Artists Rep's theater building taking up a city block in southwest Portland prior to 2019/20 renovations
Abbreviation
ART
Nickname
Artists Rep
Formation
1982
Founder
Rebecca Adams David Beetham-Gomes Joseph P. Cronin Amy Fowkes Vana O’Brien Diane Olson Annalee Purdy Linda Schneider Tim Streeter Peter Waldron Michael Welsh
Jeffrey Condit Marcia Darm Michael Davidson Paul Koehler Jill Lam Pancho Savery Michael Szporluk Josie Seid
Key people
Shawn Lee Leslie Crandell Dawes Luan Schooler J. S. May Melory Mirashrafi Aki Ruiz
Affiliations
August Wilson Red Door Project Hand2Mouth Theatre LineStorm Playwrights Portland Actors Conservatory Portland Revels Profile Theatre Portland Area Theatre Alliance Portland Shakespeare Project Fertile Ground Festival
Artists Repertory Theatre (Artists Rep) is a professional non-profittheatre located in Portland, Oregon, United States. The longest-running professional theatre company in Portland, since 1982 the company has focused on presenting the works of contemporary playwrights, including world premieres.
In addition to producing six to eight productions in Portland annually, the company runs special programming and collaborations. They tour productions nationally with the support and collaboration of partnering theatre companies and the National Endowment for the Arts.[1] Operating on a repertory or stock company model, their artistic agenda includes the ArtsHub campus collective and Table|Room|Stage initiative for new work.
[edit]Chenoa Egawa portrays one of the ghost narrators in The Ghosts of Celilo
Rebecca Adams (as producing director), Peter Waldron (as designer), Joe Cronin, Amy Fowkes, David Gomes and Vana O'Brien formed Artists Repertory Theatre in 1982; their goal was to present contemporary playwrights' work in an intimate space. Through the early years of the theatre, they used the local YWCA's 110–seat Wilson Center for the Performing Arts as their performance area. In 1988, Artists Rep appointed Allen Nause to the position of artistic director; he would go on to hold the position for over 20 years.
Artists Rep creates an improvisation and role-playing program to teach life-skills named ART Reach (later renamed Actors to Go) in 1990. In 1991, Artists Rep began a development program, focused on creating new plays; and in its first year Artists Rep earned an Oregon Book Nomination for their world premiere production of Nancy Klementowski's After the Light Goes.
In 1995 they began a campaign to raise money for a new facility. After 2 years, Artists Rep was able to raise $1.2 million; with this money they moved into the Alder St. space, which included a 172–seat black box theater, administrative offices, a green room and dressing rooms, set–building shop, wardrobe room and rehearsal hall. In 1997, they were able to expand their presence in the world with an Artists Rep production at an international human rights play festival held on a tour of Pakistan.
To begin the new millennia, in 2000 Artists Rep chose to participate in the first-ever-reciprocal artistic collaboration between the United States and Vietnam, the Vietnam America Theatre Exchange. To accommodate demand, Artists Rep started a second Ssage season in 2002; these productions would take place at an off-site location as the Alder St. space was too small. In 2004 they were one of only six companies nationally to be selected to the largest-ever tour of Shakespeare in U.S. history. This would be a continuation of their previous US/Vietnam collaboration, but extended to a tour of the seven Western states through the National Endowment for the Arts'"Shakespeare in American Communities" initiative.
Later that year, Artists Rep began the expansion of their theatre space with the purchase of a 29,000 sq.ft. area of an entire city block for $4.8 million. The next year, 2005, Artists Rep opened an on-site location, the Morrison Stage, for their second stage productions; it would feature a more intimate setting with 164 seats. In 2008, Michael Mendelson, Vana O'Brien, Amaya Villazan and Todd Van Voris would become Artists Rep's first Resident Acting Company, and they all still remain members to this day. After opening the Morrison Stage in 2005, Artists Rep planned in 2009 to connect the two theatres with the construction of a staircase and the expansion of the Alder St. Stage's lobby.
In 2012, Artists Rep celebrated its thirtieth anniversary season. Allen Nause, the theatre's artistic director for twenty-five years announced his retirement, to be succeeded by Dámaso Rodríguez. The following season, Rodríguez expanded Artists Rep's resident artists to include not only actors but also directors, designers, playwrights, and small experimental ensembles. Artists Rep became an arts campus, housing initially eight arts organizations within its red walls, including the August Wilson Red Door Project, Portland Revels, Profile Theatre, Portland Area Theatre Alliance, and the Portland Shakespeare Project. While the Traveling Lantern Theatre Company and Polaris Dance Theatre are no longer members of the ArtsHub, as of 2019, Hand2Mouth Theatre, the LineStorm Playwrights collective, Portland Actors Conservatory, and the Fertile Ground Festival for new work are facilitated by the venue. This ArtsHub initiative won the 2016 Light A Fire Award for inspiring creativity.[2]
Rodríguez has implemented a series of new initiatives to support theatre-makers from varied backgrounds and facilitate new work in addition to the ArtsHub. After the appointment of Luan Schooler as Director of New Play Development and Dramaturgy, the pair initiated Table|Room|Stage (T|R|S) that facilitates new work at a variety of stages–from refining pre-existing work to commissions new work and staging world premiers. A pilot program begun in 2014, notable successes have included Andrea Stolowitz's Oregon Book Award-winning Ithaka, about returning women combat veterans,[3] and E.M. Lewis's Magellanica, a six-hour epic about scientists studying climate change in Antarctica that was recognized with an Edgerton Award from TCG.[4] Also in 2014, in the wake of a $500,000 gift, Rodríguez dramatically increased the resident company to 20 members.[5]
2018 saw a dramatic series of material changes at the theatre. In 2018, the company was hard-pressed to pay-off and IRS lien filed for lapses in its payroll tax filings going back to 2012 (paid off in early December).[6] Property taxes and the expensive mortgage typical of Pacific Northwest urban centers remained the issue, so the company decided to sell half of its 2004 block-fixed, 29,000 square-foot property to an Atlanta-based developer.[7] The buyer, Wood Partners, plans to build twenty-story mixed-use building with 296 housing units, 4,000 square feet of retail, and 206 below-grade parking spaces.[6]
Shortly thereafter, the company received an unrestricted $7 million gift from an anonymous donor.[8] Coming in at twice the theatre's annual operating budget, the gift was the largest donation in the company's history, and one of the largest gifts that has ever made to an arts institution in Oregon to date.[9] While still maintaining the sale of half their headquarter property, Artist Director Rodriguez who was then also the interim Managing Director decided to use the funds to pay off the remaining mortgage and over half a million dollars in overdue bills to vendors, a line of credit and credit card bills.[10] The remaining funds have been set aside in an operating cash reserve, a backfill a fund for specific programs, and $1.6 million for substantial renovations to the remaining portion of the building.[10] The substantial gift was seen by the range of artists and companies who depend on the space as a city-changing act of generosity.[11]
Amidst the changes, ART was also able to hire J.S. (John Stuart) May as the new managing director in the wake of Sarah Horton's departure.[12] By mid-2019, architectural plans were released by May for the new two-theater complex with room for the ArtsHub companies, as well as a $10 million capital campaign.[13] The company's 2019–20 season will be "On Tour", renting spaces across the city with Imago Theatre, Portland Opera, the Tiffany Center, Portland Center Stage, and Portland State University to put up the skeleton six-show season.[14]
ART has operated on a repertory company model since 2008, meaning that they employ a dedicated stable of actors, playwrights, and other theatre-makers throughout a season rather than casting anew for each individual production. The company varies in size over time, sometimes as large as twenty-seven members.[2] The resident artists contribute to programming decisions, education and community engagement, and develop new work for the theatre.
Six Women with Brain Death by Cheryl Benge, Christy Brandt, Rosanna E. Coppedge, Valerie Fagan, Ross Fresse, Mark Houston, Sandee Johnson, and Peggy Pharr Wilson
