December 18, 2012
• NO MEETING DUE TO HOLIDAY
December 4, 2012
• ZOMZILLA – by Sally Stember
A zom-rom-com. Blackmail, kidnapping, drunken brawls… The undead never had it so good!
November 20, 2012
• THE EXES – by Gary Corbin
Fertile Ground preview! Two divorced couples crisscross romantic paths and hook up with each others’ ex-partners without realizing it — until it’s too late and wedding bells start to chime.
• IRRESPECTIVE PERSPECTIVE – by Brad Bolchunos
Danvers lives his life with a curious literary tic. Fiona brims with a secret. When their paths cross in rare book room filled other quirky individuals, absurdity blooms.
• SPARK – by Brad Bolchunos
A visual artist roils in frustration as he tries tries to communicate his sense of impending doom, but his desperation threatens more than his career.
November 6, 2012
• NIGHT BREEZES AND THE BALLERINA by Heath Hyun Houghton
On an autumn night, as the Santa Anas are blowing, a young girl learns the complicated cost of living. Dance and dialogue weave into this exploration of memory, family and Africa.
October 30, 2012
• DISCUSSION: DRAMATURGY AND YOU – Led by Nick Hauser and members of DramaturgyPDX
How do we shape a story into stageworthy form? A dramaturg can assist playwrights and a theatre as they develop their work. But how, exactly? And what the heck is a dramaturg? As part of its periodic “Fifth Tuesday” series of workshops and discussions, PDX Playwrights will explore the world of dramaturgy with Nick Hauser and fellow Portland-area dramaturgs. Following a brief presentation, they will be available for questions and answers. It promises to be an intriguing, interactive session – and a way heighten the visibility of this valuable local resource.
October 16, 2012
• THE LARK AT HEAVEN’S GATE SINGS – by John A. Donnelly
A camping vacation. Twin brothers, a Wall Street lawyer and a poverty lawyer. Their girlfriends, one with a peculiar drinking problem, the other, well, peculiar. Food, drink and conversation. But no horror stories or ghost stories told around a campfire. Instead … something else entirely.
October 2, 2012
• GOING ON – by Kristin Olson-Huddle
“Going On is a solo show based on my experiences with the deaths of my mother and father when I was six years old, and the death of my younger brother when I was a young adult. I faced challenges both as a kid and as an adult expressing my grief. This show follows my journey overcoming those challenges.”
• 37 MINUTES – by Michael Evan Adent
It’s soon before noon in the park on the corner of 11th and Truman. A couple on a bench discuss what they’ll eat for dinner. A blue jay watches a quirky young woman resting against the trunk of a birch tree. But when an odd event unfolds, passersby must try to make sense of it all.
September 25, 2012
• SHOW US YOUR SHORTS! (special event)
A prop, a line, a gesture, and a unifying theme (“Show and Tell”) unite the divergent works of six members of PDX Playwrights. Experience the drama and humor and witness how the playwrights’ voices carry these common elements to uniquely different places. The lineup includes:
Kate Belden – “Could be Anything”
Brad Bolchunos – “Liquid Rock”
Gary Corbin – “The Truthstone”
Jenni Miller, “Hope and Barrel”
Jon Servilio – “Apostrophe and Rebuke”
Sally Sunbear – “Diverging Rays”
7:00 – 9:00pm
MilePost Five
850 NE 81st Ave, Portland, 97213
Admission: Free! (Donations at the door benefit PDX Playwrights)
September 18, 2012
• A SNEAK PEEK AT “SHOW US YOUR SHORTS” – by PDX Playwrights
“Show Us Your Shorts” hits Milepost 5 with a free staged reading performance Sept. 25, and PDX Playwrights will offer a preview Tuesday at 23 Sandy Gallery. Six area playwrights dared to show us their shorts. They challenged themselves to write 10-minute plays using a common theme — “Show and Tell” — as well as a shared gesture, prop and line of dialogue. Both the Milepost 5 presentation and the precursor table read Tuesday promise evenings packed with variety, connectivity and exploration: “The Truthstone” by Gary Corbin, “Apostrophe and Rebuke” by John Servilio, “Could Be Anything” by Kate Belden, “Liquid Rock” by Brad Bolchunos, “Hope and Barrel” by Jenni GreenMiller and “Diverging Rays” by Sally Sunbear.
September 4, 2012
• BREAKUP: THE MUSICAL – by Samuel D. Dinkowitz
Using the sterile format of classical musical theatre, this sardonic tale of love and loss will help you to laugh at yourself and re-examine the changing dynamic between men and women in our jaded society. Six all-new songs include titles such as “The Angry Breakup Song”, “Oh Fuck! It’s Love!”, and “Platonic”.
August 21, 2012
• WAY TIGHT ON THE BROWN EARTH – by Heath Hyun Houghton
A group of Old Friends reunite at the home of one of their own. They struggle to define and maintain their relationships in the face of their ambitions and the distance of space and time.
August 7, 2012
• JUST LIKE TENNESSEE – by Sandra de Helen
Tennessee Williams himself shows us the effect his writing has on one young man in particular. We meet Bo Young, his family, his lover, and his colleagues. Then we watch as they love him, hate him, and try to rescue him. One hopes for a happy ending, but in this fever dream of a dark comedy, who knows what might happen?
July 31, 2012
• FIFTH TUESDAY SEMINAR: DEVELOPING CHARACTER VOICE FOR BETTER DIALOG – with Gary Corbin
This seminar-style workshop will include presentation, discussion and hands-on exercises to help you identify your characters’ unique voices and express them vividly in your scripts.
July 17, 2012
• LOST AND FOUND – by Miriam Feder
What would it be like to have a seventeen year old possible daughter suddenly announce herself into your life? Shira has never met her Father and now that she’s mature and getting more interested in this question, her Mother gives her the name of the man who fathered her. Mom counsels Shira not to expect too much—he didn’t even know she had become pregnant 18 years before from a most casual encounter. This play explores some of the difficulties and results of making this kind of a connection.
July 3, 2012
• LYING IN JUDGMENT – by Gary Corbin
Peter Robertson serves on the jury for a murder trial – the murder that he committed. Or did he? As the dysfunctional jury weighs the evidence, the jurors’ biases explode into pitched arguments while Peter’s own stress causes him to reveal information not presented in court.
June 19, 2012
• THE RED BOOK – by Kaitlyn Horn
I fought traffic. I yearned for home. I worked all day, anticipating you. I came home late. I saw the book you left me. But, what I found, was a shock that would catapult me. Now, I’m sick and fight the hurt in me, just to find you, and recover you safely.
• WANT WHIPPED CREAM ON IT? – by Kaitlyn Horn
Three young baristas try to make coffee beverages in peace, despite the regulars, also known as ‘creepers’ who hound them endlessly. But, nothing can prepare them for the ultimate—an old man who studies the patrons and baristas, using Freudian psychoanalysis.
• GOOD ONES – by David Wester
Jake relates the good jokes he got off at a recent party to his friend Edgar. As he does so, he inadvertently unearths some of the resentments and competitive impulses between the two men.
June 5, 2012
• SATANIC ORGANICS – by Jason Rosenblatt
You’ve just had the best sex of your life. But now she’s telling you it was all a set-up, she’s a terrorist in a war with the Devil who’s living on Earth inside the body of the Norwegian millionaire CEO who just bought your company and became your boss. And she wants you to help her and her fellow terrorists (okay, wanna-be terrorists — they really don’t know what they’re doing) expose the Devil for what he is and prevent him from whatever dastardly plans have brought him to earth. What do you do?
May 29, 2012
• FIFTH TUESDAY SEMINAR: ENGAGING STORYTELLING – with John Servilio
Join playwright John Servilio for a talk on what makes for engaging storytelling in drama. We’ll be talking about allowing a story to unfold organically, how to use mystery to create engagement, and how to avoid the pitfalls of cliché and exposition. Bring a pen and paper.
May 15, 2012
• KARMA, KARMA QUEERMELEON – by Ashley Ohana & Stara Shakti
Shy, socially isolated Sunita is an American girl raised by Indian parents in suburban New Jersey. Sweet, obedient, and wholesome, the bored and sad little girl flirts with rebellion: writing erotica in math class, dating “bad boys,” and living a double life, working in the publishing industry by day and going to orgies in New York City at night. This dramedy relates her personal transformation into Stara — a sexually empowered priestess, artist, and healer. After years of blending in to keep safe in her culture of upbringing, she finds the courage it takes to break free from the “good little Indian girl” and to live her life on her terms.
May 1, 2012
• GREG AND LAUREN – by Sally Stember
A comedy based on what would happen if Romeo and Juliette didn’t meet until they were 70.
• MERYL’S HAPPY LITTLE SECRET – by Sally Stember
A raunchy little comedy. Reader discretion advised.
April 17, 2012
• THE BIRD WATCHER – by David DeHart
Calvin Carter and Floyd Simms, two senior residents of Rose Hill Retirement Home who are philosophically miles apart, face each other and their fears. To avoid joining in the “kid’s activities,” as Carter calls the recreation director’s schedule of events, he declares himself an avid bird-watcher, permitting him to sit for hours on a park bench. Much to his angst, he is joined by newcomer Simms, who insists on sitting next to him and gushing with optimistic views of the world and everything in it.
• CROSSWORDS MORNING, A SLICE OF LIFE PLAY – by Maggie McOmie
A retired couple begin their morning with the crossword puzzle as they comment on the news, share information, complain, and snipe at each other occasionally in the process.
April 3, 2012
• THE STARS ARE OUR ANCESTORS – by Sandra de Helen
An astronomer overcomes agoraphobia and travels to Korea with her adoptive mother, bi-racial daughter, and lesbian lover to find her biological parents. Her daughter disappears, her mother dies, she suffers relapse. Only her true ancestors – the stars – can save her now.
March 20, 2012
• CHILD – by Sally Stember
When a nosy righteous social worker named Miss Havely is called to investigate reports of a child living alone in home, she stumbles upon the supernatural.
• COLOR OF MY HEART – by Susan Faust
A public ladies room in a performing arts center. The never-ending line to the stalls is peopled by a motley group of women. Mindless chatter, insinuation, even yelling takes place, but amidst it all one woman stands alone, living her own personal crisis. Will anyone take notice? Does anyone care? Intermission is almost over…
March 13, 2012
• AN INTRODUCTION TO NARRATIVE STRUCTURE – with Dave Chapman
Learn how to lay a strong foundation for your play, and how examining structure can help you solve problems during rewrites. We’ll look at examples from well known plays, and apply the same principles to ideas you’re developing.
March 6, 2012
• CONSEQUENCES: A MUSICAL PLAY – book by Mandy Bozart, music by Jonathan Quesenberry
A couple who’ve spent their whole lives denying that there were consequences for their actions put their relationship and their daughter at risk when they meet an enigmatic stranger on the eve of their twentieth wedding anniversary.
February 21, 2012
• MURDER ON RUSSELL STREET – by Gary Corbin
A murder/ghost story based on the legendary early-20th Century haunting of what is now the White Eagle Saloon on North Russell Street.
February 7, 2012
• ONE SIZE FITS ALL – by Kate Horn
In the teen ward of a mental hospital, anything can happen. And, it does. But, it doesn’t. It moves forward, backward, no where, and somewhere. Let’s see where we go. Will we escape? Will we be together? Will we be us?
January 17, 2012
• SINGER CLASHES WITH COUGAR – by Sandra de Helen
A lesbian immigrant from Mexico living in Oregon is visited by a puma while rehearsing for a concert. The puma is transformed into a woman when they profess their love for each other. Unfortunately, the young singer loses her attraction for Puma when she sees her in human years. Puma has a broken heart, and no skills, no home, no one to care for her as an old woman.
• SHAPING AN AVALANCHE – by Renee Mitchell
When teens endorse cyberbullying by proxy it can be a little like playing telephone. By the end of the game, the rules have changed and the message can trigger results that are dramatically more far reaching than simple harassment, motivated by anger, revenge or jealousy. “People love to pile on,” one of the characters in this play says. What happens when lines get blurred during the piling between the aggressor and the victim?
• BLOOD IS THICKER THAN COLOR – by Renee Mitchell
During the 1840s, racist policies intended to divide, conquer and kill thinned out the ranks of the Native American men on the reservations. Women did what they could do to survive, keep the traditions alive, and yet still leave room open for love and passion. These two Cherokee sisters took very different paths to love that ended up straining their family ties.
January 3, 2012
• MARCH: A PLAY ABOUT SHIFTING – by Kate Belden
Margery Dawson is a neuroanatomist, meaning she has a PhD in how the brain works. But hers isn’t. Hers is having a stroke. And though she’s too busy to have one, and certainly too busy for history, family, or a relationship, all of them are happening. Right here, right now.