37 Years of Yowww Shakespeare!!

The reunion took place on September 1st, 2006 at the Laurelhurst Club in Southeast Portland from 6 until well past 10. Around 50 former or current PAE-ers and spouses attended from all eras including at least seven members from the first five years. As one attendee, David Millstone later wrote: "There was a lot of heart in the room. A lot of shaggy good will, eccentricity, dedication, and agreeably non-professional and non-careerist--i.e., downright anti-capitalist--love of... love of... love of PLAY in the room." 

Our thanks to the Oregon Arts Commission (OAC) for their generous grant, without which we would have been hard-pressed to create this event. Also, big thanks to Kathryn Schwartz (and her husband Kevin) for organizing the reunion and lining up sponsors (Widmer Brothers beer, Pepsi and Montage Restaurant all contributed).   The evening was such a success, we plan to hold another in a few years.  We will have created 40 years of Shakespeare-in-the-Parks by 2009, perhaps it'll occur then.

Keith Scales and Neil Jackson (center) enthrall PAE latecomers with the tales of "Actors Theater Workshop," the original name of Howard Thoresen's group, which became PAE in 1975.  Apparently, Neil wants restitution for the saw that Keith broke back in 1980.  Cooler heads prevailed before a food-fight could develop. A slide show and stories were also shared by Martha Ragland, John Remington, John Monteverde, Kristy Thompson and Michael Cook.  James Lawrence included a touching tribute to Darrell Geisler, creator of PAE's battle-cry "Yow Shakespeare!" and the soul of PAE who passed away from AIDS in 1991.

Autumn Lawrence, James "Friar" Lawrence and Shannon Cook put the best face on the "Tragedy of Too Much Beer".

Here's a partial list of Attendees: Alma Jean Stuart, Bruce Chessé, Chris Brooks, Curt Hanson, James & Autumn Lawrence, Dan Ruiz Salvatura, David Loftus, David Millstone, Cynthia McGean and Sam Mowry, John and DeeDee Remington, Don Burns, John deLuca, Jeremy Lillie and Margaret Darling, John Monteverde, Kathryn and Kevin Schwartz, Keith Scales, Kelly Burns, Kenichi Hillis, Kevin N. Scott, Kristy Thompson, Linda Goertz, Martha Ragland, Michael Cook and Shannon McAllister, Michael Streeter, Neil Jackson, Nicole Turley, Patrick Scofield, Rebecca Pugh Parker, Robert Projansky, Russell Panter, Sokrates Frantzis, Stan Grenz, Stephan Henry, Tim Hill, Valerie Thibeau, and Zane Palmer and Sybil O'Leal. 

As far as an invitation list goes for future reunions, we're still building it and could still use your help.  As you can see below, we have only partial information for many of our early productions.  The people we know, we listed.  If you know of actors, directors, designers, tech crew, board members, etc. who aren't shown below, please send the corrections to Jeremy Lillie at sirjer@jps.net.  For some shows, we don't know when they were produced, so we estimated a year. I broke the first decade into 4-year chunks as there are so many repeated names.

Updated 12/11/06

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