What do you get when two artists walk into a bar?

Likewise.

The floor-to-ceiling curtains conceal one of the city's most outlandish business establishments by day. But by night, they part to reveal a set of stadium bleachers facing the street and a bar that is as much an art project as a business endeavor, complete with the nation’s first ‘Bartender in Residency’ program.

But how did owners Nancy Prior and Adam Moser go about converting a dive bar into a one-of-a-kind Portland hangout?

Read our story:

What has four fingers, a yellow face, and is totally evil?

Montgomery Burns, of course.

But after twenty-six excellent years as America’s most laughably despicable super villain, Mr. Burns’ character is facing a big shakeup. Harry Shearer, the voice of Mr. Burns (as well as Ned Flanders, Principal Skinner, and others) announced this week that he’s leaving "The Simpsons."

It’s a sad day for Simpsons’ fans – but the ripples go far beyond TV. Shearer’s portrayal of Mr. Burns was so iconic that it even played a role in the development of a play. It’s called “Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play,” and you can find it onstage at Portland Playhouse this spring. Though the play draws its title from "The Simpsons," the show’s comedic namesake is outweighed by the attention it gives to darker subject matter.

The show starts with a group of friends around a campfire. They’re hanging out, drinking beers, and trying to remember the details of a Simpsons episode called Cape Feare. It’s utterly pedestrian – until an unexpected noise in the background prompts the cast to draw guns and knives.

“The conceit of the play,” says director Brian Weaver, “is that it’s a post-electric world.”

Post-electric and post-apocalyptic. Somehow, and the playwright leaves it to her audience to fill in the blanks, 99% of the human population has died off. With no one left to man the nuclear power plants, they’ve all melted down, making electricity a thing of the past. So humanity – or what’s left of it anyway – is back to good old-fashioned flint and tinder (and not the ‘swipe right’ kind). They make fires, and they do what humans have pretty much always done around the fire: they tell stories.

“It’s a play about how we use stories,” says playwright Anne Washburn, “how we use stories to divert us, how we use stories to comfort us, how we use stories to explain things to us, how we use stories to talk about things which it’s too frightening to speak about directly.”

Read our full story: www.opb.org/radio/programs/state-of-wonder/article/portland-playhouse-takes-on-the-simpsons-and-the-apocalypse/

Ready for some new? Here comes an hour of creative horsepower.

1:17 - "Grimm" stars Sasha Roiz and Silas Weir Mitchell on their stage turn with PCS's "Three Days of Rain."

7:25 - Just when we'd had our fill of post-apocalyptica, here comes Portland Playhouse with "Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play." It's an absurd send-up of the form, where "The Simpsons" have become the stuff of myth and legend, written by former Oregonian Anne Washburn.

12:33 - Likewise, a fab new bar with bleachers for seating, serves up perhaps the first-ever bartender-in-residency program, inviting local artists to mix cocktails and creativity. Plus, one menu item includes shutting down the bar and driving to the coast for a seafood dinner.

24:45 - 1939 Ensemble expands to a trio and bowls us over with its new record.

31:44 - Summer reading recommendations from Paisley's librarian.

34:54 - Celebrated author Kazuo Ishiguro ("The Remains of the Day" and "The Buried Giant," released in March) from the Portland Arts & Lectures Archive Project.

43:22 - KMHD talks with Portland jazz legend Thara Memory about the Pacific Crest Jazz Orchestra, one of the ensembles in his American Music Program, who just took home the grand prize at the Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition in New York City — not to mention made Wynton Marsalis cry.

Youth orchestra dazzles New York audience; Thara Memory talks to KMHD about the big night.

Silas Weir Mitchell and Sasha Roiz chat with April about their roles in "Three Days of Rain" at Portland Center Stage. Production info over here: http://www.pcs.org/threedays/
They've also got a few observations about Grimm's Season Four finale... listen up!

April chats up Jose Medelles and David Coniglio. With John Thomas, they are 1939 Ensemble. Their style? Jazz goes to a party with avant-garde, raises a glass with funk and Latin. The new record is "Black Diamond Pearl". Watch for the opbmusic Studio Session soon.

Los Porteños - a Latino writers' collective from metro Portland - is about to present works in response to two guiding stars of the poetry world - Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez and Oregon's William Stafford. We talked with four members of the group, as they share some work, and thoughts on call-and-response. Info on their Tuesday night reading can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/oe6vvy3

In 2010, a series of videos started appearing on YouTube called "The Haunting of Sunshine Girl." They were DIY, Blair Witch-style episodes following a charismatic 16-year-old who wanted to prove the existence of ghosts to her mom. Consider it "Paranormal Activity" meets "Gilmore Girls."

With no promotion whatsoever, the first few episodes quickly wracked up five million views. The series now has had more than 140 million views, making Sunshine Girl one of the most successful YouTube stars in the Northwest.

And all this has been accomplished by a mother-daughter duo and a producer friend with a flip cam.

Now the actor behind sunshine girl, Paige McKenzie, has a YA book out and a TV deal with the Weinstein company. She'll read from "The Haunting of Sunshine Girl" on Saturday, May 9 at 4 p.m. at Jacobsen's Books in Hillsboro.

McKenzie inhabits a virtual world of contradictions only possible in our digital age. She is on one hand wholly authentic and unfiltered, and yet her very nature is utterly calculated. She is intimately accessible, broadcasting from her bedroom and talking with fans via social media, and yet she's incredibly cloistered. Nobody except her blood relatives even have her cell number. In a way, she’s a ghost in the machine, tethered to her flipcam and haunting her Youtube network.

Aaron Scott has the story.

In the 1990s, Portland’s Dada Ball was the stuff of legends. An unorthodox gala thrown each year by the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA), the ball was as debaucherous as it was provocative. It happened everywhere from abandoned warehouses to Oaks Park, and brought together an amazing cross section of artists, eccentrics, and counter-culture creatives.

This year, to mark its 20th anniversary, PICA is bringing the Dada Ball back on March 16 at the Southeast warehouse space The Redd. They're combining it with their annual gala, TaDa, and calling it TaDaDa – and the now veteran arts organization is hoping it’ll be like no fundraiser you’ve ever attended. In place of an auction, ticket holders can whack their way through an enchanted forest of piñatas stuffed with original art works and gorge themselves at a bacchanalian feast prepared by six different chefs. The evening will also feature the Bizarre Bazaar, an adults-only twist on classic carnival games (think vape toss).

At 9pm the doors open to the public for a raucous after party, with music by White Hinterland, DJ Beyonda, and more.

To commemorate the event, State of Wonder producer Aaron Scott put together this oral history.

Read our full story:

1:25 - Paige McKenzie, perhaps the Pacific Northwest's biggest homegrown YouTube star, talks about creating the runaway-hit series The Haunting of Sunshine Girl from her house outside Portland. She reads from her new YA novel on Saturday, May 9 at 4 p.m. at Jacobsen’s Books in Hillsboro.

11:00 - We check in on winners of Bend's inaugural Cultural Tourism Fund grants — a brand new system of support for arts & culture organizations like BendFilm and Atelier 6000.

18:55 - Opbmusic's Jerad Walker shares his love of one of Portland's newer musical transplants Other Lives. Their new album, "Rituals," reflects their newfound home. They play Monday, May 11 at Doug Fir.

20:55 - PICA's debaucherous art party, the DaDa Ball, was legendary in its day. And now the contemporary arts organization is bringing it back for its 20th anniversary on May 16, calling it TaDaDa. We hear what all the fuss was about from some of its organizers. More info on the arty craziness and all night party here.

30:45 - Los Portenos writing collective reads selections from an upcoming event, drawing inspiration from the poems of Miguel Hernandez and William Stafford.

For full stories, go to: http://www.opb.org/radio/programs/stateofwonder/segment/state-of-wonder-may-9-2015/