Oregon ArtsWatch

Arts & Culture News
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Darleen Ortega

Darleen Ortega has been a judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals since 2003 and is the first woman of color and the only Latina to serve in that capacity.  She has been writing about theater and films as an “opinionated judge” for many years out of pure love for both.

On the holiday menu: A sharp-edged ‘Tuna’

The 1980s two-actor hit "A Tuna Christmas" is packing 'em in at Bag&Baggage with a sly mix of small-town meanness and tongue-in-cheek mockery of the same.

‘Black Nativity’: Let the spirits soar

Review: PassinArt continues its long tradition with a gorgeous and moving production of Langston Hughes's gospel songplay, this year at Alberta Abbey.

At Portland Center Stage, an author joins her ‘Little Women’ onstage

Review: In Lauren Gunderson's stage adaptation, Louisa May Alcott plays a central role among her creations, bringing an old-favorite novel into the modern age.

‘Primary Trust’: Comedy and undercurrents

Review: Portland Center Stage kicks off its season with Eboni Booth's 2024 Pulitzer winner, featuring Larry Owens of "Abbott Elementary" as a surprising and complex hero.

In a Detroit music club in 1949, a Black Paradise turns Blue

Portland Playhouse's not-to-be-missed production of Dominique Morisseau’s brilliant "Paradise Blue" sets a private drama against the larger cultural crisis of a thriving Black community on the brink of being demolished.

Diving deeply into familiar tales: Ashland’s ‘Shane’ and ‘Quixote Nuevo’

The final two shows of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's 2025 season rethink a classic Western and Cervantes' "Don Quixote" in fresh and stimulating ways.

Ashland treats: Shakespeare Fest’s ‘As You Like It,’ ‘Merry Wives’ and ‘Into the Woods’

In review: The festival romps into summer with three fine and funny productions, topped by the musical fairy-tale fantasy of a glorious journey "Into the Woods."

Earnest’s Wilde, Wilde Oregon days

With "The Importance of Being Earnest" already playing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Kamilah Bush's fresh adaptation for Portland Center Stage unveils Oscar Wilde's queer coding and gives the comedy some delightful bite.

Lauren Yee’s ‘Mother Russia’ at Profile: Comedy, culture, questions for U.S., too

Yee's undercurrent of humor cushions deeper questions about communism, capitalism, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the ways we live our lives.

Two solo shows with heart, humor & sting

In review: Damaris Webb goes camping in "Precipice: re-membering, forgetting, and claiming home"; comic actor Chris Grace cuts to racial realities in "Chris Grace: As Scarlett Johannson."

A brilliant ‘Joe Turner’s Come and Gone’ at Portland Playhouse (even with its NEA grant pulled)

As its grant goes on the chopping block, August Wilson's American classic gets a transcendent performance in a tale of people wrestling with profound human questions.

‘The Brothers Size’: Heartbreak, erasure, resilience and connection

Tarell Alvin McCraney's poetical play at Portland Center Stage embodies memories of prison and mystical characters from the Yoruba traditions of West Africa.

Fertile Ground: ‘Who’s Who’ across the decades

In Marshall Welch's promising play from Rogue Pack, two girls "meet" through notes left 70 years ago in a library copy of "Who's Who."

‘Julius Caesar’ & ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’: Ashland reinvents the classics

With a women and nonbinary cast for "Caesar" and an "Earnest" transported to the Malay Peninsula, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival gives a fresh face to familiar tales.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival strikes gold with a pair of plays about Black life

James Ijames' "Fat Ham" and August Wilson's "Jitney" kick off the Ashland festival's 90th season along with "Julius Caesar" and "The Importance of Being Earnest."

Center Stage’s searing ‘Virginia Woolf’: Why now?

Edward Albee's 1960s masterwork of two toxic marriages gets a bold and skillful new performance. Sixty years later, does its evening of drink and destruction still sting?

Review: Third Rail’s potent ‘A Case for the Existence of God’

Actors Isaac Lamb and Charles Grant shine in Samuel D. Butler's empathetic drama about two men struggling to discover answers to life's big questions.

‘Notes from the Field’: A play for today

Portland Playhouse's sterling production of Anna Deavere Smith's play about the school-to-prison pipeline meets the nation's political and cultural moment.

Review: Lauren Yee’s ‘Samsara’ at Profile is not to be missed

Playful and richly unsettling, Yee's drama about surrogacy and impending parenthood and a kind of colonialism is a gift in the best and most complicated ways.

‘Twelfth Night’: High comedy & big ideas

Review: Shakespeare's mind-bending comedy at Portland Center Stage ripples with laughter as the play explores fascinating facets of love, identity, friendship, and human nature.

‘The Event!’ – Artists Rep unveils a mystery

Review: In its first full production in its home space since 2019, the company creates a cluster of intriguing small-town Oregon characters in a story that doesn't cohere.

Review: A razor-sharp ‘Sweeney Todd’

Portland Center Stage mounts a compellingly sung version of Stephen Sondheim's penny-dreadful tale of meat pies, murder, and revenge on the mean streets of Victorian London.

Review: The new Native Theater Project gets a strong start with ‘Diné Nishłį’

The premiere of Blossom Johnson's "Diné Nishłį (I Am A Sacred Being) or, A Boarding School Play" gets the new theater company off and running in its quest to tell Native stories onstage.

‘Reggie Hoops’: It’s much more than basketball

Profile Theatre's world premiere of Kristoffer Diaz' play wrestles fascinatingly with questions of family, professional striving, identity, and the meanings of love.

Ashland on the big stage: light yet bright

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival's outdoor-theater "Jane Eyre" and "Much Ado About Nothing" don't plumb all the depths, but both succeed as sparkling entertainment.

Ashland’s ‘Lizard Boy,’ ‘Virgins to Villains’

Review: Robin Goodrin Nordli's trek through a lifetime of playing Shakespeare's women and Justin Huertas' superhero musical about a guy with scaly green skin light up the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's intimate Thomas Theatre.

‘Clyde’s’: Imperfect people striving for a perfect sandwich

Review: In Portland Center Stage's heart-filled production of Lynn Nottage's truck-stop diner comedy/drama, ex-inmates in the kitchen aspire to a better meal and a better life.

Seeing America in a hazy orange tone

Review: Profile Theatre's premiere of christopher oscar peña's "our orange sky" tells an immigrant story steeped in ambition, family discord, and pursuit of the American Dream.

A fresh ‘Coriolanus’: Shakespeare for today

Review: Portland Center Stage's riveting production translates the politics and conflicts of ancient Rome to the harsh and shifting power plays of the contemporary world.

At Portland Playhouse, a vibrant and ‘Passing Strange’ coming-of-age tale

Stew's rock musical about a young Black musician's flight to find his own way gets a rollicking, heartfelt production in a space that feels made for it.