Theater

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."

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Portland Playhouse Portland Oregon

DramaWatch: Meaning and  music in ‘Another Dialogue’ and ‘Ballad of Iron Jo’

Music is key in productions from Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble and Bag&Baggage. Plus: "Joe Turner," "Storyteller," "Brothers Size," "Six" and other openings, continuing shows, Oregon Children's Theater's emergency fund drive and more theater news.

Fertile Ground wrap-up: Four shows from a vibrant festival

"Rogues," "545," "Unbound: A Bookish Musical," and "Camp Fire Stories" offered a rich array of theater at this year’s festival of new works.

Salomé’s spellbinding strangeness

Imago Theatre’s mesmerizing production embraces the wonderful weirdness of Oscar Wilde’s verse play … and then some.

The bouyant absurdity of ‘Melancholy Play’

A parachute keeps the comic action moving in Blinking Eye Theatre’s production of Sarah Ruhl’s oddly uplifting play about sadness.

Fertile Ground: Homegrown plays, west of the hills

This year's greater Portland festival of new works inspires creation of original theater pieces in Beaverton, Hillsboro and beyond.

‘You Can’t Be Serious’: Andrea Parson’s solo show inspired by her sister’s death comes to Astoria

The choreographer will present her award-winning performance of dance and storytelling May 2 and 3 at Ten Fifteen Productions.

Catherine E. Coulson: ‘The Log Lady’ and so much more

The Ashland Independent Film Festival will honor the "Twin Peaks" star and one of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's most beloved artists with the Oregon premiere of the documentary “I Know Catherine, the Log Lady.”

A farewell to James Edmondson, longtime star at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Edmondson, who began his long OSF career in 1972 by playing Petruchio in "Taming of the Shrew," died at home in Ashland at age 86, days after the death of fellow festival veteran Denis Arndt.

‘Life of Pi:’ A shipwreck and a tiger’s tale

The Broadway in Portland show at Keller Auditorium sates our hunger for spectacle by offering a sumptuous feast of projections and puppetry.

Spark Plug: Taking risks, building trust

Loading its sets in and out of a coffee shop via U-Haul with each performance, the intimate theater collective brings new and homegrown theater works to Beaverton.

Drew Pisarra: How (and why) I updated Oscar Wilde’s ‘Salome’ for Imago Theatre

Wilde's wildly witty 1890s play, a scandal in its time, is rooted in 19th century melodrama. Pisarra's adaptation, opening April 11, keeps that in mind.

High times, low comedy: Theatre in the Grove’s ‘Reefer Madness: The Musical’ spoofs drug war hysteria

Campy modern musical adaptation of the notorious 1936 film brings illegal giggles to Forest Grove.

DramaWatch: Rain, shine, & Fertile Ground

Oregon theaters will flourish under an invigorating shower of shows this month, with big attractions like Oscar Wilde’s “Salome” at Imago, the touring “ Life of Pi,” and the annual Fertile Ground festival of new works, April 4-19.

Oregon theater giant Denis Arndt, 1939-2025

The Northwest actor, who spent 15 seasons as a star at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and co-founded Seattle's Intiman Theatre, leaves a sterling legacy.

‘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.

Stage & Studio: Exploring personal diasporas at Fertile Ground

Dmae Lo Roberts talks in this podcast with Laotian-American theatermaker Samson Syharath and Indo-American writer/actor Jane Vogel Mantiri about their bicultural roots and their solo shows in Fertile Ground.

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."

Fertile Ground: An early look at three new plays in this year’s festival

In Portland's festival of dozens of new works April 4-19, "Conciliation" reckons with the continuing effects of the Holocaust, "Rogues" mixes humor with an unflinching look at the realities of caregiving, and "Shelf Life" takes a musical look into one woman’s past.

Oregon Children’s Theatre to pause all shows and activities

Due to financial troubles, the nationally recognized company will suspend its productions and educational programs beginning in September. In the meantime, it's begun a $1 million fund drive.

Stumptown’s ‘Tootsie’: Naughty and nice

Theater review: Stumptown Stages presents a salty, witty, and musical update of the comic 1982 movie.

DramaWatch: A bevy of absorbing and socially significant shows

Portland Center Stage presents a stirring production of "The Light." Fuse prepares "Great White Goes Down" for Fertile Ground. Twilight chronicles the beginnings of gay activism with "The Temperamentals." Plus more openings and continuing shows.

August Wilson & Kevin Kenerly help kick off Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 90th season

Kenerly, a 26-year veteran of the Ashland festival who has starred in other works by the great American playwright, digs into Wilson's world of "Jitney" as the season begins.

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?

‘Hamilton’ roars back into Portland

The latest Broadway tour of Lin-Manuel's historical hit musical, back in town through March 23, thrillingly tells its early American tale in contemporary style.

As Ashland’s theater season kicks in, an actor does double duty without a doubt

Daniel Molina, who will be in "Shane" at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this summer, gets an early start in Rogue Theater Company's "Doubt" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."

Unexpected connections, onstage and off

Bringing authenticity to neurodiversity: PHAME Academy and Artists Rep collaborate on Diana Burbano’s "Sapience," a play that deals in part with being on the spectrum.

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.

‘Sapience’: A loving look at diverse abilities

Artists Repertory Theatre’s warm and colorful premiere of Diana Burbano’s play embraces its array of characters.

DramaWatch: A whole new fairy tale world

Speculative Drama’s immersive show “Bitter Herb: A Play in Movement” invites audiences to explore the realm of fairy tales. Plus: other openings, continuing shows, theater news.