BWW Reviews: Give in to Your Nerdy Side with BAND GEEKS at Broadway Rose
Band Geeks is the kind of show you start out scoffing at for its simple-minded depiction of teenage problems, but the darn thing sneaks up on you, and you walk out cheering.
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BWW Reviews: THE MONSTER-BUILDER Is a Devil of a Comedy at Artists Rep
Part of the fun is figuring out what's going to happen and where the whole thing is headed.
BWW Reviews: JITNEY is a Long, Meandering Ride at Portland Playhouse
The play is anecdotal, each character telling long stories about where they've been and what they've lived through, but the stories are less distinctive than I'm used to from August Wilson.
BWW Reviews: CHINGLISH is Filled with Cross-Cultural Laughter at Portland Center Stage
An American businessman comes over to try to sell the city leaders on hiring his company to build the signage for the center, in hopes of avoiding the mistranslations we've all seen and laughed at.
BWW Reviews: Crazy, Maddening, and Funny...That's ENJOY at Coho Productions
Sometimes a play that isn't working takes a positive step in its second half, and that's the case with Enjoy.
BWW Reviews: All the Laughs You Could Ever Want Are in NOISES OFF at Third Rail
Michael Frayn's farce-within-a-farce is simply the funniest play ever written by a human, and it's so good that even high schoolers can get surefire laughs with it.
BWW Reviews: Artists Rep's FOXFINDER Gets Lost in the Woods
William keeps searching, Judith tries to hold things together, and Sam becomes increasingly agitated.
BWW Reviews: A Fractured Family Faces THE OUTGOING TIDE at CoHo Productions
A playwright choosing Alzheimer's as a topic would seem to have painted himself into a corner, and we expect that we're going to spend the evening watching Gunner get worse.
BWW Reviews: The Road to Hell Begins with a Backyard Barbecue in DETROIT at Portland Playhouse
Lisa D'Amour's play Detroit does not specifically take place in Michigan, but everything about it reminded me of my hometown.
BWW Reviews: A Showbiz Tour de Force at Artists Rep, But MISTAKES WERE MADE
Mistakes Were Made is more or less a one-man show.
BWW Reviews: A Family Dinner Is SWEET AND SAD at Third Rail
I completely forgot I was watching a play.
BWW Reviews: THE GREAT GATSBY is an Ambitious Undertaking at Bag & Baggage
Simon Levy's adaptation is actually a skillful condensation of the events and dialogue of the novel, stitched together with some narration, but this production isn't up to his writing, let alone Fitzgerald's.
BWW Reviews: FIDDLER ON THE ROOF Is a Long But Moving Evening at Portland Center Stage
One of the most famous quotes regarding Fiddler on the Roof came from the producer of the first Japanese production, who said to the writers, 'Do they understand this show in America? It's so Japanese!' Well, you don't have to be Japanese, or Jewish, or anything else to understand Fiddler.
BWW Reviews: Clackamas Rep's THE 39 STEPS Will Surprise You All the Way Through
This is The 39 Steps as filtered through Monty Python or Carol Burnett.
BWW Reviews: LUCKY STIFF Will Make You Glad You're Alive
Lucky Stiff is an early project by composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist/librettist Lynn Ahrens, who went on to create Once on This Island, Ragtime, and the underrated A Man of No Importance.
BWW Reviews: THE MOUNTAINTOP Is a Difficult Climb
A high point of the first part of the play is when King asks Camae what she would say to the world if she were in his shoes, and she literally puts on his shoes (and coat) and launches into her own oratory, which is surprising and intelligent, if quite different from King's perspective on the confli
BWW Reviews: No Reservations - THE BIG MEAL Is Fantastic
The Big Meal is about nothing less than the entire scope of life, played out in a series of meals in a variety of restaurants.
BWW Reviews: A Sloppy KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN Opens at Triangle Productions
I salute any theater that tries to push itself into new creative directions.
BWW Reviews: LICKING BATTERIES is a Terrible Title for a Thoughtful Drama
In Licking Batteries, electricity is both literal (in the use of electroshock therapy to treat mental illness) and metaphoric (in the sparks between people), and it gets used in a multitude of ways to tell an engrossing story.
BWW Reviews: A Big Hug for KISS ME, KATE at Clackamas Rep
Cole Porter's songs are justifiably classic, both the tunes that relate to the backstage story and the numbers for the show within the show, and this company has the voices to put them over sensationally.
BWW Reviews: Broadway Rose Finds All the Charm in MY FAIR LADY
The late Lehman Engel was a conductor for a number of Broadway shows in the 1940s through the 1960s, in addition to writing several masterful books on the creation and construction of musicals, and founding the musical theater workshop that bears his name and has trained many of the top songwriters
BWW Reviews: Shakespeare Goes Mod in Portland Shakespeare Project's THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
We enter the world of Padua, which in director Michael Mendelson's vision takes place in the swinging 1960s.
BWW Reviews: THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESEPARE (ABRIDGED) is Will-Fully Hilarious
Is there a more reliably funny performance piece than The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) by Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield?
BWW Reviews: Broadway Rose Gives Its All to CATS
Director-choreographer Lyn Cramer put her cast to work right away, sending them on one by one during the overture, crawling, slinking, and rolling onstage.
BWW Reviews: AVENUE Q Is Sweet, Salty, and Very, Very Funny
I attended Avenue Q at a sold-out Saturday night performance on Pride weekend in Portland, and the house was filled with people who clearly knew the show and were ready to have fun.
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Join us for the 2026–2027 Season Portland Center Stage at The Armory (9/27-6/27) |
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The Dark Stuff Twilight Theater Company (8/20-9/06) |
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You Can’t Take It With You Lakewood Theatre Company (9/11-10/18) |
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THE BURLESQUE WITCH PROJECT Project Burlesque (10/18-10/18) |
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A Midsummer Night’s Dream Oregon Shakespeare Festival (3/13-10/25) |
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Weird Al Yankovic LB Day Amphitheatre (9/07-9/07) |
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FOOLISH MORTALS: A Haunted Mansion Burlesque Cabaret The Triple Door Theatre (10/17-10/17) |
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Doja Cat at Moda Center Moda Center (10/17-10/17) |
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Jack Johnson at Hayden Homes Amphitheater Hayden Homes Amphitheater (9/27-9/27) |
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Oregon State Beavers vs. Montana Grizzlies Reser Stadium (9/19-9/19) |