linestormplaywrights at gmail dot com
LineStorm Playwrights was established in 2016 as a nonprofit collective of Portland-area dramatists. LineStorm fosters the development of new and diverse works of theatre by member playwrights, sharing those works in progress with the general public to encourage dialogue and provide an opportunity to hear community voices. LineStorm is a playwright company in residence at Artists Repertory Theatre.
Together LineStorm conceived Portland in Play: a theatrical representation of our city featuring ten-minute plays inspired by Portland’s eclectic neighborhoods. Individually our playwrights create short and full-length plays, which are read and produced nationally and internationally.
Members began writing together in 2012 as P-Town Playwrights, and evolved into the current group four years later.
The collective takes its name from a poem by Robert Frost:
A Line-storm Song
The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,
The road is forlorn all day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,
And the hoof-prints vanish away.
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
Expend their bloom in vain.
Come over the hills and far with me,
And be my love in the rain.
The birds have less to say for themselves
In the wood-world’s torn despair
Than now these numberless years the elves,
Although they are no less there:
All song of the woods is crushed like some
Wild, easily shattered rose.
Come, be my love in the wet woods; come,
Where the boughs rain when it blows.
There is the gale to urge behind
And bruit our singing down,
And the shallow waters aflutter with wind
From which to gather your gown.
What matter if we go clear to the west,
And come not through dry-shod?
For wilding brooch shall wet your breast
The rain-fresh goldenrod.
Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
But it seems like the sea’s return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
Before the age of the fern;
And it seems like the time when after doubt
Our love came back amain.
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout
And be my love in the rain.
Membership:
LineStorm members meet monthly to read and critique each other’s work. We also make an effort to see and participate in new Portland-area theater. We invite the public into our new work process when we present pieces in the Fertile Ground Festival and our Bimonthly Reading Series. Membership is capped to preserve the time and resources to read and then publicly present member work. Provided there is space, we review potential new members to invite to the group on an annual basis. We consider a range of diversity and require a unanimous vote.
If you live in the Portland, Oregon, area and are interested in being considered, please email us at linestormplaywrights at gmail dot com:
1. Share your New Play Exchange profile and/or resume;
2. Let us know about your upcoming local productions; and/or
3. Send us one or two sample plays (short, one-act, or full-length).
Thank you for your interest.