Altered States of America: A mock documentary look at America’s love-hate relationship with drugs and altered states of consciousness. Production: December 2003, Pavement Productions/Vanity Productions, at Theatre/Theater, Portland, Oregon. Full production, four-week run. Finalist for an Oregon Book Award.

Anniversary: A wife sets an unsettling dinner for her gagged, bound husband in a nearly wordless piece about revenge. Short one-act drama. One woman, one man. Performance: May 1992, Third Tuesday Theater, Portland, Oregon; staged reading.

Big Easy Suite: An evening of one-acts set in New Orleans, consisting of: New Orleans Spin Cycle, The Calliope, Erato, and Melpelomeme Blues, Deuces, and Bourbon Scented Breeze.

Between the Lines: The lifelong friendship of two Doors fans is tested when their car abruptly dies at night in the Southwest American desert. Short one-act comedy-drama. Two women. Performance: May 1998, Stark Raving Theatre, Portland, Oregon; full production.

The Body: A grieving pathologist must examine a corpse that looks unnervingly like his deceased wife. Short one-act drama. Two women, one man. Performance: September 2000, Pavement Productions, Portland, Oregon. February 1997, Pavement Productions, Portland, Oregon; staged reading.

Bombardment: A violent, sensual, and surrealistic battle between haves and have-nots. Billed as a "postmodern ghost story." This experiment in symbolic imagery and language was written in the aftermath of the Gulf War, although I was really thinking of who killed the Kennedys and elected Ronald Reagan. Full length two-act drama. Two women, two men. Performance: July-August 1991, Stark Raving Theatre, Portland, Oregon; full production, six-week run. Finalist for an Oregon Book Award. Rewritten 1998 as Bombardment Revisited.

Bourbon Scented Breeze: Four New Orleans characters ride out a hurricane in an abandoned French Quarter bar. Short one-act comedy-drama. Two men, two women. Drinks, laughs, and extreme weather conditions.

The Calliope, Erato, and Melpelomeme Blues: Through the person of a naive art student, a nearly bankrupt art dealer who plans to leave New Orleans hears echoes of her early days in the city. Short one-act comedy-drama. Two women. July 1999, PATA in the Park, Portland, Oregon.

Camisole: A painter and a businesswoman suffering relationship problems create a secret world in a passage linking their French Quarter apartments. Probably my most romantic play, but, given the rest of my work, that's not saying much. Never been produced, possibly because of set demands, more likely because I've never submitted it anywhere due to a few tricky plot complications. Still, it's long been a favorite play of some friends and family, likely because it proves I can write about things other than death, dismemberment, etc. Full length two-act drama. Two women, two men. Performance: March 1991, Sunday at Seven, Portland, Oregon; staged reading (excerpt).

Coincidence: On the eve of his former lover's death, a man haunted by his past experiences the unexplainable. Written with O'Henry in mind. It came out more like Saki. Typical. Short one-act drama. One woman, two men.

The Centering: Co-written with actor Chris Harder. A nightmarish look inside the mind of a political prisoner. More to come on this one.

The Continuing Adventures of Mr. Grandamnus: A spiderlike manipulator plays on the insecurities and paranoia of others to maintain his influence. Another attempt to write something light. More a riff than a plot, it's nevertheless a fine opportunity for actors to work their chops and get in a few twists of the knife. Heady language. Twisted psyches. Full length one-act satire. Three women, four men. Performance: May 1998, Toad City Productions, Portland, Oregon; full production. February 1996, Daily Planet Theatre Company, Portland, Oregon; staged reading. Portland Oregonian, 1998: "Playful, lyrical fantasy quickly gives way a more ominous vision in Toad City's production of Steve Patterson's latest.... Patterson's play abounds in suggestive images, and he has an ear for the appropriate idiom for each of the idiosyncratic characters who compose his fantasy microcosm."

Controlled Burn: Through a series of interlinked monologues, an array of characters draw a picture of life in the American Southwest. Sections are arranged around earth, air, water, and fire. Full length one-act drama/performance piece. Five women, five men. Performance: September 1990, FUSE Gallery, Portland, Oregon; full production, two-week run.

Curl of Smoke: A psychiatrist's patients begin having dreams with ominous common elements. Full length two-act drama. Four women, two men. Performance: May 1997, Portland Women's Theatre, Portland, Oregon; staged reading.

Cybeleties: An ambitious actress receives phone calls from the exceedingly fabulous. Written for the fabulous Cybele, Portland personality extraordinaire. Short one-act comedy. One woman, one man. Performance: January 1993, Third Tuesday Theater, Portland, Oregon; staged reading.

Delusion of Darkness: An exceedingly dark comedy written as an homage to great Beat novelist William S. Burroughs, wherein a fella named Murphy serves as our eyes and ears in the absolute seediest bar in the Inlet of Fog, a smuggling burg occasioned by a fog so thick no one can enter or leave. Homicidal paramedics, priests hawking contraband, strippers with stigmata...there's something here to offend almost everyone. The weird part is it seems to work. Pavement Productions staged this as a late night in summer of 2001 and earned wonderful reviews and sold-out houses. Now there are theaters all over the U.S. considering the play (and one in Germany). Performance: July-August 2001, Pavement Productions, Portland, Oregon; full production. August 2004, Jobsite Theater, Tampa, Florida; full production. August 2005, Creation Station, Christchurch, New Zealand; full production.

Deuces: During Mardi Gras, a vacationing husband and wife are drawn into a bizarre poker game that threatens their marriage. One hour one-act comedy-drama. Two women, two men. Performance: September 1993, ArtQuake Festival/Theatre on the Park, Portland, Oregon; full production. 1993, Beverly Hills Television, Beverly Hills, California; full production. January to February 1993, Theatre 40, Beverly Hills, California; full production, eight-week run. Selected for the Theatre 40 One-Act Festival. October 1991, Third Tuesday Theater, Portland, Oregon; staged reading. Nominated for Oregon Book Award. July 1991, Eugene Playwrights Ensemble, Eugene, Oregon; staged reading.

Expatriates (adaptation): In a cafe, stylish readings of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Djuna Barnes sketch Paris in the aftermath of World War I. Essentially a love note to some of my favorite writers, we staged this as a benefit for the Oregon Literacy Foundation. Can't offer this piece because I don't control the copyrights. Full length one-act drama/performance piece. Two women, four men. Performance: February 1994, Stark Raving Theatre, Portland, Oregon; full production, two-week run. [Not available]

Liberation: A newspaper office in Sarajevo is held hostage by an army deserter who has witnessed systemic atrocities by Serb forces. Full length two-act drama. Six women, six men. March-April 1999, Stark Raving Theatre, Portland, Oregon. Recipient of a production grant by the Flintridge Foundation.

Lost Wavelengths: DJ and self-styled musicologist Murray roams Middle America in search of outsider musicians for his public radio show, ultimately hoping to lure a reclusive guitarist names “Enola Guy” into the open. Two-act drama with songs. Three women, three men. Performance: July 2006, Portland Center Stage’s JAW/West Playwrights Festival, Portland, Oregon; staged reading.

Lounge Car Night: At the close of World War II, oddball characters on a train crossing the American Southwest fall for the charms of a couple of very unique con artists. A mob hit-man, a grieving widow whose husband may be alive, a female Kerouac, a vampire, and Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. How can you go wrong? Half hour one-act comedy-drama. Two women, three men.

Malaria: A dreamlike voyage into the psyche of a dying man. Somewhere between magical realism and surrealism. Realism it ain't. Or maybe multiple realities, ever-shifting. Touching. Profane. Nightmarish. Ethereal. Erotic. Repellent. Violent. Baffling. Easily my strangest play...to date. Full length two-act drama. Two women, three men. Performance: April-May 1995, Pavement Productions Mobile Theater, Portland, Oregon; full production, six-week run. Nominated for Oregon Book Award.

New Orleans Spin Cycle: In the French Quarter, a lonely man has a eerie encounter with an old, compulsive storyteller. Short one-act comedy-drama. Two men. Props include severed head.

Night's Suite: An evening of one-acts about ghosts, consisting of: Coincidence, Pale Shadows, Whitechapel, and The Body.

Object of Destruction: In a Vienna hospital, a World War II journalist confronts the civilian cost of war. Short one-act drama. Two women, one man. Performance: April 1992, LitEruption Book Fair, Portland, Oregon; staged reading.

Pale Shadows: A nurse on duty in an Irish hospital encounters a terrifying figure from Irish folklore. Short one-act drama. Four women, two men.

Shelter: When a fading rock musician becomes snowbound with his ex-lover in a Pacific Northwest cabin, their respective histories and identities begin to blur. There's some good stuff here, but I never could fix it to my satisfaction; hence, I'm not currently offering the play. Full length two-act drama. Two women, three men. Performance: June-July 1993, Stark Raving Theatre, Portland, Oregon; staged reading, two-week run. [Not available]

Shooting Mexico: A hard-luck character faces an uncertain morning on the border of the U.S. and Mexico. Short one-act drama. One man. Performance: May 1993, Third Tuesday Theater, Portland, Oregon; staged reading.

Sonora Fade: When fiction overtakes reality, dangerous tensions arise between a film director and a rock musician on a movie set in Mexico. Full length one-act drama. Two women, four men.

The Spider Wind: A long-estranged daughter returns home to her mother and her disturbed younger brother as Los Angeles is beset with Santa Ana winds and fires. An early play. A mess. Killer ending, though. I think I was working Sam Shepard out of my system. Full length three-act drama. Three women, one man. Performance: December 1992, Paula Productions, Portland, Oregon; staged reading. [Not available]

The Submerged Country: Based on the life of surrealist painter Yves Tanguy, artist Kay Sage recounts her husband's progressive mental illness. Half hour one-act drama/performance piece. One woman. Performance: September 1991, ArtQuake Festival/Winningstad Theatre, Portland, Oregon; full production.

Temptation: In the Pacific Northwest, a writer and his sister-in-law spend an excruciating summer wrestling with their very obvious attraction for one another. One hour one-act comedy. One woman, two men. Performance: July-August 1996, Toad City Productions, Portland, Oregon; full production, four-week run.

Translations: In Khazakistan, a disaffected American tourist attempts to buy opium from an embittered Soviet war veteran. The twist is, they have to rely on a translator with an agenda of her own. One hour one-act drama. One woman, two men.

Turquoise and Obsidian: A botanist trying to rescue her husband from alcoholism discovers a powerful and unpredictable telepathic drug in Mexico. Full length three-act drama. Three women, four men. Performance: October 1994, LitEruption Book Fair, Portland, Oregon; staged reading (excerpt). Winner of the first Portland Civic Theatre Guild Fellowship, 1997.

Waiting on Sean Flynn: On the eve of Saigon's fall in 1975, a U.S. reporter must decide whether to flee with the Americans or take her chances as a witness to history. Full length two-act drama. Two women, four men. Performance: September-October 1997, Stark Raving Theatre, Portland, Oregon; full production, four-week run. April-June 1996, T.A.N.S.T.A.A.F.L. Productions and Close Call Productions at Chicago's Dramatists Workshop, Chicago, Illinois; full production, six-week run. May 1995, Organic Theatre, Chicago, Illinois; staged reading. November 1995, T.A.N.S.T.A.A.F.L. Productions at Chicago's Dramatists Workshop, Chicago, Illinois; staged reading. June-July 1994, Stark Raving Theatre, Portland, Oregon; staged reading, four-week run. Nominated for an Oregon Book Award.

Whitechapel: An American expatriate in London suspects her flat is haunted by Jack the Ripper. Short one-act drama.