Fertile Ground is a collaborative city-wide festival of new work taking place throughout Portland, Oregon January 22nd through February 2nd, 2010. The festival was launched in 2009 by the Portland Area Theatre Alliance (the service organization for Portland theater artists and organizations) to provide a platform for Portland theater companies to showcase their commitment to new work; and to invite visiting artists and theater lovers to discover for themselves that Portland truly is fertile ground for creativity, innovation, and daring acts of performance.
The festival showcases workshops, readings, and world premiere productions of theater, music, dance and comedy created and produced by the Portland performers and artists.
What Makes Fertile Ground Unique. Several theater companies across the nation host “new works festivals” (including Portland’s own Portland Center Stage, whose JAW Festival in July has been cultivating playwrights for over 10 years). Nearly all of these festivals present “staged readings”, works-in-progress curated by the artistic aesthetic of one company’s artistic staff. In contrast, the Fertile Ground Festival will present a collection of fully staged world premiere productions, curated through multiple aesthetic perspectives ranging from Portland’s oldest and largest to its newest and smallest theatrical institutions, and ranging from adaptive re-use of one of the English language’s classic children’s tales to the very newest ideas stretching the boundaries of the performance form.
Festival Passes. Your $50 Festival pass grants you one admission to each and every festival project. That’s 50 plus performances for $50.
Participating in the Festival. Projects wishing to participate in the festival must register through www.fertilegroundpdx.org. To qualify, the project must be Portland-generated and a world premiere. Any stage of production from workshop reading to fully staged production will be accepted. For more information about participating, email trisham@pcs.org.
