Oregon Shakespeare Festival

This muscular 2017 production features the signature physical storytelling of director Shana Cooper and choreographer Erika Chong Shuch. Shakespeare's political thriller shows what happens to powerbrokers—honorable and not—when their motives and means lead to unexpected consequences they cannot control.

This thrilling update of a classical Chinese drama into a modern ghost story explores the legacy of trauma, the heart of injustice and the lengths to which we go for love. Sentenced to death for a murder, a young woman swears vengeance before her execution, cursing her city from beyond the grave to a catastrophic drought. Three years later, a wealthy businesswoman visits the parched, locust-plagued city to take over an ailing factory. When her young daughter is tormented by a mysterious apparition, locals are forced to face a past that no one wants to remember.

Four artists in the Bay Area find their lives unexpectedly intertwined — with each other’s and with the life of a black queer feminist writer from the 1960s — in this story that challenges our definitions of love, family and what it means to create.

Hermia loves Lysander, Demetrius loves Hermia, Helena loves Demetrius, Theseus and Hippolyta are almost newlyweds and the already-complex marriage of the immortal queen and king of Fairyland is further complicated when one of them falls for an amateur actor-turned-ass. Intrigued by the theory that Shakespeare wrote this play as a wedding gift, director Joseph Haj (who helmed 2015’s much-beloved Pericles) probes the pitfalls and pay-offs of relationships, be they budding or eternal. Seeking out the grace, beauty and delight embedded in the comedy, this joyful, music-laden production invites us to feel as well as laugh.

In this timely world-premiere drama by celebrated playwright, activist and attorney Mary Kathryn Nagle, past and present intertwine. Nagle’s story illuminates the tragic consequences of commercial exploits, including the removal of Native people and the attempted eradication of their culture, that gave rise to the America we know today. Securities trader Jane Snake is torn between worlds. Her return to Wall Street in 2008 brings her to Manahatta (“island of many hills” in Lenape), the homeland her ancestors were violently forced to leave in the 1600s. Meanwhile, her family in Oklahoma struggles to save their language, their culture and their over-mortgaged home. Jane Snake’s return to Manahatta defiantly demonstrates that the Lenape are still here.

A janitor. A software mogul. A college grad. An IRS paper-pusher. Although they live thousands of miles apart, these four people share a secret: They’re recovering addicts who’ve found a safe haven in an online chat room. There, with liberal doses of jokes and bullying, they help each other navigate the broken terrain of their lives. But when an Iraq War vet’s tragedy spills over into their cyberhome, everything changes.

Mia, an American conflict photographer, wakes up at the site of a massacre in Syria, not sure how she got there. With her Turkish girlfriend Derya and her Californian mother Jane, Mia must slowly piece together the details of her past to find out what happened. Mona Mansour’s beautifully human and surprisingly humorous play asks what it would mean for our souls—personally and as a nation—if we were to truly see the impact of our actions.

Based on the true history of “orphan trains” that transported immigrant children (mostly Irish) to homes in the West, this world-premiere play explores the events that led to the sensational (and now-forgotten) “Trial of the Century” custody case that stirred the nation into a frenzied debate about children, law, race, class and religion. Directed by Shariffa Ali, The Copper Children takes a sharp look at the collision of good intentions and despicable behavior, blending humor, tragedy, joy and unsentimental social commentary.