Performing Arts

theatergoing

Portland Center Stage Opens Its Community-Focused 2025–26 Season

The theater company fundraised millions to stay afloat. Loaded with Pulitzer winners and a Little Women adaptation, its current season looks to pay forward the love.

09/30/2025 By Isabel Lemus Kristensen

Broadway

With Oh, Mary!, Gay Oregon Theater Kids Take Over Broadway

Cole Escola’s Mary Todd Lincoln comedy is a runaway hit, and Jinkx Monsoon is its latest star.

08/14/2025 By Conner Reed

Performing Arts

Portland Spring and Summer Plays and Dance Performances

Twists on Shakespeare, The Lion King on Broadway, classics updated with pop stars, and more fill out the season.

04/29/2025 By Matthew Trueherz

Long Story Short

At Oregon Ballet Theatre, Dani Rowe Takes on Marilyn Monroe

Rowe, the first woman to serve as the company's artistic director, has wanted to tell Monroe's story since Kim Kardashian wore the actor’s dress to the Met Gala.

03/24/2025 By Rebecca Jacobson Photography by Jason Hill

year in review

Portland Artists and Curators on their Favorite Shows from 2024

The art world moves fast. These are the shows that left their mark in the past year.

12/23/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Performing Arts

Portland Theater and Dance Shows to Catch This Fall and Winter

On and off Broadway, the upcoming season promises holiday camp, cupcakes, election dramaturgy, and a Harlem braid shop.

10/04/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

TBA

The Time-Based Art Festival Is 21. How’s It Looking?

Our editors recap PICA’s beloved festival, with all its glistening torsos, humor and rage, and lightsabers and tassels.

10/04/2024 By Matthew Trueherz and Rebecca Jacobson

Festival Preview

The 2024 Time-Based Art Festival Revives the Party

If PICA’s annual extravaganza has a theme in 2024, it’s resurrecting the buzzy energy that’s escaped the fest in recent years.

08/30/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

When’s Pride Again?

Your Local Drag Queen Is Booked and Busy

Portland can’t decide between June and July Pride celebrations. Silhouette is getting her money either way.

07/15/2024 By Thom Hilton

Theater

PETE’s A Seagull Caps Its Decade with Chekhov’s Major Plays

The series helped the Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble define itself. Its final and wildest adaptation asks what’s next.

07/08/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Summer Fun

An Incomplete Guide to Portland’s Biggest Summer 2023 Concerts and Events

Feeling hungry like a wolf for live entertainment? Here’s your guide to the full monty of local shows.

06/01/2023 By Margaret Seiler and Sam Stites

Events

Some of Portland’s Biggest Spring 2023 Concerts and Events

An incomplete guide to Portland’s best cultural offerings this spring, including onetime locals Ari Shapiro and Yeat

03/15/2023 By Dalila Brent, Margaret Seiler, and Matthew Trueherz

Theater

'Where We Belong' at Portland Center Stage Grapples with Identity, Colonialism, and Shakespeare

Native theatermaker Madeline Sayet’s play runs through March 26.

03/02/2023 By Isabel Lemus Kristensen

Theater

Pandora's Box Meets Alice in Wonderland at Shaking the Tree Theatre

Audiences are invited to embrace their curiosity at this installation performance, which runs through April 1.

02/24/2023 By Isabel Lemus Kristensen

Broadway

Coming Soon to PDX: Sondheim, Six, Beetlejuice, Tina Turner, and More

Broadway in Portland announces its 2023/2024 season, featuring Company, Les Misérables, and the wives of Henry VIII reimagined as pop princesses.

02/03/2023 By Matthew Trueherz

Theater

Review: ‘Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson–Apt. 2B’ at Portland Center Stage

Playwright Kate Hamill’s witty, relevant, gender-flipped, pandemic-set adaptation of Sherlock Holmes runs through February 12.

02/01/2023 By Isabel Lemus Kristensen

Events

The Best Holiday Shows in Portland This Season

Drag queens, nutcrackers, mariachi, and more.

12/06/2022 By Conner Reed and Matthew Trueherz

Dance

This Contemporary Dance Festival Is Ready to Broaden Portland’s Horizons

Now in its fifth year, Union PDX concentrates global talent in Southeast Portland.

11/07/2022 By Fiona McCann

Theater

A New Play at Portland Center Stage Examines the Link Between Segregation and Swimming

PCS and ART are tackling the second-ever production of Tony-nominated playwright Christina Anderson’s ‘the ripple, the wave that carried me home.’

10/14/2022 By Matthew Trueherz

TBA

Radio III Closed TBA 2022 with Silliness and Subversion

Featuring songs in Cherokee and Mvskoke alongside contemporary dance, the neon-soaked collaboration is the fest at its best.

09/23/2022 By Rebecca Jacobson