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Fertile Ground speaks for itself

By A.L. Adams
January 9, 2015
Culture

Fertile Ground, Portland’s citywide festival of new performance works, opens Jan. 22 this year and runs through Feb. 1. It’ll flood the city’s stages with dozens of fresh works, which also means hundreds, maybe thousands, of fresh combinations of words. Here, we offer a sampling, straight from the scripts.

The metallic stuff of words. the plate says, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog and feels as if he were in the seventh heaven of typography together with Hermann Zapf, the most famous artist of the" Willi Heidelbach/Wikimedia Commons

The metallic stuff of words. The plate says, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog and feels as if he were in the seventh heaven of typography together with Hermann Zapf, the most famous artist of the” … and then it ends. Willi Heidelbach/Wikimedia Commons

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“I’m not supposed to be telling you any of this.”
Me Here Now, by Megan Bradley
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“You have to do something. Not care about the consequence… All I know is I have cash saved up in the bank and we ought to do something with it. And do something NOW.”
Boom Arts’ I’d Rather Goya Robbed Me of my Sleep Than Some Other Son of a B*tch, by Rodrigo Garcia
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“A man has enough blood to supply his brain or his penis … just not both at the same time.”
Beirut Wedding/BaseRoots Productions’ One Weekend in October, by Rich Rubin

“My first impression of Vanport? Simple. I couldn’t believe what I was seein’. None of us could believe what we were seein’.”
Damaris Webb-Rich Rubin/PassinArt’s Cottonwood in the Flood, by Rich Rubin
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“What do you think happens in these detention centers, Jane?”
The Pulp Stage’s BOX: A Live Science Fiction Trilogy, by Tina Connolly and Matt Haynes
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“It is a profound display of faith that you choose to not believe what you are seeing.”
Lakewood Theatre’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Musical), by Mark LaPierre and Dan David
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[Liberace shows his rings to an audience member.] “See what you get if you practice?”
Curious Comedy Theater/Trip theDark Dance Company’s David Saffert’s 40th Birthday – The Liberace Edition, by David Saffert and Jillian Snow Harris
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“Someday this big planet is going to lose me too, but I’m just a little thing, except to you.”
The Broken Planetarium’s The Snow Queen: A Folk Opera by Laura Dunn
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“I was taken in by a poor but honest flock of mathematicians and number theorists who were happy to have an extra set of fingers and toes around.”
Playwrights West’s Prime, by Ellen Margolis
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“Roses are red, violets are blue.
I have a sex disease… now so do you.”
Elaborate Alibi Theater Company’s 36 Perfectly Appropriate Mealtime Conversations, by Brianna Barrett

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“You’re looking for eggs, I know THAT well enough; and what does it matter to me whether you’re a little girl or a serpent?”
Multnomah Arts Center/Rutherford’s Brain’s Alice’s One-Woman Wonderlandadapted by Anne Rutherford from Lewis Carroll
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“Sorry, I am thinking of the playwright’s lack of originality in terms of ways men die.”
D.C. Copeland/John San Nicolas’s Play, by D.C. Copeland
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“People just want there to be Bigfoot. It’s some kind of archetype, like the big hairy uncle you’re afraid of but kind of attracted to.”
Animal Magic Productions’ Kaleidoscope, by Naga Nataka
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“I always wanted a talking bird. I’m an only child.”
PDX Playwrights’ Daisy Dukes Shorts Night Bird First, by Miriam Feder

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“Tentacles of pain interlace with the corpuscles as they shrink, fragile alveoli sting, sting, longing for vital oxygen from the blood no longer surging from the heart, aching, no longer able to pump, and light, consciousness, the universe … spirals into silence.
PDX Playwrights’ Daisy Dukes Shorts Night Cracking Rulers, by Brad Bolchunos
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“A baby was stolen from a ship by a red-haired vixen waving a red pirate flag…”
PDX Playwrights’ In Search of the Red Skull, by Katie Bennett

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“Sure, I want to join the Levitation Society…Where do we meet — on the seventh floor of the building with no stairs?”
PDX Playwrights’  Unmediated, by Brad Bolchunos

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“Some folks can snatch the sweetness out of the cake and never crack the crust.”
PDX Playwrights’  Alan’s Confectionery, by Alan Alexander

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I might be too old to whip your asses, but I’m not so cheap I can’t hire someone to do it for me.
PDX Playwrights’  Greg and Lauren, by Sunbear Theaters

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“If I go to school momma, I’m gonna die.”
PDX Playwrights’ Threshhold, by Redmond Reams

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“Another $5 word for the stuffed dog.”
P-Town Playwrights’ We’re Just Stuffed, by Miriam Feder

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“Nice headlamp.”
P-Town Playwrights’  Those Bastards, by Miriam Feder

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“Well, you’re makin’ a big mistake.  Sausage is brain food.”
P-Town Playwrights’  Eggs Over Easy, by Rich Rubin

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“Demographics.  Next time you’re at the theater, just look around and tell me what you see.  I mean, aside from all the oxen.”
P-Town Playwrights’  Will’s Dramaturg, by Rich Rubin

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“Paul Bunyan was very big for me . . . Your father was wearing a plaid shirt [the night we met], and something in my brain said ‘close enough!”
P-Town Playwrights’  Past Future Tense, by Heather Thiel

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“Surely it was a poem, an economy of words. . . It was all she left for posterity . . . that and a recipe for white bread.”
P-Town Playwrights’  Cannonball Antiques, by Heather Thiel

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“Mr. you’re nuts! No, I’m Mr. Nut.”
Tramps, by Annie Rimmer-Weeks

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“Mushrooms are going to eat all of us one day”
Well Arts Institute’s Maybe It’s Because…(I’m So Versatile), stories from homeless youth at p:ear, by Sonya Carson + others

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The clowns ride a giraffe.

Victoria whacks Mango in the face with an urn.

Box of Clowns’ “Mom?”: A Comedy of Mournersby Jeff Desautels, Laura Loy, and Anna Sell

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da Vinci: “Deep down, Michelangelo, you’re still a baker.”
The Cantilever Project‘s Renaissance, by George Taylor

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“When she stepped from the bath, I felt a jolt, like when your sword clips through an enemy’s tendon.”
The Cantilever Project‘s Miserere, by Wayne Harrel
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“There’s a floating face in my room.”
The Cantilever Project‘s The Noisemaker, by Ciji Guerin

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