DramaWatch: Farewell, Portland Civic Theatre Guild

Oregon ArtsWatch: “It was the mothership,” Adair Chappell says, wistfully recalling the old Portland Civic Theatre, a company and a place that for decades was at the center of cultural life in the city. Chappell’s choice of wording is apt: Her mother, Isabella Chappell, who ArtsWatch editor Bob Hicks called “the onetime prime minister of Portland theater,” spent many years as a performer and general manager with the theater. The younger Chappell recalls starting with the theater at age 6.