Portland State Magazine Spring 2014

SPRING 2014 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE 9 New Works MY BEST TEACHERS: FATHER TIME AND MOTHER NATURE By Robert Bresky, Outskirts Press, 2014 MOTOWN SUITE Music CD by Nichole Cooper ’10, Violet Fire Records, 2013 FINAL ROUND AT THE FEEDING GROUND By R. Alex Emter ’89, Amazon Digital Services, 2013 THE DUST PAN GIRL By James Fox ’89, Amazon Digital Services, 2013 ROLLER DERBY FOR BEGINNERS By Frisky Sour (Kelley Gardiner ’02), CreateSpace, 2013 ASK THE ANCIENTS: ASTONISHING ADVICE FOR DAILY DILEMMAS By Sylvia Gray ’88, MA ’91, Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 2014 BECAUSE…I AM By Gloria Ngezaho ’08, MA ’12, Wasteland Press, 2014 WE BELONG IN HISTORY: WRITING WITH WILLIAM STAFFORD By PSU Ooligan Press, 2013 CONVERSATIONS WITH KEN KESEY Edited by Scott F. Parker MS ’09, University Press of Mississippi, 2014 UTTERLY HEARTLESS By Jan Underwood MA ’98, CreateSpace, 2013 THE UNEXPECTED Music CD by Liv Warfield (attended in 2000), Kobalt, 2014 F A N F A R E ROSS SELIGMAN spent 17 weeks on Broadway in the musical A Night with Janis Joplin —a fact he finds ironic since he got there from Portland rather than his New Jersey hometown just an hour away. The PSU alumnus was the show’s musical director and was on stage most nights playing electric guitar with Joplin soundalike Mary Bridget Davies. On February 9, he turned in his hippy threads and longhair wig when the show closed after its successful run at the Lyceum Theatre. “Considering the hundreds of people who performed on that stage—it was an honor to work where they worked,” says Selig- man ’07, who first started playing with the show when it was at Portland Center Stage. Written and directed by Randy Johnson, One Night with Janis Joplin premiered in Portland in 2011 and then traveled for the next two years before hitting Broadway. Seligman and his actress wife, Leah Yorkston, who graduated from PSU in 2006, are still in New York. She is taking classes from seasoned professionals and auditioning for musical theater and commercial roles. He hopes to bring his behind-the-scenes expertise to another musical. They plan to return to Portland later this year unless one of them scores a musical role that just rocks.  Rockin’ on Broadway