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Mission Statement
Portland Center Stage inspires our community by bringing stories to life in unexpected ways.

Theater brings us together, to sit near one another, to hear stories, to lift our voices in song. Theater creates worlds like no others; its immediacy cannot be duplicated; its intensity cannot be matched. A playwright’s miraculous words, directed with insight and acted with passion, elicit laughter, sorrow, astonishment, enlightenment, inspiration. Suddenly, we are not alone.

At a time in our history when we all wonder how we can live together on this planet, our need for community feels more important than ever. When we gather in the theater, feelings are magnified, commonalities are illuminated, prejudices are challenged, our hearts are opened.

Theater is communal. An actor speaks a playwright’s words. Another answers. Dialogue begins; melody rises. The audience adds its own energy, rhythm, breath; harmony emerges—all of it entwining together in a shared experience of power and exhilaration.

Portland Center Stage has joined with you in theatrical celebration for over 20 years. Just four years ago, we promised a new vision, new energy, a new attitude and new work. Today, there is fire onstage, excitement in the building and high anticipation as we bring you magnificent writers of timeless stories. And each is offered with the vigor, verve and vitality you’ve come to expect at Portland Center Stage.

Portland Center Stage History
Now in its 22nd season, Portland Center Stage {PCS} is the city’s leading professional theater company and is one of the 25 largest regional theater companies in the nation. An affiliate of the League of Regional Theatres, Actor’s Equity Association and Theatre Communications Group, PCS produces a blend of classical, contemporary and premiere works in addition to its annual summer playwrights festival, JAW, now in its eleventh year. In its home at the Portland Armory, PCS has 8,000 subscribers and attracts an annual audience of nearly 100,000 theater-goers of all ages.

PCS began as OSF Portland, the northern sibling of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. After years of planning and preparation, the company was successfully launched on November 12, 1988 with an opening night performance of Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House and a gala celebration.

In September 1993, after five successful seasons, the Festival’s Board of Directors approved a recommendation from its Portland ad hoc committee that the Portland branch become an independent theater company, starting with the 1994/95 season. In the spring of 1994, Elizabeth Huddle was selected as Producing Artistic Director to oversee both the artistic and administrative sides of the company.

In May, 2000, Chris Coleman, co-founder and Artistic Director of Actor’s Express in Atlanta, became the theater’s fourth Artistic Director. In his first season he launched several creative initiatives, including the production of A New Brain, the theater’s first musical, and its first second stage production, Dael Orlandersmith’s one-woman show, The Gimmick. Under his leadership, PCS has also received the largest gift in the theater’s history—a $1.35 million, three-year grant from the Meyer Memorial Trust. In 2003/04, PCS expanded the number of productions from six to seven and began presenting works in both the Winningstad and Newmark Theatres.

In April 2004, the company announced a $32.9 million capital campaign to build a new theater complex in the historic Portland Armory building. The new facility houses a 599-seat main stage theater, a smaller, 200-seat black box theater, administrative offices, a rehearsal hall and production facilities. The facility is the first historic rehabilitation on the National Historic Register, and the first performing arts venue, to achieve a LEED {Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design} Platinum rating. The design includes efficient use of energy, water and building materials that will lower operating expenses as well as the building’s impact on the environment.

The new Gerding Theater at the Armory opened to the public with a community celebration on October 1, 2006.

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