Fertile Ground Festival
New works of theater, dance and comedy fill Portland's stages every year.
Oregon Arts Watch
Early birds, script-chasers and workshop-watchers already know: Fertile Ground Festival is where you go to see Portland’s newest performance works first. Produced by the nonprofit Portland Area Theater Alliance (PATA), this annual festival will return April 12–21, 2024.
Fertile Ground Festival is distinct from other cities’ “fringe” fests in two important regards: 1) It only features local producers, and 2) it’s non-juried, waving creators through an open door to access the critics they value most: audiences.
As you might imagine, that means there’s a lot to see. Offerings include theater and dance, along with flourishes of comedy, musical theater, multi-media performances, staged readings and more. Each year, there is way more to see than one person can manage, 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 Artists Repertory Theatre, Clinton Street Theater, The Back Door Theatre and Portland Playhouse.
If you like your performance arts like your produce — locally sourced and partially raw — then you’re sure to enjoy Fertile Ground’s bounty.
Fertile Ground Events
Explore the Fertile Ground Festival with these upcoming events.
Sube y Baja
On July 28, 2019, three pink teeter totters were placed on the border wall of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas, which stands as the most-crossed border in the world and a continual site of political divide. For 45 minutes, these teeter-totters brought children and adults together to a wall that was made to…
Small Bites
Swing by for a quick bite of five sweet and savory plays by LineStorm Playwrights members Brianna Barrett, Heath Hyun Houghton, Holly Richards, Lolly Ward, and Ken Yoshikawa. Kick off the Fertile Ground Festival’s opening day with a toast at 5:00 p.m. before you taste the varied flavors of our short play selection from 6:00-7:00…
A Bridge to the Promised Land: 1968
In 1968, as UC-Berkeley students were outside protesting the Vietnam War, a young music professor, Milton Williams, was in his office, laying down the origins of his story about Hubert Turner, the Black mayor of a Southern city. Drawing upon his own experience, Williams explores the challenges and expectations faced by a ‘successful’ Black politician…
Beauregard at Manassas
After her estranged father’s death, Caroline receives his most prized possession in the mail; an important, and potentially valuable, painting of a Civil War-era battle called “Beauregard at Manassas.” Soon, a representative of a shady and controversial museum in the American South arrives offering Caroline an enormous amount of money for the painting — and…
GRINDHOUSE
Late at night, one house stands out from the others: its glowing door taunting you — like an enormous chewing mouth. “Come inside,” it jeers — and you do. This is GRINDHOUSE, an original site-specific theater piece produced for the 2024 Fertile Ground Festival by the creative minds of Basement Stair Collective, Rachel Lindsey Routh,…
Hexen
Told through song, audience interaction and aerial dance, Dreya Weber’s solo show, Hexen, weaves the narratives of three women representing witch archetypes. The Crone, a healer living in the forest. The Bewitcher, a temptress with a destructive affinity for the dark and absurd. And the Daughter, who searches for wisdom from her forebearers. Part historical…
Looking for Light
"The Hand of God, directed by Stan Yeend": As the American Civil War draws to a close, two Confederate soldiers meet on an abandoned train platform. One has been sent to kill the other, and neither reason nor moral argument seems capable of preventing the death. "Vertical Daylight, directed by Amelia Michaels": Five nights a week, lonely…
Six String Showdown
When an enigmatic spirit of rock music known as the Guitar Sensei summons Destiny and her younger brother Elijah from the depths of the salt mines where they toil as slaves in an evil empire, they discover a looming threat over their village. Ahriman, the wicked god of metal music, plots its destruction. Their only…
Finding Bigfoot
Originally ideated within the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde’s Indigenous Plackeeping Fellowship, “Finding Bigfoot” is a captivating and whimsical play that embarks on a journey through the tangled forests of family, folklore, and a quest of justice in this new Indigenous coming of age story. Centered around a band of cuzzins, the play seamlessly weaves…
Floating Naked with Piranhas (How I l Learned to Love Working at Amazon)
"Floating Naked with Piranhas (How I Learned to Love Working at Amazon)" is not set in the distant future, nor is it a work of science fiction. It is rooted instead in the current reality facing nearly a million blue-collar Amazon workers, both in the U.S. and abroad — a world where every minute on the…
An Equal Voice: The Story of Votes for Women
A retired scholar of women’s history is invited to address the city council and staff about voting. Excited and surprised, she picks her theme: Why Vote? Just Ask History. Gathering a lifetime accumulation of photos, stories, and costumes, she plots the 70-year woman suffrage campaign. But she needs help from the audience — volunteers to…
Have Yourself a Murder-y Little Christmas
The Office meets Only Murders In the Building — with Santa. Admit it. You’ve had an officemate you wish would just…disappear. That’s certainly the case at the Acme Good Goods Co., where the small but mightily dysfunctional team is bravely trying to whip up some spirit at the annual holiday bash by hosting a murder…
Anne Zander is MOTHER
From the mind that created the “painfully funny” smash-hit JUICEBOX (Official Selection 2020 HBO’s Women in Comedy Festival) and the body that birthed twins two years ago comes Anne Zander is MOTHER. This brand-new solo show will make you laugh until you pee a little (we won’t judge your pelvic floor strength here). Imbued with…
The Mural
Set in a town not so far away, The Mural tells the story of an in-debt, struggling soup cafe owner named Denny, who finally begins to see her business grow after painting a mural on an otherwise drab wall. But, the mural that seemed to bring business gets defaced, which turns out to be the…
Exhale
A staged reading of Exhale, a semi-autobiographical play written by Jerilyn Armstrong. On the cusp of finishing college, Jerilyn’s father unexpectedly falls into critical condition. Returning to her hometown, Jerilyn confronts the unacknowledged lineage of mental illness and alcohol dependency in her family, her boyfriend’s infidelity, and her brother’s absent and self-destructive coping. Jerilyn must choose….
The Last Lost Canada Goose
How odd it is to be. How do you navigate these seas of ecstasy and desperation? The Last Lost Canada Goose searches for illumination within the unknown. Fertile Ground veterans Mary Rose and Nathaniel Holder bring their utterly singular form of embodied improvisation to this collaboration featuring the original music of Molly Mayo, resulting in…
Blue Girl and the Burning Bushes
What if the second coming already happened? And She was Blue? Blue Girl and the Burning Bushes is the story of the coming of age of a young orphan — a science prodigy growing up alone in a junkyard — destined to sing the goddess back into the souls of humanity — and save the…
Finding Wild
A young scientist leaves behind her coldhearted family and aristocratic roots, moving into a rustic forester’s lodge deep in the woods of northern Poland. Forced to be neighbors with a stubborn, adversarial photographer named Lech, the equally stubborn Simona throws herself into saving the forest and its woodland creatures before it’s too late. Will she…
The Mall! The Musical!
It’s 1999 at a totally tubular mall, and tensions mount at the food court when rival eateries declare a turf war. While two lonely souls wander through the mall lamenting their destiny of perpetual “Window Shopping,” the women at Sofie’s dress sale show their ugly side at “The Maul.” Will smoothies, friendship, pretzels and puppies…
Freedom: The Untold Story of Moses
Join the world-premiere concert performance featuring a selection of songs from Freedom: The Untold Story of Moses. This rousing rock musical brings one of civilization’s most iconic tales to life, portraying the Hebrew prophet Moses not just as the destined leader of his people but as a young man torn between royal privilege and stark…
Write.Voice.Play!
When youth at risk are challenged to write and direct their own short plays, surprising stories of trauma, tenderness, wisdom, and wit erupt onto the stage. Write.Voice.Play! is an evening of student-created one-acts performed by some of Portland’s leading actors, workshopped and produced by PlayWrite, Inc. PlayWrite brings “youth at the edge” together with theater…
Sam’s 21st
Presenting a staged reading of Sam’s 21st, a brand-new musical that follows college student Sam on the night of her quintessential “welcome-to-adulthood” birthday. To honor the occasion, her roommates decide to throw her an epic party. Although she’d rather spend the night hiding in her room, she is excited by the promised attendance of Sophie,…
Extraordinary People
Four sets of conjoined twins in one place? Improbable. The survival rate is low, even today. But these people met forty years ago in Kansas City, Missouri and formed a conscious-raising group. Today they reunite for the funeral for one set of twins (Mona and Mame). Kate is now separated and estranged from her sister…
Have fun kids
Description: When Laura lost her best friend, Jordan weeks before the world shut down in January of 2020, she wasn’t sure how she would cope. Discovering Jordan left over 700 pages of plays and live arts scripts, she did the only thing she knew, create his last show. Laura Anne Harris is a multi-award winning…
Young Playwrights Festival
Young Playwrights Festival (YPF) is a collection of one act plays by outstanding High School playwrights selected from the Portland metro area to work with professional directors, actors and playwrights to gain insight, experience and feedback to develop their plays. The culmination of this process is to experience the audience response at this presentation of…
Life at the Edges & WILD/CAUGHT
A double-bill featuring Profile Theatre and Artists Repertory Theatre’s current mentorship programs. Community Profile offers “Life at the Edges” — five new 10-minute plays or excerpts by its current cohort, with themes ranging from the existential to the extra-terrestrial. The PATHWAYS cohort presents WILD/CAUGHT — in a salmon cannery in the Astoria waterfront, the assembly…
Lesbian Pageant
A rent increase for a 26-year-old lesbian bar threatens its existence, and Darcy has a plan to save it. Is the 90s-themed Lesbian Pageant she dreams up as a fundraiser the answer? Or do the lesbians around her have different ideas about what needs to be saved? Lesbian Pageant skips through time and space —…
Geographies of Oppression
While publishing fiction in Montevideo, Mario Benedetti also worked as a journalist. In June 1973, a military dictatorship seized power, closed the newspaper, and set about persecuting intellectuals and leftists in concert with “Operation Condor”. Benedetti was fortunate to leave the country. Living in exile in Argentina, Peru, Cuba, and Madrid he was separated from friends…
Bread and Roses
A reading of the 2024 Winner of the Portland Civic Theatre New Play Award By Portland playwright Timothy Krause Presented by Linestorm Playwrights during the 2024 Fertile Ground Festival of New Works In 1912 Lawrence, Massachusetts, Ellen, a textile mill worker, plans to marry Joseph, a mill manager from a prestigious Boston family. When Joseph implements…
Waiting 4 2 Blow and Whose Lion Is It Anyway? and Underlings
In Waiting 4 2 Blow by Bill Lynch, Mount St. Helens is about to erupt, but Harry Truman, the feisty owner of a lodge at the foot of the mountain, refuses to leave. His old friend, Sasquatch, arrives, accompanied by a shady companion, D.B. Cooper. The drinks flow, the mountain rumbles, and the fate of…
PENANCE
LineStorm Playwrights Present: PENANCE by Matthew Miller A new play about contrition, confession and absolution. LineStorm Playwrights was established in 2016 as a nonprofit collective of Portland-area dramatists. LineStorm fosters the development of new and diverse works of theatre by member playwrights, sharing those works in progress with the general public to encourage dialogue and…
PULL
“At least 29 states allow individuals other than police or security officials to carry guns on school grounds, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. As of 2018, the last year for which statistics were available, federal survey data estimated that 2.6% of public schools had armed faculty. The count has likely grown.” —…
Far From Home
This is a collection of short works united by the arc of immigration and overcoming difficulties as a foreigner in the United States. Far From Home is an attempt to depict two different stories: the story of a young woman who immigrated to the United States, as she faced a ban on acting in her…
The Long Haul
Enter Roger and Della’s world with a crash. Literally. A minor car crash in their driveway. There are a lot of bumps in a 40 year marriage, some bigger than others. The car still runs, as does the marriage, but things are rougher for both. It hasn’t been a good stretch for Roger. His partner…
Twista Fate
Twin sisters Lara and Eddie share an apartment and a lifestyle paid for by their stepmother, Margret. All Margret seeks in exchange is that they care for each other and manage a happy life. It is harder than it seems. Eddie suffered a lack of oxygen at birth and has behavioral challenges and delays. The guilt…
The Government Agent
Ted Wyatt’s criminal reign as mayor and future political aspirations are thrown into peril when an undercover government agent arrives in his small town of Crystal Canyon, U.S.A. With the help of his closest city council members, Ted’s dysfunctional family pulls out all the stops to impress the agent, preserve the status quo, and possibly…
Strange Birds
When Jo and her forest ranger trainee find blood in the snow outside a remote mountain house, they suspect that something bad has happened. Can they figure out what before the storm hits? Jo’s old friend Lou might be able to help… or she might be involved herself. Strange Birds is about women, and wolves,…
Joan in the Desert
So what do you do when a hero, a saint, or a martyr shows up? You don’t burn them at the stake anymore. But what is done to them is as cruel. In Joan in the Desert, a play by Louise Wynn, an innocent young girl is confronted, in 2024, by the mob, the medical…
empty spaces
Mara’s already complicated life gets turned upside down when her teenage daughter Jazmine goes missing. As Mara fights through various systems in an effort to be seen and locate her missing child, we watch Jazmine’s life spiral in ways she could never imagine after she falls in with the wrong crowd in her own struggle…
maybeland & Beaten Up By A Girl
Beaten Up By A Girl by Samm Hill — It’s the 80’s and you’re the least popular boy in school but it can only get worse when the least popular girl tells everyone you’re going to the Fall Fun Fantasia together. In Maybeland, a semi-malevolent Overseer conducts a modern family through their lives but begins…
Bone Sorrow: The Elder Tree, Cleave, & A Circle of Stones
The Elder Tree — This retelling of the witch trials of 1500s Europe follows the harrowing infestation of religious fanaticism in a once harmonious village. Witness the womenfolk resist the onslaught of perverse accusations and embrace their attempts at reclaiming their power. Cleave — A girl child, intrigued by a shadowed figure that looms outside her window,…
True Life – A Shooter’s Story
The play tells the story of Winter, a boy who has suffered abuse, becomes an incorrigible adolescent and ultimately commits an atrocity. Winter is guided through his story by a counselor, Rachel Silver who seeks to help Winter face the reckoning for what he has done. It is Rachel’s hope that Winter will find a…
Cessair: How Ireland Was Born
According to Irish legend, when Noah — yes, that Noah — tells his granddaughter that there is no room for her on the ark, Cessair takes matters into her own hands. After a tumultuous journey aboard a discarded fleet, 39 women and one lone man land on what is now known as Ireland. This musical-in-progress…
Faena
In the hopes of dispelling some common misconceptions regarding the hotly debated topic of bullfighting, an unnamed narrator tells the story of Víctor, an arrogant matador, and Floripondio, a notoriously murderous bull. However, much to the narrator’s chagrin, at every twist and turn he is faced with humanity’s grotesque and melodramatic inhumanity — bringing into…
R U N
College track star Amanda meets Sean. Her parents grapple with their cranky neighbor. Her therapist navigates new territory on the job. This modern Greek tragedy takes an intense psychological look at relationships and what makes us human. Content Advisory for this Staged Reading: Scenes of Intimate Partner Violence.
Heaven and Hollywood
Heaven and Hollywood presents two one-act plays that look at icons on the stage and the screen. Act I — Noel Coward visits Oscar Wilde in heaven. They trade bon mots, talk about theater and dish about their loves. They ultimately delve into why Wilde, not Coward, became a gay icon. Adam Roper and Michael…
Bad Ass Japanese Pimp with Whose Lion is it Anyway? and Underlings
Bad Ass Japanese Pimp by Rob Katsuno, directed by Cassie Greer: Rob, a Japanese-American, struggles to overcome his habit of choking when angry or put on the spot, repeatedly derailing his life’s progress. Enter Ana, a Brazilian, igniting romantic sparks and cross-cultural hilarity. Rob’s susceptibility to pressure and anger returns with a vengeance when they marry. Marital tension…
Rhythm & Autism
Andee Joyce’s one-woman original musical comedy, Rhythm & Autism, is an interactive, funny, and touching narrative about growing up autistic in the ‘60s and ‘70s. This special sensory friendly performance offers people with high sensory sensitivity a rare opportunity to see a show while also welcoming audience members of all abilities to enjoy the pop…
The Alchemy of Steam
Ifeoma is a driven, brilliant and determined African American Studies student on her way to making her mark on the world. She is burdened by the extra effort that must be undertaken in order to compete in a country that wasn’t made for Black women. And then there is the matter of her tail. Tayir…
Epic Shorts: Strange Burdens
Don’t miss this juried selection of 10-minute works submitted by PDX Playwrights and performed by an ensemble cast. These plays explore the theme of “Strange Burdens” in distinctive, compelling ways. The theme is inspired by author Ursula K. LeGuin from The Tombs of Atuan: “Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for…
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