Arts & Books Imagine a Portland without rain. Richard Moore’s Rain! The Musical sees fallen rock star Turner returning to a dried-out Rose City. Liquid sunshine has been replaced by productivity in the re-christened “city that works.” As Turner finds himself in a world of assistants named Theresa and an overworked, undersexed ex-girlfriend, the audience enters his rockified musical dream. With a band of old ...   More

Arts & Books What just happened? Joseph Campbell’s “collective unconscious” meets the collective creativity of Portland’s Milepost 5 artistic community in this art/theater/dance installation, presented by HumanBeingCurious Productions. Attendees find themselves greeted with a papier-mache mask that smells vaguely of paste and whisked into a swirly-whirly universe of philosophical quandaries. Only this trip ...   More

Arts & Books A group of famous—and famously needy and egotistical—performers and creators gathers in the early 1960s to revive their careers by putting on a production whose prospects of success are jeopardized by conflicts with institutional powers and friction among these volatile, creative personalities.Why, this must be Orson's Shadow, Austin Pendleton’s award-winning 2000 play about two of the world's ...   More

Arts & Books “Are you here to see ‘the ellipsis?’” the woman working the box office asked. She didn’t hesitate, but you could hear the quotation marks. Like any intentionally unpronounceable play, Fuse Theatre Ensemble’s (…), receiving its world premiere as part of the Fertile Ground Festival, is sure to raise flags. For the majority of theatergoers, the play’s lack of an alphanumeric title will ...   More

Arts & Books Entering the Bob White Theatre Warehouse—just a concrete floor with in-the-round seating and a chandelier hanging from the soaring ceiling—ushers informed audience members that the heat will shut off when the performance begins. “It’ll get progressively colder,” one says. “Hang onto your coats.”This was, oddly, not an intentional metacommentary about life on the streets in this world-premiere ...   More

Arts & Books Both “charming” and “like an unwanted pregnancy,” reads C.S. Whitcomb’s description of her new play, The Seven Wonders of Chipping, premiering in a reading at Fertile Ground.What she means, though, is that the story took on a life of its own, and indeed it is charming to the brim. How can you not love delectable British accents, quaint village stories, poetry and daffodils? As Whitcomb explains, ...   More

Arts & Books There is a dress-up bin, a black box and lots of booze onstage. That is all...until Stacey Hallal’s feisty and fiery Ruby Rocket stumbles onto the scene, Jack Daniels in hand, flaunting her hip-to-waist ratio. “This is my office.” She pushes the black box to the right. “This is the police station.” The box goes left.Fertile Ground’s workshop production of Ruby Rocket, Private Eye is ...   More

Arts & Books Writers don’t pretend to be mathematicians, but even I know that four times four does not equal eight. You know what else isn’t eight? Seven. 4x4=8, the “mini-musical” montage from producer John Oules and curator Mark LaPierre, turned out to be a mystery with one mini gone missing at Thursday night’s Fertile Ground performance.Inspired by the space constraint of Ten Tiny Dances, 4x4=8 uses ...   More