Review: FERTILE GROUND 2026: REVIEW ROUNDUP #3

Fertile Ground 2026 wrapped up last weekend, and on the whole, it was fantastic. I saw 17 shows, which included readings of plays by well-known local playwrights, new works by rising stars, and some fun genre-bending original performances. Here are my notes about the final set. If you missed my first two review roundups, find them here and here.

Sudden and Severe Hunger

This reading of a play by meg schenk was my sleeper hit of the festival. Going in, I knew only that it was a queer dark comedy about zombies under late-stage capitalism (the zombie genre has always shape-shifted to mirror our real-world fears), and that schenk was a participant in this year’s GROW Program, which support artists and projects that bring new perspectives, experiences, and artistic forms to the Portland stage.

What I didn’t expect was to be not only totally entertained (it is genuinely funny) but also deeply moved. Because underneath the fun zombie romp is something very tender: a portrait of two siblings doing their best to hold each other up in difficult times. Told mostly in text messages and phone calls between Sam (Riley Olson) and Live (Anya Jones), siblings living cross-country who have recently lost their parents, the play moves through grief, disappointed life expectations, the financial tightrope many people are walking right now, and what it actually means to show up for someone you love. Oh, and if zombies do start shambling along our streets tomorrow, I’m fairly convinced schenk has mapped out what that world would look like.

If you missed this one, the good news is that you have another shot. There will be a staged reading on June 1 as part of Fuse Theatre Ensemble’s OUTwright Theatre Festival.

My Huckleberry Friend

Here’s something you don’t see often at Fertile Ground: a show headed to Broadway. Thanks to backing by producer Corey Brunish, this one is actually going there, followed by a musical version and with plans for other expansions as well.

Set in the mid-1970s in New York City’s Upper East Side, the play centers on Madison Flint (Ariel Puls), a disorganized-in-every-way lyricist who seems to spend most of her time yelling at people out the window. Her apartment is teeming with dirty laundry, her dad (Samuel Calkins), her assistant Eddie (Tom Walton – it’s not entirely clear what he assists with), and her housekeeper, Maria (Morgan Cox), who carries a grudge against Bolsheviks. Recently divorced, Madison owes her ex lyrics for three shows as part of the settlement. In walks Richard Ledger (Tom Mounsey – whom I haven't seen on stage in a while and am thrilled to have back), a composer who is the polar opposite of Madison: neat, organized, not prone to yelling at random strangers.

There’s nothing particularly surprising here – opposites attract and all that. The interest lies in the very quirky characters that populate this small world. The cast threw themselves into the material. It was a staged reading, but they all put on a $50 show. Special kudos to local high school student Gio Calandrella, who stole several scenes as Pedestrian and TV Host.

If everything goes as planned, you may have plenty of opportunities to catch this one, at a regional theatre or perhaps on the Great White Way.

The Audacity

Something a little different for Fertile Ground: this was a reading of a script for a short film. But the performance was exactly like a staged reading of a play, and it fit the festival perfectly.

Writer and director Blair Nesbitt draws from real DMs she and other women she knows have received online to explore the cumulative impact of the kind of harassment women experience constantly, usually from anonymous men who feel entitled to say anything they want. The script poses two audacious questions: what if those men said those things out loud, in real life? And what if women responded with the rage they actually feel?

The result is a dark surrealist comedy centered on Jess, a woman who just wants to get some work done at a café and keeps having her day derailed by unwanted, highly sexual comments from random men. If you're a woman moving through the world, you will recognize these interactions immediately.

This one stuck with me. I'll be very interested to see the finished film.

Diary of an Oregon Trail Spinster

Picture yourself on the Oregon Trail — the 1840s version, or the 1990s video game version. Brenan Dwyer's new “single-woman play” follows an elder millennial navigating the journey west alone: chopping wood, hunting for food, deciding whether to ford the river or caulk the wagon. Her Oregon dream includes a husband, a fulfilling career, and a life free from the weight of family expectations. Standing in her way: the feeling that she's already too old, self-consciousness about her body, general anxiety, and, of course, the wagon axle that keeps breaking.

This advanced workshop production used projections to bring the video game to life, constantly and seamlessly blurring the line between the game world and the real-life struggles of a woman trying to find her place. 

I went for the nostalgia and the comedy. And it is very funny. But I wasn't prepared for the full emotional journey Dwyer takes you on. Over the course of a little over an hour, she moves from the highs of hard-won self-sufficiency through creeping self-doubt and questioning, down to a raw, vulnerable nadir where you genuinely wonder if the game might end early, and not because of dysentery. I loved it.

This show has its official world premiere in Los Angeles this summer. If it makes it back to Portland, put it on your must-see list.

Tethered

Stefen Feuerherdt's new play opens with Commander Astrid Lindholm (Isabella Buckner) marooned in space following a disaster that claimed her ship and crew, tethered to just one other surviving crewmember, Chaya (Caitlin Nolan).

From there, the play moves fluidly between the void of space and the story of how Astrid got there, following in the footsteps of her famous astronaut father and competing for recognition in the shadow of an older brother. At its heart, this is a story about self-discovery and about the many types of tethers, physical and emotional, that bind us to other people. Sometimes they protect us, sometimes they hold us back. When is it time to let go?

The production was multimedia and almost immersive, cleverly staged given the intimate confines of the 21ten Theatre. The performances were resonant. It was, in a word, beautiful, visually and emotionally both.

Boom Crash Love

The perfect show to end my personal Fertile Ground Festival.

Set in 1929, this musical, with book by Timothy Krause and music drawn from the era, both pays homage to and completely upends the traditional jazz age musical. The story centers on Daniel Foster (Richie Stone), a young stockbroker, and EveLynn Earhart (Caralynn Rose), an aspiring artist with a large inheritance and rich relations. Her aunt and uncle are, literally, Richard Rich (Jeremy Southard) and Lotta Rich (Amanda Rose Taddeo). At a party, Daniel and EveLynn meet each other and fall in with Greta Murray (Amelia Segler) and her accompanist-boyfriend Nick Condon (Nick Bellows). When the stock market crashes, taking everyone's hopes and dreams with it, they're all forced to reckon with what their hearts actually want.

I grinned ear-to-ear through the entire show. The book is very funny, full of fast-moving, clever wordplay, and more stock market jokes than you can possibly imagine. Everything perfectly evoked the period, especially the costume design by Ahmad Daniel Santos. The band, featuring Mak Kastelic on piano, Bernardo Gomez on bass, Rob Roy on percussion, was fabulous. And I'm always up for a queer take on a classic genre.

The idea behind the project is also worth celebrating: the music is all in the public domain, and Krause intends to make the book available under a Creative Commons license, meaning any theatre anywhere can produce it.

This was also my first visit to the newly restored Dekum Street Theatre. At a time when arts spaces are disappearing, it’s wonderful to have this gorgeous new venue in Portland.

Photo credit: Emma Zakes Green

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