Take a Bow: Curtain Goes Up Soon on Revamped Stage for the Performing Arts Venue at the WAC

Oakridge Impressario Loren Christopher Michaels Heads Up Transformation of Willamette Activity Center Stage as Town’s New Entertainment Venue

By JOY KINGSBURY/The Herald

Led by Oakridge showman Loren Christopher Michaels, an enthusiastic group of show-biz volunteers have remodeled the entire stage at the Willamette Activity Center gym and will offer live theater, music, dance, drama, magic and other forms of entertainment mining the plentiful supply of local artistry and talent.

Streaming live, these programs will be available to be seen worldwide on YouTube and Facebook.

In Oakridge and Westfir, “There is so much sheer talent going unshared,” says Michaels, who vows to remedy that.

The Spotlight Project, as the WAC makeover is called, is the brainchild of this charismatic, longtime performer with many talents and a name that has caused him headaches for decades. (He is “Loren Christopher Michaels,” or “Loren C. Michaels,” not to be confused with the television legend Lorne Michaels, creator and producer of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” program.)

Oakridge’s Michaels is a magician, illusionist, actor and musician who plays guitar, bass and piano.  He has toured the world appearing on stages in many countries and throughout the United States with much of that time entertaining at lavish hotels on the famed Las Vegas Strip – big venues like MGM Grand, The Venetian and Caesars Palace.

Michaels has always had an affinity for the stage as the preferred venue for his shows, though he did act in seven movies. He and a close friend, Ken Briegleb, cut an album called “String Talk,” and Michaels cut another with all original music called “Six Strings Dreams,” both available on iTunes.

Father Introduced Young Son to Magic and Illusion

Michaels was a small boy in Ontario, Calif., when his father performed magic for him by making a penny disappear. When the boy showed such fascination and so much curiosity with magic and illusion, his father bought him books on those subjects.  The books inspired the youngster and cemented in his mind the career he would follow.

Michaels pursued his art and became quite accomplished by age 16, when he encountered Stan Cramian, a performing illusionist who had a traveling show. Michaels persuaded Cramian to take him on the road with the show as their stage manager, and that was the beginning of great adventures.

In this time, Michaels carefully built his own show and his efforts enabled him to successfully tour with it internationally. In the mid-1980s he settled down on the California coast to manage Newport Beach’s “Magic Island.” Here, he developed an interactive

live streaming production, “The Lecture Network,” which gives him his background in this field and which will, he says, “give Oakridge a way to reconnect safely during this covid pandemic,” and beyond.

He then went on to perform at the “Magic Castle” in Hollywood.  His performing career took him to Las Vegas, Japan, the West Indies, New York, Chicago, Universal Studios in both California and Florida, and many other destinations.

Nearly a decade ago Michaels was living in Las Vegas when his home burned. Before deciding about what to do next, he made a trip to Oakridge to visit his brother, William Maxwell, and nephew, Vince Maxwell, who owns The Corner in Uptown Oakridge (formerly the Corner Bar & Grill).  During his visit here he flatly fell in love with Oakridge and met Candis McMurtrie, whom he calls the love of his life.

He and Candis, a widely known citizen of Oakridge, married on June 2, 2012, and the two of them managed the Blue Wolf Motel until their recent retirement.

Michaels, with Candis’ blessing, has now begun his second career at age 65.  His new mission: keeping Oakridge entertained by showcasing local talent he knows has a place on center stage, while using the performing skills he knows and loves.

With donated materials from the local Friends of Theatre and Arts group, Michaels and his fellow volunteers have laid and finished a complete new floor on the stage, painted the entire background and now work to provide a special environment for the shows and actors who will perform there.

Michaels has learned every aspect of production.  He can design and build sets, make costumes, do hair and makeup, even make the stage curtains, which he is now in process of doing. The Friends of Theatre and Arts donated materials for one set of curtains, and Michaels obtained fabric and is into the task of making the second set with the help of Rachel Nehmer, a volunteer who Michaels says has been extremely helpful.  He will hang them as well.

‘A Blessing to Uplift the Spirits and Give the Talented a Forum’

Michaels wants this project to be what he calls “a blessing to uplift the spirits and give the talented a forum – a place for those theater people who are invested in show business to come back to.”

Oakridge’s own community theater organization, Zero Clearance Theatre, will also mount productions on stage at the WAC and be live-streamed. For many years Zero Clearance produced shows on the Westridge Middle School stage — with some of those performances directed by Michaels — but the school district no longer makes that venue available

Any who care to donate money or materials toward this project are asked to contact [email protected]. Michaels has accomplished this aesthetic transformation of stage with a total expenditure of about $1,000 and many hours of his labor.  He says he donated $600 out of pocket with the balance coming from others, along with a lot of volunteered elbow grease.

Michaels has a program in mind for his first production and promises to announce it with great fanfare as the time approaches.  He plans to begin auditions soon.

Oakridge real estate broker and business leader Joy Kingsbury is secretary of the Highway 58 Herald board of directors.