Steve Rathje
Signs
Signs by Steve Rathje is a surrealistic comedy about love, purpose and the little things that seem to matter so much to us. April reads horoscopes. Lydia writes horoscopes. April reads them devoutly, using them to guide her life choices. Lydia just makes them up, using the money she makes from them to support herself while she completes her novel. Signs follows the story of April who writes metaphors for a living — whenever an author is having trouble thinking of a creative, evocative metaphor, the metaphor is outsourced to her. One day, April discovers the “perfect metaphor” — a marvelous yet dangerous creation, a comparison so perfect that it renders other forms of communication meaningless. Eventually, April comes in contact with Lydia, an all-too-familiar force who has been transcribing April’s fate through her horoscopes all along. After Lydia and April meet, the story turns upside down.
Signs was a finalist for Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s 2016 National Playwrights Conference, has had two readings at Stanford University, and won the Oregon Play Prize in 2016.
TABLE|ROOM|STAGE (T|R|S) was established in 2015 and is Artists Rep’s new play program whose mission is to develop and produce new work that vividly expresses Artists Rep’s aesthetic values.
Steve Rathje
Steve Rathje’s play SIGNS was recently named a Finalist in the 2016 National Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference and won the 2016 Oregon Play Prize. His other plays have been published by Samuel French Inc. and Dramatics Magazine and have been produced by Stanford University, the International Thespian Conference, the Portland Fertile Ground Festival and more. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of Proscenium Journal and co-producer of the Proscenium Live Festival of New Works. He has also acted with several Portland theaters including Artists Repertory Theatre, Northwest Classical Theatre and Coho Productions. Steve currently attends Stanford University, where he studies Symbolic Systems, Psychology, and Theatre and Performance Studies.