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1 week ago | 
orartswatch.org | Linda Ferguson
If productions of plays were people, then John Patrick’s The Curious Savage at North Portland’s Twilight Theater Company is an utterly charming friend who is the perfect blend of snappy wit and soft heart … a welcome addition to a society that the columnist and author David Brooks says has become increasingly sad, isolated, and mean. Perhaps Brooks, sociologists or historians could explain why the show was a flop when it opened on Broadway in 1950 with Lillian Gish as its star.
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1 month ago | 
orartswatch.org | Linda Ferguson |Oregon ArtsWatch
Who knew sadness could be so spirit-lifting? One of the most blissful things about Blinking Eye Theatre’s buoyantly absurd production of Melancholy Play is that the performers seemed to be enjoying themselves as much as the audience did.
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2 months ago | 
orartswatch.org | Linda Ferguson |Francisco Garcia |Francisco García |Oregon ArtsWatch
Fertile Ground, an organic and unpredictable festival of greater Portland talent, is celebrating its 16th year by presenting 64 new shows in all stages of development over the course of 16 jam-packed days. Making it easy to get to your neighborhood theaters, venues are scattered throughout the metro area, including Hillsboro, Beaverton, Milwaukie and Lake Oswego, in addition to theaters on both sides of the river in Portland.
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2 months ago | 
orartswatch.org | Linda Ferguson |Oregon ArtsWatch
With the capricious spring weather swinging from blazing sun to abundant rain, it must be time for Fertile Ground, Portland’s festival of new works, which will be sprouting with dozens of shows all over town this year April 4-19.
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2 months ago | 
orartswatch.org | Linda Ferguson |Oregon ArtsWatch
Oregon Children’s Theatre has announced it will indefinitely pause all of its programming effective September 1, 2025. At the same time, it announced a drive to raise at least $1 million to get the company back on its feet. The pause, announced in a Tuesday email from board president Katie Slavin and artistic director Jenn Hartmann Luck, will include all Mainstage productions, camps and classes, in-school programming, and the Young Professionals Company.
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2 months ago | 
orartswatch.org | Linda Ferguson |Oregon ArtsWatch
Stumptown Stages’ production of the 2019 musical Tootsie, co-directed by two of its stars (Emily Alexander and Steve Coker), offers myriad delights, not the least of which is a respite from real life. Welcome to a world where money-worshipping producers are a joke, male sexual harassers need therapy with sock puppets, and a woman is appreciated for being an excellent leader.
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2 months ago | 
orartswatch.org | Linda Ferguson |Oregon ArtsWatch
Portland Center Stage’s fiery 75-minute production of The Light, deftly directed by Chip Miller, is full of surprises, but the meaning of its title isn’t one of them. Before the play begins, a voice states that the show is dedicated to every Black girl or woman who’s been through darkness. How this theme is worked into the story, which seems like a romantic comedy before it bursts into becoming an exposé, is a breathtaking feat of burn-down-the-house acting by its two stars.
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Mar 4, 2025 | 
orartswatch.org | Linda Ferguson |Oregon ArtsWatch
For Megan Skye Hale, the Grimm brothers’ “Rapunzel” is just strange enough to spark some intriguing questions. In the original story, a pregnant woman gets a craving for rapunzel, a flowering plant that grows in a witch’s garden. When the witch catches the woman’s husband stealing the herb, she agrees not to punish him if she can have the couple’s child.
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Feb 26, 2025 | 
orartswatch.org | Linda Ferguson |Oregon ArtsWatch
Unlike the TV sitcom Seinfeld – the show about nothing – Samantha Van Der Merwe’s thoroughly enjoyable production of The Antipodes at Shaking the Tree Theatre is a show about everything, including storytelling and gender imbalance, all told with a beguiling blend of realistic dialogue and theatrical magic.
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Feb 25, 2025 | 
orartswatch.org | Linda Ferguson |Oregon ArtsWatch
Walking into 21ten Theatre for the Feb. 21 performance of Chekhov! 3 Farces, the audience was treated to a series of Looney Tunes projected on a screen. And why not? After enduring an onslaught of unimaginable political awfulness for more than a month, turning to Bugs Bunny for a laugh or two might be the most sensible thing to do.
