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Pegasus Playhouse has been conducting its summer sessions at downtown Eugene’s Oregon Contemporary Theatre. This weekend, the teen version of “Chicago” will cap their time at the professional theater.
Last year, Pegasus Playhouse said goodbye to its Springfield theater space, where for years children, teens and adults took to the stage for musicals and summer camps.
That loss was caused by a trickle-down of Medicaid cuts that impacted Pegasus’ main funding source, money from the therapy business of Erin Frazier-Maskiell, the wife of theater founder Scott Frazier-Maskiell. The cutbacks meant the two could no longer afford the lease after the end of October.
But now, instead of a summer without a camp, they’ve actually upgraded their stage. This year’s camp is downtown, at Oregon Contemporary Theatre, and wraps up this weekend with the teenage campers’ version of the musical “Chicago.”
Frazier-Maskiell said the students are “intrigued” by being in the Oregon Contemporary Theatre space. Many have experience performing at The Shedd Institute or the Very Little Theatre, but OCT productions tend to have a high standard for casting.
He said that makes it an empowering experience for the young actors, particularly considering some may attend the University of Oregon in the future and could be back auditioning for an OCT show in the next few years.
“They get to have a piece of the stage, be witnessed by the staff here and the audience that will come in because we’re in this space,” said Frazier-Maskiell. “Being at OCT, let’s face it, it raised our cachet a bit. We went from losing our venue to this space is going to give us a chance and trust us.”
How a Pegasus landed on Broadway
When Pegasus started sharing last fall that it would no longer be able to afford the lease for its Springfield theater space, Oregon Contemporary Theatre’s producing artistic director, Craig Willis, reached out.
The two groups had collaborated before, in particular on a production of Larissa FastHorse’s “The Thanksgiving Play” — a social satire set in a classroom as four “terminally woke” white teaching artists struggle to present an appropriate-yet-critical “Thanksgiving play” — that Frazier-Maskiell performed in and also incorporated some younger Peggles.
Willis offered for the Peggles to use the downtown theater space for a heavily discounted rental price, at thousands of dollars less than it would take for a typical rental. Finding venues has been a sore spot for Pegasus since it lost the Springfield theater, which Frazier-Maskiell attributed to rising general costs bleeding into increased costs for specific rental venues, making the OCT offer vital.
“They really trusted us,” Frazier-Maskiell said. “That’s the thing we try to teach, trust, to the kids backstage.”
The students have now spent weeks in the theater space, practicing onstage and eating lunches in the lobby between goofing around as theater kids do (there has been talk of a joke musical, inspired by Jerry Springer-esque paternity reveal reality television, called “Who’s Your Daddy?”).
For them, it’s firsthand exposure to what a professional working theater space looks and feels like, from the theater’s “vom” passages that bring actors out right next to the seats to the maze-like backstage rooms.
For 17-year-old Bella Winston, who plays a judge and a reporter in “Chicago,” it’s a major step up from where she’s performed before, with a tiny green room where the actors were “shoved in there like a bunch of packages in a truck.”
“I’ve only done junior shows and then shows at my school, so it feels more professional doing a show in a theater that puts on big performances that go on for a while, and some people get paid for,” she said. “Even though this isn’t a show we’re getting paid for, it feels professional.”
The OCT stage itself — which is a three-quarters round thrust stage, where the audience surrounds the performers from three sides — has also been an exciting prospect for the students.
“It feels like a very intimate space,” said 18-year-old Sarah Aasheim. “The art is right in front of the audience. If you’re in the audience it’s a lot harder to zone out because you have to be present with what’s happening because it’s right in front of your face.”
OCT is not a permanent home for Pegasus productions. It’ll be renting a theater at Lane Community College in February to put on “Grease,” and are still looking for a venue for a new original work, “Beanstalk: The Musical,” which Frazier-Maskiell pitched as Jack and the Beanstalk meets “O Brother, Where Art Thou” with a cast of elementary and middle school students.
But for now, as the teens prepare to turn the theater into a black box rendition of “Chicago: Teen Edition,” OCT is a lifeline.
When asked what their summer would have looked like without the OCT offer for the summer camp, the teenage actors were quick to chime in.
“Boring,” Winston said.
How to see ‘Chicago: Teen Edition’
There will be three performances of “Chicago: Teen Edition,” at 6:30 p.m. Friday, July 31; Saturday, Aug. 1; and Sunday, Aug. 2, at the Oregon Contemporary Theatre, 194 W. Broadway, Eugene. Admission is on a pay-what-you-can scale at the theater, and donations for the nonprofit are welcome.
