December 22, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Portland, Ore. … Actor Tobias Andersen relays the tale of the legendary Scheherazade and the 1001 Arabian nights during an evening of middle-Eastern-themed pre-and post-concert parties and classical music at the next event hosted by Soirée, the Oregon Symphony’s group for young professionals, on Monday, Jan. 23 at the Heathman Hotel and the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Corporate sponsorship for Soirée is provided by the American Express Company and Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, Attorneys at Law, with further support from Portland Monthly.
“I have considered it my mission for many years to cultivate and encourage young folk to attend performing arts events,” said Andersen, who was featured several times on the Symphony’s Nerve Endings (now Front Row Center) series. Andersen, who serves as Artistic Director of Mt. Hood Repertory Theatre’s “American Classics Festival,” is a featured artist at regional theaters around the country including the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He will set the stage for an Oregon Symphony Classical concert of music by Rimsky-Korsakov and Ravel with a dramatic retelling of the legend of Scheherazade at a pre-concert reception beginning at 6 p.m. in the Broadway Room of the Heathman Hotel. Complimentary middle-Eastern-style hors d’oeuvres and happy hour priced cocktails will be available. Soirée participants will then attend the 8 p.m. concert; the ticket price includes discounted reserved seats and an exclusive intermission party on the mezzanine with complimentary wine. After the concert, Symphony musicians will join concertgoers at a post-concert reception at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts’ Art Bar, across Main Street from the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.
“We’re thrilled to have Tobias with us for this event,” says Director of Corporate Relations Jennifer Schlobohm. “I think it’s fitting, given his longstanding interest in building a younger audience base for the performing arts, that he is returning to the Symphony via Soirée.” Soirée, designed for young professionals aged 21 to 39, includes exclusive parties, discounted concert tickets and the opportunity to meet others interested in arts and culture.
The final Soirée event of the year will take place on March 31, 2006, at a Front Row Center concert featuring four different musical versions of Shakespeare’s tale of star-crossed young love, “Romeo and Juliet.” Participants will also receive a 15% discount on concert tickets for seats in the lower balcony on Soirée event nights.
Tickets for Soirée are $44 and include admission to both pre- and post-concert parties as well as the concert itself. For more information, call (503) 228-1353 or visit the Symphony’s Web site at www.orsymphony.org/soiree.
A veteran of regional theatre, Mr. Andersen has been a resident artist with such noted companies as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, California Shakespeare Festival, Milwaukee Repertory and Playmaker’s Repertory of Chapel Hill, appearing in such diverse roles as Falstaff in “Henry IV,” Dogberry in“Much Ado About Nothing,” Gloucester in “King Lear,” Summerhays in “Misalliance,” Don Quixote in “Man of La Mancha,” Vandergelder in “Hello, Dolly” and Squire Western in “Tom Jones.”
Portland appearances include Prospero in “The Tempest,” Atticus in “To Kill a Mockingbird” Higgins in “My Fair Lady,” C.S. Lewis in “Shadowlands,” The Stage Manager in “Our Town,” Darrow in “Never the Sinner,” Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol,” Cardinal Richelieu in “The Three Musketeers,” Shamreyev in “The Seagull,” Charlie in “Seascape,” Jim in “Tales of the Lost Formicans,” (“Drammy” award) and Mr. Gardiner in “Pride and Prejudice.”
Mr. Andersen serves as Artistic Director of Mt. Hood Repertory Theatre’s “American Classics Festival,” where he has directed “Born Yesterday,” “Huckleberry Finn” and “You Can't Take It With You,” as well as portraying Drummond in “Inherit The Wind” and Walter Burns in “The Front Page.” He recently recreated, for the Portland Public Libraries’ “Everybody Reads” program, the role of Fire Captain Beatty, which he originated in the first (Los Angeles) stage production of Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451.” He has also collaborated with Mr. Bradbury on “The Illustrated Man,” a one-man play based on the author’s short stories.
He has been a frequent performer with the Oregon Symphony’s “Nerve Endings” concerts, appearing as Josef Stalin in “Musical Expressions of Political Outrage,” Freud in“Sigmund Freud and the Dreams of Gustav Mahler,” Beethoven in “Anatomy of the Fifth” and most recently as the Lecturer in the Verdi “Defiant Requiem” on PBS.
Hollywood years include featured roles on such TV classics as “Little House on the Prairie,” “Newhart,” “Roseanne,” “Knot’s Landing” and “Bonanza.” Andersen’s most recent network appearance was as Chicago Sun-Times editor, Dean Evans, in the Ann Landers bio film “Take My Advice.”
