubs, brew pubs and drag queen-filled cocktail joints—got lost in the translation.

• THERON’S THRONE: Looks like Charlize Theron ’s about to become an honorary Oregon citizen. As first reported on Wwire—and confirmed by the Oregon Film and Video Office—2929 Entertainment, producers of The Burning Plain, which stars Theron and was shot earlier this year in both Portland and Depoe Bay, will bring Theron back here to star with Viggo Mortensen in the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road. They’ll be filming in the northern Oregon Coast area this May. According to Amazon.com, The Road is set in “a post-apocalyptic blight of gray skies that drizzle ash.” Yep, sounds like Oregon.

• MORE GOOD SAMS: Tyler Wiese, the bartender at North Portland gay bar Eagle Portland who broke both his legs in a domestic disturbance and was found lying in the middle of North Campbell Street by City Commish Sam Adams (WWire, April 3, “Sam Adams, Candidate, Commissioner…Hero?”), got a little more support last Sunday as the Oregon Bears and Boys of Leather, as well as various other individuals and community groups, held a fundraiser at the Eagle to help out their injured friend. According to bar manager Leo Wink, the party raised $2,600 in four hours to help with Wiese’s rent and to finance the building of a temporary wheelchair ramp at his residence.

• SMOOTH MOVE: As first reported Monday on wweek.com, BodyVox, a local modern dance company with an international following, will be moving its HQ from its cramped space above the BridgePort Brewing Company to the more spacious Corberry Press Building at Northwest Northrup Street and 17th Avenue. BodyVox, which is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary and has a new show at the Newmark called Horizontal Leanings, running May 1-4, will have the opportunity to grow into new digs that are said to have plenty of space to invite other arty organizations to join in on its fun. Not only is BodyVox on the move, but so is film director Gus Van Sant, who also has digs above BridgePort.