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performers on stage at Coho Productions
i
Coho Productions presents artist-driven plays in their homey 99-seat theater.
Credit: Owen Carey

Fertile Ground Festival

New works of local theater, dance and comedy fill Portland's stages every year.

Editor's Pick
1 min read

Oregon Arts Watch

Editor's Pick
This is a recurring event and we’re showing the details from its most recent past occurrence. We’ll update this page with future event info as soon as we get it. Please check back!
When
Apr. 4–19, 2025
Daily
Cost: Cost Varies
Where
Various Locations

Portland’s Fertile Ground Festival is a Fringe-style theater festival with a unique spin: it’s an un-juried festival that highlights exciting new work by local artists and performers. Produced by the nonprofit Portland Area Theater Alliance (PATA), this annual festival will return to PDX from April 4-19, 2025.

Three people in nautical gear and one in an old-fashioned diving suit perform on a stage
Jacob Coleman, Cristi Miles, Rebecca Lingafelter and Paige McKinney play four versions of Captain Ahab in “[or, the whale]”.

Credit: Owen Carey

This year, 64 performance projects are featured across 27 venues in the Portland Metro area. Offerings include site-specific theater, dance, solo performances, aerial shows, puppetry, and brand-new scripts from Portland playwrights.

Each year, there is way more to see than one person can manage — though you can try, with the purchase of an unlimited pass or passes that allow viewing of 6 or 10 shows — and stumbling into something on your own that turns out to be fabulous is part of the fun. It also offers an opportunity to experience a variety of local performance spaces, including CoHo Theatre, 21ten Theatre and the Back Door Theater (operated by Fuse Theatre Ensemble), which is presenting a lineup of exclusively LGBTQ+ creators, as well as more than 20 other locations.

A woman on stage dressed in a babuska costume.
1 of 4
Kate Mura portrays multiple characters in Fuse Theatre Ensemble’s "The Play About My Father" at the Fertile Ground Festival.
On a stage, a group of children hold fluffy bird puppets on sticks
2 of 4
Northwest Children's Theater puppet troupe the Starlings perform the show "Dinosaurs!"
Credit: David Kinder
a performer in clown makeup moves through a crowd of people
3 of 4
Anne Zander clowns in "MOTHER", a postpartum physical comedy performance.
Credit: Tamara Carroll
people on a stage gather around an artificial campfire as someone tells a story and the others listen attentively
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Robin Woolman, Kaycheri Rappaport, Bevin Solomon, Tera Nova Zarra and Summer Gaines perform in "Stranger than Fiction" by the Echo Theater Company.
Credit: Lara Klingeman

If you like your performance arts like you like your produce — locally sourced and partially raw — then you’re sure to enjoy the Fertile Ground Festival’s bounty.

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