March 27, 2025
Exploring Personal Diasporas
Dmae talks with Jane Vogel Mantiri (Indo writer/actor and founder of Advance Gender Equity) and Samson Syharath (theater artist and co-founder of Theatre Diaspora) about their journeys with cultural diaspora. Both are performing personal solo plays dramatizing their explorations into family secrets and the effects of war and myth on their own identities. They premiere their separate shows at the 2025 Fertile Ground Festival, a city-wide festival starting April 4-19th featuring all local theater works.
February 17, 2025
Portland Playhouse’s “Notes From The Field”
In 2015 famed playwright of verbatim” or “documentary” theater, Anna Deavere Smith created a solo show called “Notes From the Field.” Drawn from more than 200 interviews with students, parents, teachers administrators, Smith played multiple characters who talk about the school to prison pipeline. “Notes From the Field” is even more pertinent today
January 30, 2025
Simon Tam & The Slants – Worth The Fight
Simon Tam is one of the few, if any, rock musicians to have received a major award from the American Bar Association. Co-founded in 2006 as an all-Asian American dance band paying homage to 80's music, the Portland-originated The Slants were denied the right to trademark their name. Tam had to fight a case all the way to the US Supreme Court in order to get the band name trademarked.
January 23, 2025
Linda K. Johnson
Linda K. Johnson is a visionary dancer who has created more conceptual and site-relevant performances and projects for the last 40 years. She has been both an educator and curator bringing together artists of varied disciplines to create together. O
December 3, 2024
Sarah Jane Hardy & NWCTS
Sarah Jane Hardy has been the artistic director of Northwest Children’s Theater (NWCT) for a couple of decades. Since she left her native Liverpool, England, Sarah Jane has weathered many storms at the theatre and produced and directed many successful shows. She’s been a visionary theater leader and when many theaters had to scale back during the pandemic, NWCT actually obtained a long lease to open a new space in downtown Portland. Converting a former movie multiplex into a couple of much-needed new spaces for themselves, NWCT has several options for creating their stage productions but also are now providing affordable spaces for other community and artistic groups.
November 11, 2024
Paul Susi & An Iliad
Actor and writer Paul Susi is using his decades long experience as a social services professional and social justice activist to bring an adaptation of Homer’s The Iliad to prisons, church groups and community centers. He just returned from a … Read the rest