Your Vision🖤Euro PDX 2025 Cast:
Shayne Hanson
Mary C. Parker
Betse Green
Bill Cernansky
Emily Larkin
Starr Ahrens
Amy Milshtein
Mandy Khosnevison
Mickey McGee
Matt Beyer
Meagan Gombart
Ruth Jenkins
Samm Hill
Brooke Chamberlain
Steve Hynes
Brad Fortier
Bethany Garner
plus special guests
Originally created for CSz Seattle by Erika Lowe & David Gordon
Produced by Rick Steadman and CSz Portland
PDX Direction and Music Direction by Patrick Short
Stage Manager/Capo: Lynsey Kemplin
Graphics and Special Effects: Mary Ann Rambo
Live Lights and Sound: Jamie Montgomery
Our Origin Story
Vision🖤Euro was created by Erika Lowe, with original music by David Gordon, and debuted in December 2023 at CSz Seattle. After a very successful run, the show came back in December 2024 and ran through January 2025. Patrick Short, from CSz Portland, led music improv workshops for rehearsals prior to both seasons in Seattle, and Erika & David invited CSz Portland to be the second home of their fun and amazing show.
In Portland, Patrick Short stepped up as both director and musical director, spending about 100 hours programming the settings and sounds you are hearing tonight on the Kurzweil PC4-7 keyboard and Boss RC 505 Mark II Looping machine. The cast has been rehearsing and sourcing ridiculous costumes since March, and watching so much Eurovision on-line that we can tell you all about the winners, the controversies, the characters and the greatest moments.
What are you going to see and hear at Vision🖤Euro?
Each night, four countries will be assigned to the competitors. Remember that each night, the competitors find out which countries they are representing while they are onstage in front of you! They will also find out what you have suggested for the themes or titles of their song entries. Your host will help you through the process.
Before the show starts, fans click on the QR Code and journey through the Linktr.ee/VisionEuro site to Google forms, where we
vote for which city should host tonight’s Grand Final
answer a few prompts - these will serve as suggestions for the song themes and/or titles.
sign up for CSz Portland’s email list - we send about once a week, and there’s lots of exciting shows and classes happening here
In the first half, we’ll meet the competitors and learn about their back stories and intrigues during improvised scenes.
In the second half, the stories step backstage and then WOW WOW WOW, you’ll experience the Grand Final, with four songs from four countries, created right in front of you!
You’ll get a chance to vote for your favorite, and the winning song will be reprised at the end of tonight’s show.
There are a few other musical numbers awaiting you as well - and all of it is improvised. The players do not know what music they’ll be singing to until the songs start.
Vision🖤Euro run time is estimated at one hour, forty minutes, with an intermission.
Mary C. Parker (she/her) is visiting from CSz Seattle and has a decade of performing improv comedy in Portland, OR, London, UK, Pittsburgh, PA, and now in Seattle, WA. She has appeared at comedy festivals in Richmond, VA, Edinburgh, UK, and Pittsburgh, PA. Mary has taught improv comedy at various improv theaters, including Kickstand Comedy and Bandit Theater. Her musical improv experience includes The High Scores, Acaprov, Dropped Notes, and a regular guest with Your Life: The Musical. Offstage, Mary is as tall as Beyoncé, a reality show junkie, and is a mac and cheese aficionado who fervently believes not all mac and cheese are created equal.
Emily, originally from the Twin Cities, began performing at an early age. She flew out west to study at Willamette University. Since then, she has performed improv, sketch, and drag at CSz, Curious Comedy, Kickstand Comedy, Bridge City Improv, and more. Her combination of musical theater and improv backgrounds make Vision Euro the perfect opportunity to explore her favorite elements of performance!
Matt Beyer started the open mic standup circuit in Portland 2015 before making the transition into a full fledged improviser at ComedySportz in 2019. He’s since played a part in various late night improv groups and continues to be an active member of CSz Portland.
Mickey McGee was an improviser with CSz Portland from 1999 - 2016. After that, he had a penchant for performing in holiday pageants and plays. Donning the role of Donner and other supporting characters in Rudolph Live! and co-starring as Clarence in several renditions of It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play. In 2020 Mickey fell down the Eurovision Song Contest rabbit hole, and came back with an extensive knowledge of staging, choreography, flags, and mild political subtext.
Amy Milshtein has been improvising since 2010. You can find her most weekends at ComedySportz. She also performs in long-form shows and improvised musicals. When not improvising, Amy works as a freelance writer. Her work appears regularly in Oregon Business magazine, as well as several trade publications. She lives in unincorporated Washington County with her husband, son, and cat. Amy once made brief but meaningful eye contact with Liza Minelli.
Bill Cernansky is an improv performer, teacher and coach. He has been playing ComedySportz at CSz-Portland since 2001. He is also a former ensemble member of Portland's Brody Theater and Curious Comedy Theater, & long-running improv team Peachy Chicken. Bill can be seen improvising in many CSz-Portland projects, in various shows at Bridge City Improv, and at festivals around the world with the group B.A.B.E. in their show I Love Musicals, and in the duo B&B with his wife Betse Green.
Meagan Gombart began her improv journey in 2019 at Magenta Theater, jumping into the world of unscripted comedy with the Magenta Improv Theater group (MIT), where she continues to perform regularly. In 2023, she continued her improv journey by joining CSz Portland. She also performs with Score!, an innovative improv group that creates unscripted, unspoken scenes set to musical scores. In 2024, she took the stage with Experience Theater Project as part of the raucous holiday production A Drunk Christmas Carol, blending classic literature with unpredictable hilarity. When not doing improv, Meagan can be found swing dancing at Norse Hall in Portland Oregon.
Starr Ahrens has been improvising since age 13. In LA, she trained and performed improv and sketch comedy with Second City, IOWest and UCB. Her sketch comedy has been featured on Paramount's LogoTV and CBS's Diversity Showcase. Starr has been teaching and coaching improv for over 15 years and hopes to incorporate and explore some of the social and mental health benefits of Improv into her upcoming graduate school experience.
Betse Green teaches, directs, and performs improv at CSz-Portland, Curious Comedy Theater, and Bridge City Improv. She hit the Portland improv scene in 2002 and has performed in several great local troupes, including Peachy Chicken, Screaming Mee-Mees, Meet Cute, and the scripted show Fake Radio. Betse improvises at festivals across North America and Europe with several groups, including the B.A.B.E. show I Love Musicals, Slumber Party, and the duo B&B with her husband Bill Cernansky.
Bethany is a 10-year veteran of the CSz Portland Pro Team. She is very likely to drop one or more puns into tonight’s show, and far less likely to allow the use of a tambourine by any cast member. Bethany’s life goal: sparkle so audaciously that she is cast on Dancing with the Stars.
Brad Fortier is a thirty-year veteran of the Portland improv scene - he’s taught and performed with Kickstand Theater, Brody Theater, CSz Portland and many others. He’s originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin!
Steve Hynes is a member of the CSz Portland Pro Team and co-host/sidekick for Stumptown Tonight, our monthly late-night talk show.
Brooke has been improvising since 2004 and is a long-time resident at Portland Comedy Theater. Performing for CSz Portland, she also manages and coaches the CSz Portland Rec League. Brooke created and directs the long-running improv group Score!, a silent film–inspired show blending music, expressive characters, and wordless chaos. When she’s not on stage, she runs her own garden business and crafts elaborate Halloween costumes (often inspired by Johnny Depp films). Equal parts performer and improv coach, Brooke brings a touch of character and physicality, and a lot of laughter—to every show she’s part of. Brooke also takes care of every cat in Beaverton.
Mandy comes to Vision Euro hot off her directing of the hit The Ballad of Iron Jo at Bag&Baggage Productions in Hillsboro. Mandy has been improvising since 1996. She started in the Bay Area, most notably spending ten years directing and performing with the Un-Scripted Theater Company, in genres from Shakespeare to Bollywood to Dickens. In Portland, she’s onstage a lot at the Funhouse Lounge, performing both un-scripted (“USS: Improvise”) and scripted shows (“Die Hard: The Musical Parody”). She’s improvised on almost every improv stage in town; this show is her CSz debut! When not improvising (or teaching Zumba), she’s mostly being the Technical Director and a resident actor at Bag&Baggage.
Originally from Houston, and later, Los Angeles, Samm has performed in many improvised and scripted productions, including Year 2099 with CSz Portland and as Scrooge in Experience Theater Project’s A Drunk Christmas Carol.
Ruth Jenkins, former co-owner, started with CSz in 1988. She’s appeared in Medford Medical, ShakesProv, Possaluma County and ComedySportz at CSz Portland, and in scripted roles at Bag & Baggage, Twilight Theatre Company, Lakewood Theatre, Experience Theater Project and HART, among others.
Patrick Short (he/him) was recently demoted to Education Director at CSz Portland - he’s the former co-owner and GM. He’s been with CSz since 1987, performed in nearly 3,000 shows and taught over 1,500 classes and workshops. Patrick will be teaching CSz 504 Advanced Improv Music starting November 13. He’s in the music duo AlleyLoops with Emily Larkin, and you can find his original music at patrickshort.bandcamp.com and on the usual services.
Lynsey has been doing improv for two years and is part of CSz Portland's Rec League. She also enjoys reading, playing video games, ranking this year’s Eurovision entries and snuggling with her two cats.
Maryann joined CSz Portland in 1999 and serves as Director of Fan Experience. She’s best known for amazing customer service AND as the light-speed wizard of our JANIS video system. She’ll be doing the images tonight from an undisclosed location. She thinks you have nice shoes.
Below, the tremendously true history of the Vision🖤Euro imprøvised söng båttle, curated by Mary Ann Rambo:
Here are the previous winners of the Vision🖤Euro imprøvised söng båttle:
Shayne Hanson (she/her pronouns) has been performing with CSz Portland since 2015. Most weekends you can see her in a ComedySportz match. She has also starred in the Mystery Science Tribute Show, Medford Medical, and And the Winner Is (a full-length improvised musical).