Xmas time

Our Christmas shows have opened! Come and check them out!

big weekend

After opening a month ago, we got our liquor license and had our first weekend with plenty o' bar sales. It's nice to have almost everything in place, especially something like that (which will help us raise the money to get everything in place).


The Liberators kicked off their rental this weekend (Friday nights at 9:30) bringing with them the School Of Rock. Both the School of Rock and the Liberators had great shows for an awesome crowd. Thank you very much to both groups! (this is the crowd of over a hundred people, taken by my camera phone in a dark room)

Getting cozy

Somebody is becoming more and more comfortable at the theater. We finally got a way up to the mezzanine that ISN'T an ugly ladder. I'll post pictures of it soon.

Election Viewing Party

We held an election viewing party on Tuesday night and the energy inside our space could have powered Las Vegas twenty times over. We had a lot of press and a good amount of people sitting and watching with anticipation. Thank you to everyone who came out to watch and celebrate history being made. I didn't get many good pictures of the event (as you can see) Better event pictures can be seen here Curious Comedy Theater website Blog
but I did get a few the day after, while cleaning up.

Halloween Weekend

So far, our crowds are were a little light - but the shows were great.
Stephanie had a showing of a different show she's in at a different theater, so Kathryn (assistant director) stepped in to play her parts and did a GREAT job. We were a little loosey-goosey with the scenes, which made it more fun for both us performers AND the audience (I hope). The Sam Adams musical was also a lot of fun - with the cast performing in costumes, but not forcing the costumes to influence their characters. It was an excellent show.
We still have another showing of both Will Work For Change and Sam Adams, Sam Adams Mayor Ex Machina tonight - as well as Sometimes Toilet Water on Sunday at 2pm and POP! at 7:30. Catch POP! while you can, because it's gone in two weeks!

Hot off the Internet Presses

LivePDX.com has done a story/article on us.
Check it out here:
Curious Comedy Theater Debuts

Thanks LIVEPDX.com It looks great!

Wow

You said it, theater... Thanks for being so great.
We had a terrific turnout for our Free Night Of Theater weekend - and less than 30% of the audience that attended claimed their tickets from FNOT, so we are happy to report the word of our theater is getting out. Thanks to everyone who visited our theater this weekend. Please, tell your friends!

the shows

The word is getting out there. We had a great turn out for all our shows Friday and Saturday night. While the shows are going through some slight changes (as they always will) they are still doing well.

We will be going into process for the new sketch show, or new material for the current show. We figure we'll have more time to focus on the material this time around (as we won't be building a theater around us while we rehearse). I'll appreciate having the time to write and rehearse new material. I'm looking forward to the focus it takes.

Classes

Our first round of Improv classes (or class, seeing as how there's just one) is in full swing. We've got a great group of people learning improv in the theater we built. It's a good feeling. The class is great!

ups and downs

It was a good and strange weekend at the Curious Theater. Friday night we had a good size crowd and a great energy for the sketch show. It was Stacey's first show as Shelley's understudy - and she knocked it out of the park. Good show all around.
The Musical has had three of the eight cast members fall sick and/or injured at the same time, so it was the first time doing the show with five people. It worked well, but it was certainly MORE work with fewer people.
Saturday we had a dip in audience members, which caused the energy to lag a bit. We in the sketch show felt the dip and tried our best to make it work... but that's what it felt like (for the first time): WORK.
The musical did a great job on Saturday night (now with six cast members!) They took some risks and did different things which boosted their energy and the audiences enthusiasm - plus, they put on one heck of a Spy-Musical!

On Sunday night, POP! had a great crowd and the cast got through 29.5 of the 30 plays. We had to one play (one of the longest) before it was finished due to time. The cast did an amazing job keeping the energy up through the entire sixty minutes and the audience was right there with them the whole time!

Weekend 3

We had our first Cheap Date night last night. Stacey and Bri did a two-person improv set which went really well. 5 minutes into it we had two audience members walk in... but that's it. We did free shows for two strangers and the rest of the cast. It was still a fun night.
I hope this weekend brings people!

Curious Debut Cheap Date (Longform Improv Night)

Thursday October 16th, Curious Comedy Theater presents
CHEAP DATE $5 for not one, but two longform teams.
Dopamine featuring: Bri Pruett, Nate Smith, Nathan Loveless, Stacey Hallal and Manuel Hall
&
Swingers featuring: Betse Green, Bill Cernansky, Stacey Hallal and Bob Ladewig
Come out to the Theater tonight and see some quality longform improv at 7:30pm. Doors open and 7. There will be food, drinks & plenty of laughter!

daytime pictures

There seems to be a big difference (with my camera phone anyway) between pictures taken during the day and those taken at night... so here are some taken of our space during the day.
The cabaret style seating.
The stage during the day.
Our front windows along MLK.
The front door sign (from the inside).
The curtains at our front doors.

If you haven't yet come by the theater and seen this place with your own eyes, I encourage you to do so. It is one heck of a beautiful building which we're thankful and lucky to have designed and built... and it feels good just hanging out in there.

Grand Opening Recap

What a great turnout and weekend for our Grand Opening. We started things off Friday morning with our new back flat Jeffrey built for us. We had a borrowed black flat for our previous weekend - so it had to be painted... and early, giving it time to dry before the show at 7:30 that night.
From there we had some floors to vacuum and tables to set... Thanks to Stacey's folks John and Lorna for all their hard work helping us get the place ready for our Friday night shows!
We also got some Floor Mics, but the mics we purchased weren't in, so the place loaned us some rentals for our Grand Opening Weekend.
After that my Dad showed up and helped us get our lights in working order. (apparently we got our ceiling fans hung without putting the bulbs in).
Soon enough we were ready to open our doors...

The sketch show (Will Work For Change) and our musical (Sam Adams! Sam Adams! Mayor Ex Machina!) both went really well Friday night. We had a full house and everyone was ready to show them what we have been working on so hard for so long.
Saturday night we had even more people in the house (we had to add tables) and felt more comfortable with the shows and got to play around with them while performing. It was a lot of fun to play around with each other while on stage... it's good to be at that point in a show.

Sunday was a little rougher. We didn't get a crowd for our 2pm Kids show Sometimes Toilet Water - so the cast used our time wisely and went out to flyer the Alberta neighborhood to let people know about our shows and theater.
And Pop! had another small crowd, but they were into it - and the cast got through 29 of the 30 scenes. Thanks to all our audiences and everyone's hard work getting this theater up and running. We hope we'll be able to be around for a long, long time!

Grand Opening Weekend!

We have spent this week putting finishing touches on everything around the space to prepare for our GRAND OPENING TONIGHT!
We even got two of these installed:
The place is really shaping up nicely.

Even Arlo has been practicing his one-dog show!

Line up this weekend:
Friday / Saturday 7:30 - sketch show - Will Work For Change
Friday / Saturday 9:30 - improvised musical - Sam Adams, Sam Adams: Mayor Ex Machina
Sunday 2:00 pm - kids show - Sometimes Toilet Water
Sunday 7:30 pm - Pop! - 30 plays in 60 minutes!

On Saturday, between the shows (from 9 to 9:30 pm) the Portland Cello Project will be playing. Be sure to come out this weekend!

Our First Review!

Already out from our soft opening, we've got a review and a "Just GO!" rating:
Just Out online magazine

Keep the reviews coming!

Hard to believe

Three months ago

Last month

Over this weekend

Are you ready?

view from the tech booth.

Thanks to everyone who came out to our "soft opening". We're 93% There right now, so we've got 7% to finish for our grand opening next weekend! Maybe we can get some sleep after that???

The Stage!

The curtain rod / pole has been build (thanks Tom!) and the stage curtains have been hung (thanks Jeffrey & Kathryn!). Today is the day we open our doors to the public.
There is still a little work to be done, but hopefully we'll get it 100% completed by our GRAND OPENING next weekend.
We got lights! (thanks Chris and Seth!)
It's both incredible and a relief to finally come to our (soft) opening day.

Window Curtains

Tom had to design a different kind of rod to hang our curtains. It works great and looks pretty darn amazing, too.

We also finished the floor (seems like I keep saying that)
But, we don't know what type of entry-way door plastic cap thing we're going to be using, so we had to keep it this way Looks good, right?