I sat down for lunch with Mead Hunter, Literary Manager for Portland Center Stage and Trisha Pancio, Marketing Director for Artists Repertory Theatre to discuss Portland’s identity as a place for new works. Little did I know, I wouldn’t be able to shut them up.
THE STATE OF THE THEATRE
MH: I think the best thing to acknowledge right away is what an amazing number of theatre companies there are in Portland. I think the last count from PATA [Portland Area Theatre Alliance] was 110. Is that right?
TP: Yes.
MH: A hundred and ten companies. In LA, we had slightly over 100 when I left five years ago. So, we are essentially neck and neck with a city like Los Angeles. It really is incredible.
TP: So, if we have those kinds of numbers, what’s really astonishing is that we continually get an audience for all 110 companies. For as much as actors like to complain about playing to empty houses, I would say that in Portland, you rarely have that problem. Even if you do have that situation, when you consider how many options [audiences] have on a given night to see a live performance, you can see that it really is well supported.
MH: You know, I’m glad you mentioned that, because when I was in LA, there were many times when I was in the audience and the cast had to come out and have that conversation about whether or not to do a show for two people, and that doesn’t happen in Portland. Of course, not all that is new work. New work is relatively in the minority, but proportionally, when you think of the size of this community, it’s amazing how much new work goes on here.
TP: Now, do you feel like the literary community in Portland feeds that relationship? Do you think we have more new works, in part because we have more working writers?
MH: I’m not sure. You would think so. But in practice, I have been surprised to find that the literary community seems to be unaware of what’s happening in the theatre community. Whereas, the theatre community seems very aware of what’s happening in the writing circles a lot more. But there’s great curiosity amongst the writers in how they can bridge that gap. I’m on the advisory board for the Literary Arts now—which is great fun—and the reason they wanted me there was because they wanted to attract writers, dramatists into literary arts and help them take advantage of it. So, I think we may start to see a change in people realizing that there’s a resource in literary arts.
TP: Do you feel like the changes that have happened with venues are making an impact on our ability to have new places to try new things?
MH: I think I’d be interested in what you think about that because in a way we’ve had some profits, but we’ve also had some losses.
TP: Right. Well, certainly losing Stark Raving Theatre was a huge loss. To have a company that was devoted to new plays was extraordinary for Portland and some great playwrights came out of there. I mean Joseph Fisher, who did, what, three or four seasons with them is now writing for Disney. So, that’s definitely been a loss, but what I see as a real opportunity is now that PCS commands its own destiny with two venues and lobby space that can be used for meetings and such...
MH: ART’s new theatre.
TP: ART has a new theatre and we’re completely renovating our space so that we’ll have more rehearsal space that can be used for table readings and public readings. So, I think there would be anchor spaces if we were going to create more opportunities for new works, not only to be tried out the way work often is around a table with a bunch of actors, but to actually be able to present it without having to use union stagehands and all those expenses.
MH: Yeah. We’re often put in an ironic position in that of course we want to support artists. We respect that Equity exists to do that, to give them a living wage, but at the same time, we really want to stimulate what’s going on in the theatre. We want to encourage having as much going on as possible, so we’re actually a divided self. So to get around Equity and to honor Equity is very conflicting.
TP: Right, so what we really want is for more new works to achieve full production, right? And what we really, really want is for those full productions that take place here in Portland to have a life beyond Portland, because that’s where we really start to be of service to the national theatre conversation. And I think that we’re in a better position to do that now as a community than we have been for our whole history.
MH: Definitely. I think it’s a major shift in the history of Portland theatre and where it’s at. I had an earlier incarnation in this community when I worked for Storefront for three years in the 70s. In those days there was really remarkable work going on, but it was incredibly insulated. It didn’t care what was going on, it didn’t know what was going on, it was just really great theatre for itself. Which is beautiful, actually. There’s something wonderful about the idea that they just wanted to generate something amazing and bring it to the community. But the shift that has happened in recent years has been an interest in getting attention for the work beyond Portland, getting national attention, not for it’s own sake, but because it creates pride here for the work that we are doing. So, it’s not parochial. It’s not a purely local interest. It’s been happening more and more.
ON CREATING A FESTIVAL
TP: Now, I know that you run the JAW/West festival. How many years have you been doing that now?
MH: I came in five years ago, working with Rose [Riordan] to make this something that would take that jump. The central core of JAW is always to give an opportunity to writers to work on their plays in a pure environment, so to speak. They call the shots. They dictate how rehearsals are going to go and how that is mediated, which is great. But at the same time—and I’m glad you asked that—we really want to bring in plays that potentially have legs for future work here and elsewhere because, again, that helps the writers.
TP: Do you find that you have had better success finding writers that have those kinds of legs to come to JAW and submit work now that you’re in the new space?
MH: Oh in the new space? You know, I think that’s a nice thing, but I don’t think it really matters because the playwrights just want a place where they can work. It’s not going to be in the public eye until the last minute. But beyond that, what is great for them is that the more [viable] the festival becomes, the more people from out of town want to come to it and the more people realize that out-of-towners are going to see each other there, the more it becomes its own destination on a national level. It becomes its own little conference for theatre-makers.
TP: What can we do to encourage that?
MH: I think to make it a destination for out-of-towners, they have to know what’s in it for them. So, on the very base level, they can say. “Ok, I’m going to get to know these writers and I’m going to see some of my colleagues.” Beyond that, I’d like to see us set up the festival in such a way that people could come to it and get around to everything else that’s going on here. This year, for example, Hand2Mouth is doing Repeat After Me and new show from Sojourn will be up at Lewis and Clark and Sojourn has set up a bus system so that people can go from the festival out to Lewis and Clark. Oregon Children’s Theatre will have a commissioned piece. It’s having a workshop during that time. So, I think that people can come here and say, “Sure, I can see the festival, but I can also get away from PCS and see what else is going on in Portland.” That’s really great.
TP: I think that’s really great. I would say we could make JAW/West the jewel of an opportunity for different companies to showcase their own individual take on new works. ART just hired a literary manager a year and a half ago, and Stephanie [Mulligan] has been working very diligently to put together pieces that could be presented on that scale. And she’s been working on her relationships with playwrights. The kinds of playwrights that have relationships with Allen [Nause] our artistic director and Stephanie have a very different take on writing and what they are about than a lot of the playwrights that are at JAW/West. And I think there’s an interesting contrast there, because what I love about Portland are the different views. You have Repeat After Me, which is karaoke turned into world-premiere theatre. That’s not something ART would come up with. It’s not something PCS would necessarily ever think to do, but it’s really vibrant and then, of course, Sojourn creates these political pieces that are really speaking to community ideas. What I love is the idea that we could create something where the anchor companies have enough interesting things going on that’s worthwhile for people to drive from out of town for and then we can set them loose on the streets. We happen to be one of the top places for independent music right now as well as being one of the top ten restaurant destinations in the states. Gourmet keeps trying to give us number one. All of those things come back to the same basic thread, which is that creative capital right now in Portland is exploding. Theatre is a huge piece of that because the work we do doesn’t just entertain people, but it reflects the community that we are in. I would love to see JAW/West be a tool for leverage to make people say once a year, “Oh, we’ve got to go find out what’s going on in Portland.”
MH: Well, you know, I am hoping that it could eventually be moved out so that it’s not just PCS’s thing, but a city-wide theatre festival that happens around that event. That’s why you’re so incredible. You’re such a visionary. Because what you’re talking about in terms of the festival is so easy to do. Wouldn’t it be great to talk to Allen and say, “this is something that we could organize in such a way that it did overlap with JAW/West.” Then essentially, ART would be a stop on a fabulous itinerary of theatre over ten days.
TP: Yeah, and I would coordinate it in such a way that somebody coming in from out of town who only has four days to try to catch as much as they can would be able to hit the highlights without having to choose too much. I mean, it can be a bit like herding cats, right? Getting a bunch of artists to agree on a schedule and a marketing plan but I think the benefits...
MH: I think it would have to be someone like yourself who maybe didn’t seem to have such a vested interest. I mean, I’m always going to have other reasons for wanting that to be a success. I mean, ultimately, to bring attention back to PCS, but the way the festival works is that at the beginning, we have a lot of hoopla and there’s about a week where the festival is essentially a private occasion because all the rehearsals are going on. So you could have a whole week where people could go all over town.
TP: Yeah, I think that could really work. So, basically, we just move them around for a week, be theatre tour guides, create a tour bus and say, “come see a strand of work being done by this company and this company.” And they could come away from Portland saying...
MH: “Wow! What a city!”
TP: Right.
MH: You and I have talked in the past about how music is so visible here. Film is so visible here and then right under people’s noses is all this incredible theatre going on and it seems to be invisible. When we did the Portland Theatre Tour, a lot of people that participated in said that they didn’t know that these things were going on. We did a thing where Darius Pierce and I organized essentially a theatre appreciation class for Portland and we went to PCS and ART. We went to many of the small theatres. The whole thing was a big success, but it was really a victim of it’s own success because we tried to do it the second year and most people were subscribers to all those places already.
TP: That’s just what you want and then it’s just a question of how to get the fresh blood in there.
MH: That’s why I think the festival idea is such a good one because I think we need something to draw attention to the fact that this is a very viable theatre community. And it’s all over the map. They can see a piece at PCS if they are here or they can go to Sojourn and see something that they never would have thought of, or they can see Susannah Mars at ART. All those things are different.
PLAYWRIGHTS ARE GODS
MH: You asked at one point about what’s in it for the local artists and I think that’s an important thing to address because all actors will tell you that there’s nothing like writing on a new piece of paper. It’s great to do Chekhov, it’s great to do Shakespeare, but when you work on a new piece, you are the first person to have originated that piece. Oh, that’s redundant, isn’t it? The first person to have originated that piece. But no one else will ever have as much impact on the play again as you have. So, for Joe Fisher to work on The New House, that’s a play that is going to have many productions, but no one will ever effect the play the way those actors did. The way Jon Kretzu did by working with Joe on it. So, it’s heaven on earth for actors and it’s always a bit of a brass ring to get to work on a new play. Not all actors are constitutionally into doing it, you know. Some people just want to show up and do their job and they don’t want to touch the playwright...
TP: They don’t want to have new script pages every day.
MH: Right. But wouldn’t you say for the majority of actors, that’s why they went into the business?
TP: Oh absolutely.
MH: Because they are working at the top of their capacity as a creative artist.
TP: Well, most of the work that you do in the theatre, you don’t have an opportunity to talk to the playwright and say, “why did you make her say this?” And I think with a new work, you have that process and you feel like as an actor, who is an instinctual creature by design, when they have somebody to respond to them about the questions and ideas and impulses around their character and what they are all for, it’s like getting to sit in a room every night and have a conversation with God. “So, God, why did you give me curly hair? And do I have to be this loud and obnoxious all the time? Is that just who I am?” And then maybe God says, “You know, maybe you’re right. Maybe we’ll trim this a little and maybe we’ll give you the ability to paint.” If only we all had that in our lives. But for a performance, since what we are trying to do is give people a vision of what life could be, it’s really nice to be able to have that artistic opportunity to create complexity.
MH: It’s the difference between being a hired hand and being a collaborator.
WHY SHOULD PORTLAND CARE?
TP: And having new works for Portland...why would it be important for Portland? That’s the other question, right? Because I would say that the majority of people living in Portland have maybe never seen a play in their lives. They may see films and movies everyday, but don’t necessarily see that it is relevant for them to see a live performance. How it’s relevant for Portland is when you have a new work created within a community, it’s going to take on the values, ideals, the particular flavor of that community. I mean, look at the work that Steppenwolf did when they were founded. Everything that we know about Chicago is largely defined by some of the work that came out of John Malkovich, Gary Sinise and Amy Morton and the work that they were producing at that time, they were doing a lot of new works by Chicago playwrights like Sam Shepard and David Mamet and they were creating work that has become iconic. Not just for Chicago, but nationally. They were telling the world who Chicago was and many of those performers, because of that unique voice were able to go on and have film careers. Many of those plays were turned into films. So, suddenly Chicago has a place in the national imagination. That’s what I would love to see for Portland. We know that Portland has it right in places where so many other cities get it wrong. We’re livable, sustainable, we’re focused on values that make a city and a country great and we don’t have many platforms at this point to share that with the nation. Up until recently, we didn’t even want to. The worst thing in the world was that people would come here and then they’d want to move here because it’s so great, right?
MH: Right.
TP: Well, maybe they don’t have to move here. If they can experience new works that were created here that can take those values and inspire people with them.
THE PORTLAND IDENTITY
MH: Do you think there could ever be a Portland identity that was centered around theatre or perhaps playwriting? Because, when I think of Chicago, I do think of a very definite aesthetic. I know what it looks like in my mind’s eye. And the playwrighting has that certain kind of tendency.
TP: It’s very distinctive.
MH: And I wonder if we could have that same kind of distinction here.
TP: I think we could. I absolutely do. You talk to anyone on the street, you meet a vast majority of people under 30 who have moved here in the last five years. Portland has the highest per capita ratio of people under 30 in the United States. All of those people moved here because they shared a common point of view. There is a Portland point of view and if we tap into it, the art that is created in this town will be very compelling to people outside of it.
MH: You know what’s funny is, I watch Jeopardy regularly and anytime there is someone from Portland, they look like they are from Portland. I swear to God. Especially the young ones. But even if they’re older, like myself, there is something about their clothes or something about them that makes you say, “Yeah, she’s from Portland.”
GO WEST, YOUNG MAN
MH: One way that I think it really manifests itself in Portland theatre is the incredible strength of ensemble work. And that’s unusual. When I think of New York or I think of L.A., they have some ensemble groups, but not to the extent that we have here.
TP: Because it’s the actor’s identity that generates work.
MH: Yeah, but there is something about the people who are attracted to Portland. And when I think about the best of our ensemble groups, like Liminal, certainly, Sojourn, Theatre Vertigo in a different way, these are all made up of people who came from another state and decided consciously that they were going to move their companies to Portland to create work.
TP: Well, that’s what the west is, right? Nobody was here and then a bunch of people who shared a common belief that it must be better “over there.” Those are the people who make up Portland whether their families have been here for ten generations or one. It’s that kind of spirit, that sense of “I’m going to pack up my things and go west and when I get there, I know I am going to have to build everything from scratch. Nobody’s going to help me, but what I am going to create is going to be better for me.”
MH: Are you from here?
TP: I’m not. I’m from Florida.
MH: Really?
TP: Yeah, I’m one of those who packed up my things and said, “I think Portland...”
MH: And what was it about Portland? What did that mean to you?
TP: I’d never been to Oregon, and I’d certainly never been to Portland, but I’d gotten this impression even then that Portland was this place that was great for individual expression, that it was very fertile. Not just literally because everything was so clean, but the ideas pop like popcorn. That was really my impression from the people I talked to and the literature I read. So, when I had to choose where to go to school, I was being courted by all the usual Northeast institutions, but I didn’t feel like there were new ideas coming out of those places. Those places might teach me to be an upright citizen, but they weren’t going to teach me how to think for myself. They weren’t going to give me the opportunity to create something that never existed. I could build on someone’s existing work and maybe even get higher than I could in Portland, but I wouldn’t generate something that was brand new. That’s what I really wanted.
MH: That’s so Trisha.
TP: I want to grow something brand new and have it succeed.
MH: To transfer that to theatre, I just think it’s interesting the companies as a group look around and say, “we’re going to choose this city and see what happens.” To me, that’s really new. When I was their age, I never would have thought of doing that. Looking at people like Joe Fisher and Matt Zrebski who moved here from Texas. That’s another one. It’s out-of-towners who came here as a conscious deliberate choice.
TP: And I think what is also interesting is that the people who have been here for 20 years, like Allen Nause, are taking on a lot of those values and are actually shifting. Allen’s been talking a lot lately about trying to create a standing ensemble company for ART.
MH: Wow.
TP: You know, not necessarily on the Sojourn model where it’s the same actors in every performance, but more on the model of Steppenwolf where you have a company of actors that are known as the company members and they have the opportunity to have first crack at the roles available. The audience will develop a personal relationship with these performers and the performers have a greater role and a greater stake in the artistic development of the company. And Artists Rep started as a collaboration of artists. That’s what we want to be. We want to explore how to get back to that place.
MH: Well, you look like that already. Do you mean taking it on more formally?
TP: More formal, yeah. There certainly are artists that we are used to seeing on the ART stage. I mean, we’ve really been focused on supporting the local performer. But until this conversation, I’d never really thought about it from the stand-point of us going back to something of old, but in a way, we’re taking on what the new generation of artists who are coming here and generating ensemble work have brought to us. When I started working in Portland, there wasn’t really an instinct that you had to get a group of people together to do a show. There was sort of an impresario model for theatre.
MH: Right
TP: You know, you have one visionary, a charismatic leader who would dictate how it was going to go. And I think there has been a real shift.
MH: There definitely has.
THEATRE BEGETS THEATRE
MH: Going back to ancient history, you know, with Storefront, the sense of competition was fierce. It was the feeling that there were only a few people who were going to go to theatre and you don’t want to share them with everyone else. So, when the Pacific Guild opened up, there was resentment. I mean that’s such a funny idea to me, that we could resent a company for opening. Now, I think it’s just the reverse, I think we applaud a new company. We embrace the idea, because there’s the belief that the more theatre there is, the more it generates work and audience for it. And I believe that actually.
TP: I do, too. I definitely believe that audience begets audience. You know, get them in the door at one institution and they are ten times more likely to go see someone else.
MH: That’s right. Unless it’s Merchant of Venice.
TP: Now, you say that...
MH: No, I’m kidding, because we did get new audiences. We gained some, lost some.
TP: You transformed the mindset of a significant segment of the theatre community who thought that theatre could never be like that and now they are going out and experiencing the kind of theatre that is like that.
MH: I had my quibbles with it artistically. I liked some things about it. I didn’t like some things about it. But what was really great was when I would go out around town or to a restaurant, I would hear people talking about it. It made me feel like I was in New York to hear people talking about theatre. So, in that sense, it’s nice, even if it’s a thorn in someone’s side. At least it gets them thinking about the art form.
TP: Well, that show gave Portland Center Stage permission to do shows that I don’t think you would have tackled otherwise. I’m not sure that if Merchant of Venice never happened, that anyone at PCS would have been willing to take on Pillowman and that was a great production.
MH: I’m sure you’re right.
TP: It said, “yes, there is an impact for this level of controversy and yes, we can survive it.” I also get the impression that making the larger production, the more classical production and how you play with people’s expectations has gotten more deliberate.
MH: What’s that joke going around right now? If you want to do an avant guard production of Shakespeare, you set it in the original time period.
OUR INFERIORITY COMPLEX
MH: Portland really has grown as a community and I’ve been lucky, I think to see it. It’s grown rather radically just in the short time I’ve been here and I believe that there is a sense that we are in it together now. So, you see lots of collaboration between different companies. You see them talking to each other about what they are doing. And I think it all goes toward getting a civic sense of pride and awareness of each other.
TP: And just think about how different that is from five years ago. We had a real inferiority complex as a theatre community.
MH: Really?
TP: Oh, yeah. The most common thing you would hear from people was, “I’m just here until I can get enough credits to move to Chicago, New York or L.A. Any of the top echelon of people working in town, that’s what they were doing. Doing good work here was not necessarily something to be proud of. Doing good work here was just something to put on their resume until they could get a better job. And I think that dynamic is really changing.
MH: Sure.
TP: We still have our boomerang artists. We still have people like Scott Coopwood, who stick around for a few years and then go make their way in New York and Chicago, but what we are finding more and more is that people are coming back. You know, Michael Mendelson did that. He got very successful here in Portland, went to New York for a few years and came back. And now he has really staked a claim that this is where he wants to do his work. Eleanor O’Brien did the same thing.
MH: Or what Amy Palomino mentioned at the Drammys. She said she thought moving here meant that she wouldn’t work anymore. She was surprised to find out that she now works more than she did in New York.
A nice thing, just as an aside is that we had a play last year at JAW called The Feminine Ending that Blair Brown directed. They wound up scooping us on the world premiere, but it’s all right. They so much liked the guy that played the main character that Casey McFeron has been invited to be in the New York production. He’s going to be in the world premiere in New York City because he was in something here.
TP: And weren’t there two Oregon residents who were nominated for Tonys this year? Did you hear that?
MH: Who else?
TP: It was Brooks Ashmanskas and...Oh, I’d have to look it up, but there were two. [Note: Portland-native Kelly Grant is in the cast of the Tony-winning production of Company] Two people who got their training in Portland, one of them went to Beaverton High School. When stuff came out about them, it referenced their background in Portland theatre, much like it would reference a Chicago background. You know, “Chicago-area actor...” When would that have been possible before? As we develop an identity for Portland theatre that is nationally recognized for its style, perspective and point of view, I think we’re going to hear that more and more. There are going to be people who come to Portland to find great new plays.
ON PLAYWRIGHTS
MH: You know that’s the thing, too. We do think of Chicago “actors.” That’s an important part of their fame, but also you think right away about Chicago playwrights. And I wonder if we could get to a place here where there was that awareness of a certain style, of a certain aesthetic or maybe even that there’s just a lot of playwrighting coming out of a one community.
TP: And you’re working on that, aren’t you? You have this great group with local playwrights.
MH: That’s right. They do really well.
TP: And several of them have created work that’s kind of gone out there a bit, hasn’t it? I mean, Steve Patterson’s having great success.
MH: That’s right. He’s about to do a production in Los Angeles, which is great.
TP: And who else is involved with that group? Well, Ebbe Roe [Smith].
MH: Who won a Drammy the other night, so that was nice. They are all doing very well. They are a really cool group of people. Without my suggestion, the group of them has decided to do a group show around Halloween that has to do with food.
TP: Cool.
HM: I’ve heard of that. Is that the playwrighting group that Patrick Wohlmut is involved in, too?
MH: Yes, he is in that.
HM: I’ve heard a lot of exciting things about that.
MH: Oh, he’s really a good writer. And, as another aside, when he said that he was interested in the group and that he had written some things, I thought, “Oh my god.” You know, here’s someone you know as an actor who has “written a few things.”
TP: Yeah, “I’m an actor, but I really want to be a playwright.”
MH: Yeah, there you go. How often do you hear that? I said, “Sure, I’d like to read it,” but I imagined the painful discussion that would be just around the corner. It turned out, he’s really good. I mean, he’s so good that there are a few writers that are a little bit afraid of him right now. I mean, they have to look at him a little bit differently because they suddenly realize that he’s had these thoughts going around in his head all this time that are just now getting onto paper. So, it is cool when it happens, but I think it can happen any city anywhere so long as there is a nexus for the writers to organize, because they really can’t do anything in a vacuum, there has to be an artistic home. That’s what I’m trying to do at PCS, that’s what you’re doing at ART. That makes all the difference. People can feel like they are welcome.
TP: Yeah, we really want to break down the idea of there being a great bastion that has to be stormed by the playwright or by the actor for that matter. That idea of, “well, if we keep throwing script pages at them long enough, you might get a meeting with the literary manager.” Because that’s not how it works.
MH: Right. You know, you can call us up.
WE’RE ALL IN IT TOGETHER
MH: You did a wonderful thing about a year ago, I think on pdxbackstage [a yahoo-based theatre community group] when there were some people complaining about something. I forget what it was about but they referenced PCS and ART both and you said this wonderful thing like “You know, I just want to point out that the people who are working there are people and they are actually working in the community with you.”
TP: Yeah.
MH: They are your friends.
TP: You act with them, you drink with them. They work with you. They are not some big bad “other” that is out to prevent you from having a career. They are just hard-working people trying to achieve the goals of their organization.
MH: Right. So, you very sweetly let them know. The subtext was great because it was saying, “don’t you think we want to work with you?”
TP: Right. I mean that’s the whole point. What makes our community interesting, the reason why so many people move here is because the people that you get to work with and drink coffee with are the kind of people you want to know. They have interesting ideas and an interesting approach to life. That’s why we’re all here. Whatever we can do to foster that artists’ community is just giving you somebody more interesting to talk to when you’re waiting for coffee. I mean wouldn’t you rather be standing next to an actor, who is also a playwright who is working on a play about black holes?
MH: You know, I have to say something about playwrights that is so different from other writers in the other spheres of writing, certainly in novel writing. There is probably intense jealousy and worry about someone making it before you, but I think, relatively speaking, in playwrighting, there really is a sense of everybody wanting to support everybody else. It really is great.
TP: Yeah, it is.
THE GOOD, BAD & UGLY
MH: So, it occurs to me Trish that we have been talking about what we love about Portland theatre. Is there anything that we really would like to see different? What do we really hate?
TP: Well, I would really like to see more stability. I would like to feel that Portland was a town that new companies could move to and get a couple of shows under their belts, but also that they could feel like their next year’s budget was secure. I would love to see that. Because in every other art form, in every other institution, there is a mechanism for artists to go from small and scrappy to represented, I mean, maybe it’s an artist who gets picked up by a gallery that’s going to advocate for them locally and nationally. We don’t have any mechanism for an upstart creative theatre person to get their feet under them, to know they’ve arrived, to feel like there is somebody batting for them besides themselves, whether it’s a theatre company or an individual artist. And that really bothers me. You know, in any market, you have companies that wink in and wink out, but in Portland, we have companies that have been working for ten years and have never pushed past that barrier of being just a scrappy little theatre. ART pushed past that barrier, but it took a major capital campaign and several companies in town falling by the wayside before we were able to burst through that ceiling and say, “We have stability. We have growth. Pay attention to us.” And I think that there are several smaller companies in Portland that don’t have that, even now. You know, Miracle is an amazing company, doing something truly unique. They world premiere more Latino-themed work than any other company on the west coast that I know of. They are just now starting to move past the place where it was a struggle for them to get more than 20 or 30 people to come to their theatre on a given night. I think it is great that they are moving, but boy, where would they be now if that had happened five or six years ago. If they had that floor, that influx of capital, that launching pad to take that next step sooner…Theatre Vertigo is another example. They’ve been in business for, what, ten years? The number of ten-year-old businesses in this town is astonishing considering how many of them are not much bigger than they were when they started.
MH: Which lends to another problem we have with Portland in that we have a couple of large theatres and we have a lot of small theatres, but we have virtually no mid-sized theatres, which means that it is hard for Vertigo to move beyond where they are in terms of earned income. Miracle is a good example because they have a nice space that works really well for them, but the last time I saw a show there, they turned people away. It was the Mexican play.
TP: Oh yeah, the bi-lingual one.
MH: Right. They couldn’t seat all the people. So, it’s very dangerous to think about moving to a mid-sized venue because you have to think about whether or not you can fill it.
CREATIVE CAPACITY
TP: Right. And coming from a completely different perspective for something like Third Floor, which is nationally-recognized sketch comedy. They routinely sell out their shows, but their performers don’t make a living as part of that company. So, they can sell out that size of a venue, but they don’t have a half step up venue to go to. In Portland we have a lot of 50 or 60 seat venues and we have a lot of 200 and up houses, but those mid-range venues don’t exist. It’s a challenge that Sam Adams is taking on with his Creative Capacity...did you have an opportunity to go to that event?
MH: I didn’t, even though it was downstairs. I had something else...Oh, it was the playgroup meeting that night. But from what I understand, he acknowledged a lot of what was great here, but he put out a challenge for us to get organized. He challenged us to get it together basically.
TP: Right. So that we can assert whatever we want, whether it’s stable, mid-sized venues or it’s capital investment grants to help smaller companies with a proven track record get bigger, we can identify that and he will give us the tools to get that to pass and he’s telling us—and this shocked me—he’s telling us that there are millions of dollars here to be raised. Let’s not talk about nickels and dimes. Don’t raise your hand and tell me, “the city wouldn’t have to spend any money if they would just blah, blah, blah…” Let’s get past that mentality and ask “what do we need to make it to the next level?” He’s saying, “give me a goal that’s got some muscle in it.” Yeah, it takes money, but if it’s going to change the face of the city, then it’s worth it.
MH: I think we should tell Sam—because we talk about it all the time—“let’s go back to the idea of a city-wide festival. Give us the resources to make this a truly civic event that brings attention to theatre”
TP: Right.
MH: Make people realize that it is an undercapitalized resource and it’s fun. They could have fun.
TP: Right. They already know that with other industries. [The Business Association] routinely creates delegations and junkets for people in different industries to come and see what Portland’s got going on. They could do that for the arts if they choose to.
MH: They already do that for some things. It makes sense for them to throw a lot of money behind something like film because the idea is that people are going to come and drop a lot of money on Portland when they produce here. But I would argue that with theatre, it’s a different kind of investment, which is that if they can help us get to that level where Portland is perceived as a theatre town, we would have many reasons for people to come here to see theatre. I know that people go to Chicago to see theatre.
TP: People go to Seattle just to see theatre.
MH: Oh really? I know they go there for opera. They go there for theatre, too?
TP: With the stuff that Seattle Rep has been doing for the last couple of years, people know they can see it there before it goes to Broadway. Those relationships that they have been able to develop, to be a theatre community for those larger towns—Well, it’s like South Coast Rep. Costa Mesa, California is considered a destination for theatre? Well, not before they were there.
MH: Yeah, it’s got two things now. It has the mall and it’s got SCR. So you can go to theatre and then go over to the boutique and buy something there.
TP: But people go there to see what they’ve got going on, because what they have going on will be the thing that’s plastered all over the scene in a couple of seasons.
MH: And I keep talking about civic pride, but that’s part of it. People in Orange County are very proud of South Coast Rep. You go to a reading of a new play—just a reading—and they will have 400 people there. They will actually fill the mainstage space just to hear a new play.
TP: Yeah, that’s really exciting.
MH: And I think that’s the kind of thing we want and can have here. You know, there’s always going to be someone who is going to think, “I don’t want to see a new play. I’ll wait until it’s on Broadway.” But other people love the idea that they were in there at the beginning. And with the post-play discussions, the opportunities for interaction, they may be effective in that way.
TP: Yeah. I definitely agree with that. And I think that’s another need that the Portland community has. We need to create public conversation about what theatre means to us, because for a town that is as full as it is of creative workers and do-it-yourself [people] we have not been very effective in bridging the gap between what they already love—which is creating new things and experiencing art as a way of life—and what we do. There’s still a large perception in the greater Portland community that theatre is an art form for old people or that theatre is a “traditional” art form. The last three shows I’ve seen were anything but traditional.
MH: And what’s so good about certain companies in Portland is that they are really good at theatre as an event. Certainly, Hand2Mouth is like that. You go there and it’s going to be this big uproarious experience. I love that and that does attract younger people. My mother would not go to that; she wants to see Shaw. She wants to feel comfortable with the relationship between her and the playwright. But for everybody else...
TP: Right, I think there’s really something to be gained there. And I think there’s something to be gained by translating to people that the experience they have at a great independent film is equivalent to the experience they have in a theatre with a new work. And the only distinction there with an independent film is that they’re not going to interact with the performance in any way. Whereas, with a live performance, particularly with new works, they can literally impact how that work develops every night. So, when it does go off to the rest of the world, they have participated in an act of creation, instead of just passively experiencing a completed creation. Portlanders love that.
MH: I’m wondering if there are things we haven’t touched on.
HM: I think you’ve given me way more than I will be able to fit in the space. Thank you both.
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