Born in 1940, Bruce remembers banging a wooden spoon on a pot in the street filled with people celebrating Japan’s surrender in ‘45. He graduated from Reed College in 1965, after spending the summer of ’64 with the Farsimadan tribe in the Zagros Mountains of Iran. Bruce earned an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago. He taught at Pahlavi University in Iran from ’69-’73, returning in ’76. Bruce opened La Cigale restaurant in Redmond Oregon in 1981, eventually exiting the restaurant business for jobs in remote locations (the Katmai Coast of Alaska, and the Pacha River on the Kola Peninsula in Russia). He kayaked solo around Vancouver Island in 1994 from Campbell River northward around Cape Scott and down the west coast to Tofino. He also competed in flat-water kayaking at the ’98 World Masters Games. Bruce was asked to write a play in Portland’s Haven Project in 1996, and has been engaging youth with writing and theatre ever since, founding PlayWrite in 2003. PlayWrite has served 896 at-risk youth in 110 workshops, producing their original plays before more than 12,000 people. Bruce is also Playa’s first Chef in Residence. We are lucky to have his resourceful sophistication here.
Bruce Livingston
