The Women's Ward

This staged reading is part of Third Eye Theatre's 2nd Annual Portland Pride Play Festival. Attendance is pay-what-you-will.

The Women's Ward, from playwright Jeremy Cole and directed by Ed Lyons, imagines a state mental health facility where patients from many eras — from the 1920s to the 1980s — inhabit the same space at the same time. Time is an abstract in this piece. No real attempt at historical accuracy has been made. Each patient has a personal demon that the system struggles to “exorcize” — with varying results. Cole's play Encounters won the inaugural Portland Pride Play Festival and was presented at Fertile Ground in April.