PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC GOES
The People’s Republic of Portland took Portland
by storm when it debuted at Portland Center
Stage in 2013, playing for sold-out crowds
in an extended run. The formula — PCS
commissioned Lauren Weedman to explore
the city and use her adventures as fodder to
develop a partly scripted, partly improvised
one-woman show offering an outsider’s take
on our fair city — worked so well that other
companies immediately clamored to get
Weedman’s take on their own cities.
First up was our neighbor to the east, for a show
tenderly titled, Boise, You Don’t Look a Day Over
149. Weedman was already well-loved in Boise,
where her shows Bust (also produced at PCS in
2011) and No, You Shut Up were among Boise
Contemporary Theatre’s biggest hits to date. In
September 2013, BCT brought her to town for a
stripped down, but equally hilarious, version of
The People’s Republic. Weedman had less time
to develop a script in Boise, so she used her
daily experiences to mold the improvisation for
each evening performance that followed. Boise
Weekly reported that she had the audience in
“stomach-clutching guffaws” with her tales of
the Boise State Broncos, Psychic Sheila and the
Western Idaho Fair. The show was so popular,
she was asked to reprise it with new material
the following year, this time called Blame it
on Boise.
In 2014, Weedman continued her eastward trek
to New Mexico for Good for You, Albuquerque at
the Revolutions Theater Festival. For this show,
she sized up the city in search of a better place
to raise her child and an antidote for a midlife
crisis. Her visits took her to a thrift store to
discuss racial tension, the Palms Trading
Company to ask a Native American jeweler
about dealing with tourists and the Self-Serve
Sex Store to try her hand at dominatrix training
(where she determined Albuquerque had some
very tough women). While she was enjoying
the Land of Enchantment — including “being
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ANSCONTINENTA
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able to breathe” — the very first season of the
HBO series Looking had its premiere, featuring
Weedman as Doris.
Weedman then made her way to the east coast
to investigate Philadelphia, the city she initially
thought “well-adjusted artists and adults who
didn’t need to be overly ambitious o ȃ