Scenario 2026!
A Playwriting Workshop & Showcase
Scenario! Introduction to Playwriting and Stage
Presented by PDX Playwrights
Workshop: Feb. 2-8, 2026 from 6-9 PM
Festival of Live Shows: Feb 7 & 8, 2026 from 5 – 9 PM
The Workshop
In this seven-day workshop at CoHo Theatre from February 2 – 8, with evening classes Monday- Friday 6-9 PM, and a festival of staged readings on the weekend, we’ll examine the art of playwriting, and ask the question: How does one create a uniquely compelling storytelling experience for the stage?
Together we’ll investigate how to build a world, give voice to distinct characters, incite a cause-and-effect story arch, and visually manifest a story with props, body movement and gesture, and minimal lighting and sound effects.
This year, our special focus is on solo performances and monologues. To this end, in addition to our three returning theater artists from PDXP– we’re excited to introduce Matt Smith. Matt is an actor, film maker, and solo performance artist who teaches improv at Freehold in Seattle. His monologues include Helium, All My Children, and My Last Year with the Nuns.
With Matt, we’ll be looking at how to create and develop and deepen surprising characters, in addition to the fundamentals of a script: setting, stage directions, dialog and subtext, the use of metaphor, and finally, the all-important role of the audience. Participants may be new to the craft, or experienced playwrights aiming to take a work-in-progress to the next level.
With diverse ideas, backgrounds and experiences, Scenario writers will learn from one another. On the weekend we’ll invite friends and family to view our pieces and offer feedback. This workshop provides writers with the opportunity to develop an ongoing working relationship with CoHo Theater, and compete to produce a show during Fertile Ground with PDXP for free. Join us!
The Playwriting Workshop Showcase
The Reviews Are In!
“Scenario is a wonderful, compressed focus machine. The supportive structure, diversity of experience, vision among the participants, and the contagious excitement of the instructors light a genuine creative fire in the room. Whether you’re just starting to explore playwriting or an experienced writer needing a fresh Inspiration Infusion, Scenario will give you just the right kick in the pants to help you move forward.”
-Brook Hinton
“Scenario places you in a supportive room full of stage artists, all sharing ideas. The chance to experiment and workshop new ideas in this space was invaluable, and great fun!”
-Stefan Feuerherdt
“Don’t sleep on signing up for the SCENARIO playwriting workshop, and the PDXP Festival Within a Festival! It’s not yer typical dime-a-dozen open-mic night with some casual feedback after. I’d recommend it to anyone who is serious about playwriting and wants real, hands-on experience and exposure. They make it really accessible to get your work up-to-snuff and in front of an audience (I even got help applying for a Grow Grant which helped fund the project), so you have no excuse not to try them out!”
-Dylan Hankins, Portland Fertile Ground Writer and Director
“So, there I was, in a group of people with all levels of experience (and inexperience, like me), eager to learn more about writing, casting, directing, and producing plays. We learned through a series of short lectures, live exercises, and feedback. I learned the most by watching the other participants. And I wrote an opera!–Okay, a very short opera, stealing the melodies of Verde et al, but an opera!”
-Louise Wynn, author of “Not Another Love Story,” published in the 2024 issue of Timberline Review
Meet the Creative Team
Matt Smith (he, him) is an auctioneer, actor, film maker, improviser, solo performance artist, and communications consultant. Screen credits include: Outsourced, Sleepless in Seattle, The Immaculate Conception of Little DIzzle, Marcie’s, Spiderman, and KING TV’s Almost Live.His monologues include Helium, All My Children, and My Last Year with the Nuns (now a feature film available on Amazon Prime). Matt is also a partner with Cookus Interruptus, the popular web-based cooking show. Matt was a founding member of Seattle Improv and Stark/Raving Theatre (Seattle’s version), and an early Artistic Director of Seattle TheatreSports. He teaches Improv at Freehold in Seattle. Matt is excited to be collaborate with the talented writers and creative spirits of Coho & PDXP’s Scenario 2026!
Ajai Tripath (he, him) is an actor, director, playwright, screenwriter and educator. At Teatro Milagro in Portland he worked as Education Director and wrote three plays for young audiences that toured regionally in schools: ¡Corre!¡Corre!, Sueños de Fútbol, and Mijita Fridita. He worked as an education consultant and acting coach at Northwest Children’s Theatre & School, and served on PDX Playwright’s administrative team and produced his one person show Osho Returns and shadow plays: The Madness of Dionysus and Cosmogonos. He received an MFA in Screenwriting from the David Lynch Graduate School of Cinematic Arts at Maharishi International University. His screenplay The Pooka was named a quarterfinalist in the ScreenCraft Horror Film Competition. The script for The Rainbow Passage won Best Feature at the Geneva International Science in Fiction Awards, and the play version received a reading at Desert Island Studios and the PNMC Festival.
His two-person show Great White Gets Off also played at the PNMC Festival and will receive a full production with Fuse Theatre Ensemble this winter. He is currently working on his MAT with an endorsement in Drama at Pacific University. His screenplay The Rainbow Passage was named a semi-finalist in NYC Screenplay Awards. Ajai is currently a member of the Fuse Theater ensemble, most recently presenting Great White Gets Off and Great White Gives It Up. He’s proud to help emerging writers develop new work in Scenario!
Olga Kravtsova (she/her)is a movement director, actor, and graduate of the University of Washington’s Acting Program, with a background in Russian Folk Dance and Acting from Moscow’s Russian Academy of Theater Arts. She specializes in integrating movement with storytelling, creating performances that blend physicality, design, and emotional depth. Olga has served as a lead producer for Heart of Stone at CoHo Theatre and has received three Grow Awards at Fertile Ground Festival, including for Far From Home, an autobiographical exploration of immigrant experiences.
Currently a CoHo resident artist, Olga is developing Harvest of Women, a movement-based solo performance debuting at Fertile Ground 2025, followed by a series of events including an immersive installation and workshop, with its full version presented at CoHo in June.
Karen Polinsky is a Portland writer, director, and teacher. She serves on the leadership team of PDX Playwrights. In the past several years, a half dozen of her scripts have been featured in the Fertile Ground Festival, including two full-length plays: Fly Away, Breath, and The Bad Hour. Her script for choreographer Alisher Khasanov’s Heart of Stone was performed at CoHo last fall. Karen has also published a 19th-century mystery set on the Olympic Peninsula, Dungeness. A non-fiction work, Ian’s Ride, about an environmentalist and quadriplegic who has defied all limits, will be released in April by Mountaineers Books. In the past, she has been a community college and high school English teacher, as well as a high school theater director. She is thrilled about the chance to work with CoHo Theater, and Ajai and Olga, encouraging and honing future talent.
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