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A Portland-based theater company wants to liven up your next day trip to Oregon’s capitol.
Northwest Theatre Workshop’s latest play Detours: A Walking Theatrical Event puts a comedic spin on educational walking tours. Running July 26–27 in Salem, the roughly 90-minute roving performance at Willamette University kicks off Theatre 33’s Summer Festival of New Work. NWTW is an artist-driven, artist-run theater company based in Portland that works to empower local playwrights.
“The show itself is all over the map—certainly all over the campus,” says Brad Bolchunos, a playwright and NWTW’s media contact. “There’s definitely a touch of absurdity. One really operative word of this whole show is zany, wacky show.”
Detours follows—literally and figuratively—two tour guides whose personal lives and the area around them are unveiled through vignettes on Willamette’s campus, creating six shows in one.
“It’s like a Russian doll of shows,” actor and playwright Zella Selvoy-Devan says.
With the fourth wall gone (and all walls, really), audience members become an interactive part of the show, speaking directly and offering advice to actors. The concept for Detours originated from producer aCiji Guerin, NWTW’s artistic director, in collaboration with Elizabeth Rothan, a resident artist with Theatre 33. The produciton involves roughly 30 individuals total, with 21 actors and six playwrights.
Bolchunos says Detour’s production process began in March, following in the footsteps of NWTW’s previous summer production, Fragments. In the early weeks, six playwrights created their own original vignettes (some involving music and puppetry) and met to integrate the plays into a succinct production.
“It’s exciting to me to witness a show coming together that makes the most of the talent of all these people,” Bolchunos says. “Put on your walking shoes because it’s a beautiful campus.”
SEE IT: Detours: A Walking Theatrical Event at Willamette University Campus’s Pelton Theatre Building, 900 State St., Salem, 503-370-6300, nwtw.org . 2 pm, 2:15 pm, 7 pm and 7:15 pm Saturday, July 26, and 11 am, 11:15 am, 4 pm and 4:15 pm Sunday, July 27. $12 suggested donation.
