So what’s on my mind? Why am I writing this article? Something niggles at me. Strong local interest in Oregon for everything Oregon (beer, cheese, wine, coffee, cars) and a strong talent pool of local actors should make this a playwright’s dream town, but somehow being local and getting productions is more elusive than it should be. Somehow the risk to an established theatre of putting on a new play by an unknown writer is big, but the risk of putting on a new play by an unknown writer who happens to live in the state of Oregon has been practically insurmountable. Why is being local seen as a detriment? How can we get out of the mindset of local being equivalent to “not that good”? And who is judging this anyway? 

Maybe we need to start from the ground up. Maybe the established theatres feel like they can’t take the social/financial/personal risk of embracing the local, but the new young companies in this town can. In the past several weeks I have spoken to three separate theatre groups who have, by some sort of cultural flowering of the collective unconscious, developed an active interest in new plays and in new plays by local writers. It’s true, they are mostly young and mostly new, but they are feeling the pulse of what is going on nationally. Being a playwright is “in” again (thank you, 13P) and being local is the new hip (if you are a beverage or a car). 

So what’s a playwright to do? Keep your head down, your mouth shut, your pen scribbling, and FIND YOUR TRIBE and make theatre. Maybe while the people of social and artistic import are arguing about the “real role of the regional theatre in relation to the local artists,” the new American plays will be developed and executed by the talented, motivated, professional people on the ground. And I am not talking about scrappy late night theatre. I am talking about new companies carrying Equity contracts, having nice seating and dressing rooms, and high production values. To quote Nike (also local to Portland), “just do it.” 

I guess that’s my only answer. And maybe someone from a big regional might even come see the show and use some of their flagship status to send your work out to the great beyond to all those literary managers yearning for an authentic voice. But really probably not. 

astolowitz@dramatistsguild.com

Music courses through the works of playwright William S. Gregory.  Not that his plays are musicals, though they have frequently incorporated music.  Rather, Gregory fuses the musicality of language with a passion for history, verse, and the eternal comedy (and tragedy) of human manners to shape a charming, erudite, and wholly unique voice in Portland theatre. 

Having written some 36 plays since 1990 (including a six-play cycle on the life of Cardinal Richelieu), Gregory’s plays frequently use history as a starting point, such as “Mary Tudor”—which won Drammy Awards for “Best Direction,” “Best Ensemble,” and “Best Production of a New Play” for its 1999 CoHo Theatre production—but they concern themselves less with dates and more with the vanities, self-importance, and pitfalls of social pretenders, schemers, and rogues, who more often than not ensnare themselves in their own webs.  Though his pieces sometimes reflect the pre-modern periods in which they’re set, aggressively plotted and functioning within socially restrictive societies, there’s a modernist’s eye at the controls, much concerned with the class pressures to which Americans claim to be immune.  Though he may portray Renaissance characters or adapt Carlo Goldoni, a sly voice beneath the verse and affect asks: are we, today, much different?

The results have found ready audiences in Portland, with an almost unbroken string of productions and workshops since 1998.  At a time when Portland playwrights often have to find productions outside the Pacific Northwest, Gregory has consistently been produced in Oregon and Washington, working with theatres such as Portland Center Stage, Miracle Theatre (in a memorable bilingual adaptation of “Fuente Ovejuna”), Triangle Productions, Stark Raving Theatre, the Classic Greek Theatre of Oregon, and several times with the aforementioned CoHo Productions.

In fact, it was CoHo’s production of “Mary Tudor,” sweeping up its armful of awards, that helped make Gregory one of Portland’s better known playwrights.  For several years, he was also a member of Portland Center Stage’s PlayGroup Playwriting Workshop, with pieces in a number of PlayGroup’s collaborative shows, and, in one case, instigating “Frenching the Bones,” a memorable 2007 Halloween show with the PlayGroup writers celebrating the intersection of fine food and horror.  The innovative production sold out, emblematic of Gregory’s entertaining gift for combining the very high with the deliciously low.

Given his taste for classic themes and poetic, musical dialogue, it comes as no surprise that part of Gregory’s apprenticeship includes singing liturgical music and attending Southern Oregon State University in Ashland, Oregon, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  Perhaps exposure to one of America’s finest Shakespearian theatres fed Gregory’s love of onstage verse, magic, and spectacle.  One of his few regrets about Portland’s theatre scene is a lack of a classically trained company focusing entirely on Shakespeare.

He is, however, appreciative of Portland’s acting community, finding it well stocked with strong performers who generously lend their time and talent to developing new plays, which is evident in Portland’s January/February Fertile Ground City-Wide Festival of New Works.  Naturally, Mr. Gregory will be playing his part in the festival, presenting a new play January 26th at Portland Theatre Works: “Stone Love”—a verse comedy about the eternal Don Juan.  William S. Gregory may be once again looking to the past, but he does so to reflect upon present and the fools, charlatans, scoundrels, and saints within all of us.

splatterson@mindspring.com

Well it happened. This January’s inaugural Fertile Ground Festival presented 37 world-premiere events from fully produced plays, to rehearsed concert readings, to late night and lunch time readings. But more than the apparent success of the festival and the fulfillment of the artists involved, the event seems to have started a buzz of interest around new work. One workshop production by a local performer is moving to become a fully staged part of a theatre season next year and another Portland theatre has decided to open up several fall slots for readings of new plays by local playwrights. The feeling on the ground during the festival was one of excitement. For two weeks there were world-premiere events happening all around the city and it truly had a festival feel: see a show, get a drink, hear a reading, have a coffee, meet some fellow theatre go-ers, read about great shows to see. Repeat.

Devoting a festival to world premieres is an interesting concept. The organizers felt that “another fringe festival” wouldn’t do much to help further the cause of new work by local writers or necessarily encourage an interest in new work. This world-premiere festival model which did not focus on local writers, but did focus on new work seems to have done the trick in terms of increasing interest in new work. This excitement will hopefully translate into productions and other forms of tangible support for the talented writers bopping around Oregon.

In an effort to capitalize on the energy the festival was creating and to channel it, Steve Patterson and I decided to organize the Dramatists Guild events to coincide with the second weekend of the festival. Portland Center Stage graciously hosted us and allowed us to use their lovely Ellen Bye Studio Theater as a venue for the meetings. First we had the Dramatists Guild information meeting which consisted of a business portion presented by the ever charming and humorous David Faux and a member information portion presented by Gary Garrison and Roland Tec. Later in the afternoon we had the big Town Hall meeting moderated by Mead Hunter where we invited the theatre community to come and brainstorm about what playwrights in Oregon need and how to begin implementing some of that.

The business and Guild info meetings attracted about 50 Portland writers and DG members eager to hear about business matters and about what the Guild could do for them. The business presentation was especially useful as it explained the ins and outs of contracts and helped playwrights understand their legal rights.

The town hall meeting was a significant event. Our panelists consisted of Lue Douthit from OSF, Michael Rohd from Sojourn Theater, and Gary Garrison from the Guild. The guests spoke about ways to develop new work and ways in which their organizations support playwrights. Michael Rohd broadened the conversation by talking about ensemble generated work and the changing model of new play development and the field of playwriting. Ultimately the panel seemed to conclude that self-production or artist initiated productions seemed to be the way that playwrights these days are getting new work onto the stage. The meeting was then opened up to the 100 plus people in attendance to brainstorm about ways the theatre scene in Oregon could grow to include playwrights. While no final conclusions were reached, the community formed by this event will allow for more substantial future conversations, plans and actions.

It was a busy month in the rainy Northwest.

astolowitz@dramatistsguild.com