PDX Playwrights

Stop by Portland Playhouse for our June table read, "small things, every day" by Tom Smith!

Patricia and her two daughters have transitioned Patricia's husband, David, into a memory care facility. As the family deals with David's decline, they discover he has begun an intimate relationship with another patient. While Stephanie and Hallie are shocked and hurt by their father’s betrayal, Patricia has a much different reaction, because of a long-held family secret.

Join us on June 2 at 7 pm to hear the full, unabridged play!

Thank you to everyone who joined us yesterday for our May table read! The art (and the last-minute venue change) was a breath of fresh air.

Special thanks to Natasha Miranda-Rojas, Timothy Krause, Amanda Kelner, and Karen Polinsky for sharing their phenomenal 10-minute plays. These short works were some of the many wonderful submissions that we didn't have room for in our Epic Shorts - Public Domain series in this year's Fertile Ground Festival.

Another Festival Within the Festival has wrapped! Thank you to everyone who came out to support local theatre and new plays. You're all a major reason why the Portland theatre community is unmatched.

We also want to say thank you and congratulations to all our featured playwrights! This was easily one of our best lineups yet and we can't wait to see where the plays go from here.

We also want to give a very special shoutout to our admin team and volunteers for making this week possible. And to Chapel Theatre for another incomparable year on their stage.

And don't forget, the Fertile Ground Festival is still going! See new plays across the Portland metro area through this Sunday, April 26. There are so many more playwrights you can support and excellent stories to witness this season!

It's the last day of the Festival Within the Festival as part of the Fertile Ground Festival! We want to thank everyone who's come out to see our shows and encourage you all to catch one of our five remaining new plays, including "Unlooping Penelope" by Silver Fagan.

Penelope, of The Odyssey, has somehow altered the fabric of time with her endless weaving and unweaving. Her all-too-familiar rhythms and repetitions are interrupted by the unlikely arrival of two modern q***r travelers into her mythic realm. With a multivocal language of poetic strangeness meeting and mixing with playful humor, this staged reading examines the ways women and q***r people respond to the threats of patriarchy, the complex legacies of family and friendship, and how we get stuck—and unstuck—in tangles of trauma and time.

See "Unlooping Penelope" today, Sunday, April 19 @ 5 pm at Chapel Theatre in Milwaukie.

Tickets are on sale now: https://fertilegroundpdx.ludus.com/show_page.php?show_id=200516858

Today's the day! Our ever popular Epic Shorts event opens (and closes!) today and you can still get tickets!

This spectacular series of curated stories will showcase a handful of 10-minute plays based around this year’s chosen theme, “Public Domain.”

Public domain refers to the body of artistic work not explicitly protected under copyright law. This can occur for a number of reasons, including (but not limited to) an expired copyright. Each play explores this theme in a unique and creative way for a full show of eclectic storytelling. We appreciate the talent within the work submitted, and congratulate the following selected playwrights for this year’s lineup:

- Private Lives in the Public Domain by Bill Lynch
- Subjects Unknown by Tom Smith
- Adaptation by Nancy Campbell
- Intermission: Life Upon the Wicked Stage by Terence Joseph Quinn
- Circle Two Blues by Kathleen Caprario Ulrich
- Vote BAux by Deborah Chava Singer

See Epic Shorts: Public Domain on Saturday, April 18 @ 2 pm and 8 pm at Chapel Theatre in Milwaukie.

Tickets are on sale now: https://fertilegroundpdx.ludus.com/show_page.php?show_id=200515982

It's the return of a classic! As part of this year's Festival Within the Festival, PDX Playwrights has brought back our 48-Hour Play Fest!

48 hours, six playwrights, one unforgettable night! PDX Playwrights presents LEAP (Ludicrously Expedited Acts of Playwriting), Portland’s premier instant play festival. On Friday night, April 17, YOU provide prompts for five local playwrights who are randomly assigned actors and given exactly 48 hours to write, direct, and fully stage a short play for the following Sunday night, April 19.

Inspire a completely improvised theatrical showcase, then return to see how our dramatists bring your suggestions to life while pushing their skills to the limit.

Your ticket includes both Friday’s prompt show, starting at the 8 pm showing of "Silent Storm" AND Sunday’s final performance, starting at 8 pm.

Tickets are on sale now: https://fertilegroundpdx.ludus.com/show_page.php?show_id=200516856

Chapel Theatre
Fertile Ground Festival

T-minus 2 days before the magnificent Festival Within the Festival begins, as part of the Fertile Ground Festival!

As you're getting your tickets, be sure to include, "Justice" by Tiffany Esteb.

Sarah is a lawyer at the top of her game. She defends tech companies against those who sue for damages caused from harassment on their sites, all in the name of freedom of speech. Then she is harassed herself, and has to face the world she helped to create. Justice is a solo show that explores the meaning of freedom.

See "Justice" on Friday, April 17 @ 5 pm and Sunday, April 19 @ 12 pm at Chapel Theatre in Milwaukie.

Tickets are on sale now: https://fertilegroundpdx.ludus.com/show_page.php?show_id=200516857

PDX Playwrights has been proud to work with CoHo Theatre for the last few years to co-host a playwriting workshop called Scenario. Every year, some of those playwrights are chosen to be in our Festival Within the Festival lineup as part of the Fertile Ground Festival.

We're extremely excited to present this year's selected playwrights, Mia Tierney and Bess Klein, and their show "Pseudos."

"Pseudos" is a series of poetry and short plays dealing with the tiny but essential untruths that construct our perception of reality. From memory and reconciliation to childhood and trickery, playwright Mia Tierney and poet Bess Klein explore these harmless falsehoods and what happens when they unravel.

See "Pseudos" on Thursday, April 16 @ 8 pm and Saturday, April 18 @ 5 pm at Chapel Theatre in Milwaukie.

Tickets are on sale now: https://fertilegroundpdx.ludus.com/show_page.php?show_id=200516855