Welcome to “The Festival Within the Festival!” We at PDX Playwrights are honored to once again uphold our reputation for creativity with an outstanding offering of new readings and performances as part of Fertile Ground. Tickets and Festival Passes are now available. Our projects are highlighted below. Check out our phenomenal lineup!
We invite you to explore a vibrant garden of new work taking root: from a solo performance work about the generational trauma and resilience underlying immigration to a comedic exploration of an out-of-sync family crisis. With nine projects and 23 stories by 19 playwrights in a wide assortment of topics and forms, PDX Playwrights offers something for nearly everyone. Scroll down and roam from a heartfelt comedic romp of a theatre director haunted by the ghost of none other than William Shakespeare to the exciting prospects originating from our Scenario partnership with CoHo Productions, to our flagship show, our provocative 10-minute pieces from our Epic Shorts: Brave Enough contest—to mention but a few.
Sink your toes into this rich dramatic soil and you’ll get a sense of the impressive variety of voices sprouting in our work. Our compelling collection of matinees, evening, and nighttime performances run Wednesday, April 9 through Sunday, April 13, 2025, at Chapel Theatre, with an additional Scenario event at CoHo Theatre on Monday, April 14.
You and your support help to make this possible. And we are so grateful that this year we are able to sustain and advance this vital work thanks in part to a Portland Office of Arts and Culture project grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council!
We hope the thrill of encountering these new plays will produce a festival within you.
Please consider purchasing a Festival Pass or Punch Card. All individual tickets to PDX Playwrights performance events will be only $15 each (with some Student Tickets available at each show for $7.00). Most of these shows will be presented in a lively staged reading or concert reading format. A few, such as “Epic Shorts: Brave Enough,” are fully produced. Our shows will appear at Chapel Theatre, 4107 SE Harrison St., Milwaukie, with one additional Scenario show at CoHo Theatre, 2257 NW Raleigh St. Pass purchases and single tickets are on sale now with a Fertile Ground ticket link here! Roam the fertile soil. Our shows are listed below in order of performance (and by first performance for shows with more than one performance).
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9 at 5:30 PM and SUNDAY, APRIL 13 at 7:30 PM – TWO PERFORMANCES
SHAKESPEARE IN THE DARK – by ADAM HARRELL
Irwin, a struggling theater director in the grips of an artistic slump and midlife crisis, must rediscover his creative spark when the ghost of William Shakespeare is sent by the theater gods to haunt his disastrous production of The Tempest. As fantasy, magic, and romance weave their way into his far-off Broadway show, Irwin confronts his demons and learns to tell the story in his heart. Filled with star-crossed lovers, soliloquies, and the delightful chaos of a Shakespearean romp, this heartfelt new play celebrates the transformative power of storytelling.
SHAKESPEARE IN THE DARK – TICKETS
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9 at 7:30 PM – ONE PERFORMANCE
SEE JANE RUN: AN INDO STORY – by JANE VOGEL MANTIRI
DIRECTED BY CYCERLI ASH
See Jane Run: An Indo Story is a solo memoir play written and performed by Jane Vogel Mantiri. The play is a savory sweet story about love, loss, generational trauma, racism, forced displacement, resilience, and being happy. It’s sad, because life can be cruel, and it’s funny because a hair rinse with Schlitz beer just is. Jane dedicates this play to her mama, whose magnificence was overshadowed by a world riddled with storms. The play confronts grief, inspires hope, and is a universal story steeped in love.
SEE JANE RUN: AN INDO STORY – TICKETS
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THURSDAY, APRIL 10 at 5:30 PM and SATURDAY, APRIL 12 at 5:30 PM – TWO PERFORMANCES
UNDERGROUND LIVE! – by MICHAEL MEYERS and
NERVOUS TRIPTYCH – by BRAD BOLCHUNOS
UNDERGROUND LIVE! – by MICHAEL MEYERS
When a grieving woman meets a grieving man doing standup comedy in a cemetery, she’s challenged to reckon with how best to honor a loved one. The two connect over their sorrow but soon discover in their friendship a courage to celebrate those who have died but live within us.
NERVOUS TRIPTYCH – by BRAD BOLCHUNOS
Trying to tame a nervous tic? Nervous Triptych might do the trick, confronting anxiety with absurdity. In the Bag unfolds in a city park where danger looms amid a peculiar bout of adult keep-away. A hot air balloon pilot and her husband reach new heights of emotion mid-flight in Up, Up, and Away, while Run Salmon Run embarks on a daring home-bound journey inspired—and complicated—by fish. When you’re laughing, it’s okay to twitch.
UNDERGROUND LIVE! and NERVOUS TRIPTYCH – TICKETS
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THURSDAY, APRIL 10 at 7:30 PM and SUNDAY, APRIL 13 at 5:30 PM – TWO PERFORMANCES
REGRET: A GOTHIC TRAGICOM – by KAREN POLINSKY
At a rustic property in Oregon—attacked by crows but suddenly worth millions—a dysfunctional family gathers to pay respects to a dying patriarch and his problematic wife, at long last turning their regrets into murder. Meanwhile, an endangered squirrel is running out of time.
With the visual art of Inna Pustakhanova, and an original score and live performance by Michael Hays and Esmé Schwall of Portland’s Pythias Braswell.
REGRET: A GOTHIC TRAGICOM – TICKETS
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FRIDAY, APRIL 11 at 5:30 PM – ONE PERFORMANCE
IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK – by MEG WILES
In a forgotten spare room in a derelict old house lives Lucille, an ill-tempered ghost who has never been one for change. Kept company solely by the abandoned items of the past, Lucille clings to the contents, memories, and shadows that inhabit her room. When the new homeowners decide to gut the house, Lucille is thrust into turmoil as, item by item, her fondest “friends” are being ripped from her. What can you do when the past is deemed unimportant, the present holds no place for you, and the future promises only unpredictable change?
IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK – TICKETS
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FRIDAY, APRIL 11 at 5:30 PM and MONDAY, APRIL 14 at 5:00 PM – TWO PERFORMANCES
NEW EXPERIMENTAL WORKS – by STEFAN FEUERHERDT, BROOK HINTON, and URKS IO – SCENARIO SELECTIONS at COHO THEATRE
- At CoHo Theatre: Three daring new short plays by Stefan Feuerherdt, Brook Hinton, and urks io, selected among participants in the Scenario workshop by PDX Playwrights with CoHo Productions.
In Brook Hinton’s We Have Ten Minutes To Reach An Understanding Or At Least Convince Ourselves That We Have, three strangers confront themselves under the shadow of a rumored cataclysm. The audience delivers 21 New Messages, by Stefan Feuerherdt, in which the story of a woman coming to clean her mother’s home is revealed through messages on the mother’s telephone answering machine. Food Play, by urks io, is an in-process, experimental devised theatre piece that explores the historic and ritual use of food as a lens through which to uncover our society’s health and ills.
SCENARIO AT COHO: NEW EXPERIMENTAL WORKS – TICKETS
FRIDAY, APRIL 11 at 7:30 PM and SUNDAY, APRIL 13 at 2:00 PM – TWO PERFORMANCES
WHIPPERSNAPPERS – by DONNA ARASIN, STAN MATTHEWS, and MICHAEL MEYERS – SCENARIO SELECTIONS at CHAPEL THEATRE
- At Chapel Theatre: Four provocative short plays by Donna Arasin, Stan Matthews, and Michael Meyers, selected among participants in the Scenario workshop by PDX Playwrights with CoHo Productions.
- We play many roles throughout life. Friend, parent, teacher, boss. Those roles can change in an instant. Old age is a time of life when a parent often starts acting more like a child — and their children, more like the parent. The result is sometimes drama, sometimes comedy, often both. Whippersnappers includes four plays that examine the changing dynamics of the parent child relationships as parents age. The plays are: It’s Gonna Rain Like Hell by Stan Matthews, Baggage by Donna Arasin, Flint and Stone by Michael Meyers, and Momma’s Back by Stan Matthews.
SCENARIO AT CHAPEL: WHIPPERSNAPPERS – TICKETS
Scenario is a workshop led by PDX Playwrights in collaboration with CoHo Productions. The Scenario plays were not selected until February 10, so they are among the freshest works in the festival. For more information about Scenario, click here.
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SATURDAY, APRIL 12 at 12:00 PM – ONE PERFORMANCE
THE REAL HOUSEPLANTS OF PORTLAND, OREGON: WORKSHOP – by GENDERBOMB
The Real Houseplants of Portland, Oregon is a theater workshop using the complexly interconnected world of plants to explore Queer interpersonal conflict and social dynamics. Using the tropes of reality TV, combined with group movement storytelling and a dynamic soundscape, we will encourage our attendees to envision themselves as houseplants going through petty mundane drama, before everything is put into perspective. We will ask: when plants stop being watered, how do they put aside their differences to find a way to nurture themselves and their community.
THE REAL HOUSEPLANTS OF PORTLAND, OREGON: WORKSHOP – TICKETS
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SATURDAY, APRIL 12 at 2:00 PM and SATURDAY, APRIL 12 at 7:30 PM – TWO PERFORMANCES
EPIC SHORTS: BRAVE ENOUGH – by PDX PLAYWRIGHTS
DIRECTED BY ALISHA CHRISTIANSEN
As part of our annual lineup of Fertile Ground performances, PDX Playwrights will once again be hosting our ever-popular Epic Shorts event! This spectacular series of curated stories will showcase a handful of 10-minute plays based around this year’s chosen theme, “Brave Enough.”
Participants are invited to work with the theme however they wish. The theme was inspired by Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb” from the 2020 inauguration ceremony, words that still ring true today:
“[W]hen the day comes we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid, the new dawn blooms as we free it, there is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.”
We appreciated the talent within the work submitted, and congratulate the following selected playwrights for this year’s lineup:
- Art Heist by Jon Bolden
- Bigger Horses to Fry by Tracey Ann Locke
- Chin Up Sally Sunshine by Rebecca Ellsworth
- The Grumpiest of Them All by Marie MacMillan
- T.H.A. by Bets Swadis
- The Voiceless Figure by Niels Truman
- When the Horn Blows by Kwik Jones
Director Alisha Christiansen, a playwright herself, says she looks forward to bringing them to life on stage.
EPIC SHORTS: BRAVE ENOUGH – TICKETS
Where’s that overall ticket link again, you ask? Why, it is right here: Tickets to events from PDX Playwrights, among all of the wonderful Fertile Ground offerings.
Thank you for your interest and support of new work through Fertile Ground, the Portland Area Theatre Alliance, and PDX Playwrights. We can’t wait to see you at the “Festival Within the Festival!
