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Posted inSpring Arts 2025

Tootsie Answers the Call

With a lineup featuring gender-bending roles and progressive themes, Stumptown Stages leans into timely conversations.
Avatar photo Robert Ham

The Mercury covers culture & art because we think all its various forms are—quite plainly—how people understand one another. Conversations about food, music, performance, and “weird” installation art provide touchstones to deepen friendships, create new connections, and better understand one another. If you appreciate the Mercury’s interesting and useful news & culture reporting, consider making […]

Posted inSpring Arts 2025

Portland’s Unexpected Book Corridor

Two of the city’s most beloved literary institutions—Literary Arts and Mother Foucalt’s—just opened bookstores across the street from one another on SE Grand.
Avatar photo Suzette Smith

The Mercury covers culture & art because we think all its various forms are—quite plainly—how people understand one another. Conversations about food, music, performance, and “weird” installation art provide touchstones to deepen friendships, create new connections, and better understand our world. If you appreciate the Mercury’s interesting and useful news & culture reporting, consider making a small monthly contribution […]

Posted inSpring Arts 2025

Swiftly Tilting Portland

Climate journalist Emma Pattee wrote a funny fiction novel that unfolds like a non-fiction nightmare.
Avatar photo Suzette Smith

The Mercury covers culture & art because we think all its various forms are—quite plainly—how people understand one another. Conversations about food, music, performance, and “weird” installation art provide touchstones to deepen friendships, create new connections, and better understand our world. If you appreciate the Mercury’s interesting and useful news & culture reporting, consider making a […]

Posted inSpring Arts 2025

Torrey Peters’ Stag Dance Poses the Right Questions About Gender at the Right Time

A new collection from the author of Detransition, Baby blurs the lines between trans and cis.
Avatar photo Blair Stenvick

The Mercury covers culture & art because we think all its various forms are—quite plainly—how people understand one another. Conversations about food, music, performance, and “weird” installation art provide touchstones to deepen friendships, create new connections, and better understand one another. If you appreciate the Mercury’s interesting and useful news & culture reporting, consider making a small monthly contribution […]

Posted inSpring Arts 2025

Meet the 2025 Mercury Geniuses of Comedy

Ten of Portland’s hottest stand-ups—with special guest Mohanad Elshieky!
Avatar photo Wm. Steven Humphrey

The Mercury covers culture & art because we think all its various forms are—quite plainly—how people understand one another. Conversations about food, music, performance, and “weird” installation art provide touchstones to deepen friendships, create new connections, and better understand one another. If you appreciate the Mercury’s interesting and useful news & culture reporting, consider making […]

Posted inSpring Arts 2025

Your Guide to Spring 2025 Arts Events in Portland

Portland Panorama, TEDxPortland, and More
Avatar photo EverOut Staff

Spring in Portland is a slow unfurl. Cherry blossoms dust the sidewalks, rain gives way to longer stretches of sun, and the city shakes off its winter hibernation. As the season shifts, so does our cultural calendar. This spring, you’ll find a fresh wave of performances, festivals, and big ideas, from Alton Brown Live: Last […]

Posted inNews

Fueling Portland’s Future: Renewable Fuels Come Under the Microscope at City Hall

New Portland leaders are pushing back on the city’s narrative around alternative fuels and their climate benefits. 
Avatar photo Taylor Griggs

Biofuels, created from organic matter like crops, garbage, vegetable oils, and human and animal waste, are often heralded as an ideal form of renewable energy. These energy sources have been touted by industry groups, scientists, and government bodies as a cleaner-burning alternative to fossil fuels, with advantages for air quality and carbon emissions.  Here in […]

Posted inTheater & Performance

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf Is Cruel and Perfect From the Start

Portland Center Stage’s breathtaking ensemble cast reveals the ties that bind and cut.
Avatar photo John Rudoff

You’ll find Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on every list of great American plays. Edward Albee’s 1962 masterpiece of biting remarks and weaponized adultery is vicious and hilarious, timeless and worth your time. But while plenty of companies take on the challenge, Portland Center Stage has mounted a production that puts even the 1966 Academy […]

Posted inHear In Portland

Hear In Portland: Albina Music Trust’s Soul Assembly, Jakki and the Pink Smudge, Keeks’ EP Release

Read all about what’s on the music forecast with Hear In Portland.
Avatar photo Jenni Moore

Between repeatedly streaming the viral, politically-minded hit “HGT (Hostile Government Takeover),” and that soul-shattering, mind-altering performance by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande that opened the 2025 Oscars, there are a few local updates you will want to check out. In addition to Project Pabst and Pickathon announcing their summer lineups, it’s worth considering copping tickets […]

Posted inGood Morning, News!

Good Morning, News: Tariff Wars, Measure 114 Back On, and Oregon Blood Moon Is Nigh

Avatar photo Suzette Smith

If you appreciate the Mercury‘s interesting and useful news & culture reporting, consider making a small monthly contribution to support our editorial team. Your donation is tax-deductible. Good Morning, Portland! Starting tomorrow, the Mercury‘s Spring Arts Guide hits news stands and coffee shops near you. I don’t have a link yet, so JUST LOOK TOMORROW. Now, for the […]

Posted inSavage Love

SAVAGE LOVE: Runaway, Bride!

“I’ve been married for almost two years, and we still haven’t had sex.” WHAT? 👀
Avatar photo Dan Savage

I’m a 28-year-old woman married to my husband, a 29-year-old man, for almost two years, and we still haven’t had sex. We met through mutual friends, dated for less than a year, and we knew pretty quickly that we wanted to get married. Things between us felt right. We genuinely liked each other, and everything […]

Posted inNews

Portland Hearings Officer Signs Off on PGE’s Forest Park Utility Plan

The city sided with the utility company over a controversial plan to cut down 400 trees in Portland’s biggest park.
Avatar photo Taylor Griggs

Portland General Electric (PGE) has the green light from a city hearings officer to go ahead with a plan to build a new utility project in Forest Park. The decision puts Portland’s Hearings Office at odds with several of the city’s bureaus, which strongly opposed the plan because of its environmental impact on a five-acre […]

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