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Portland Theater and Dance
Performing arts in Portland range from big musicals to indie theater and experimental dance.
Looking to take in some live theater, dance performance or experimental arts in Portland? You’re in for a treat: Portland has a well-established network of venues and theater companies, and a diverse and dynamic small theater and dance scene. The city’s large downtown theaters offer full-scale, world-class shows, while its smaller independent stages scout new talent and experiment creatively. Several collectives in town focus on cultural performance, and other small theaters are devoted to comedy and puppetry. For those seeking arts and culture, dance performances and theater plays in PDX, there’s something for everyone to enjoy.
Major Portland Theaters
The anchor of Portland’s theater scene is Portland’5 Centers for the Arts, an umbrella organization that handles booking and promotion for several of the city’s biggest venues. The Portland’5 calendar includes touring Broadway productions, Portland opera and ballet, popular video game concerts and touring acts by prominent actors and comedians. The major theaters are Antoinette Hatfield Hall (Portland’5 headquarters) and the three theater spaces within it: Dolores Winningstad Theatre , the Newmark Theatre and Brunish Theatre. The Winningstad is home to Stumptown Stages, Portland’s musical theatre company. Other locations include the Keller Auditorium, Lincoln Hall (at Portland State University) and Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.
Portland Center Stage, the city’s largest theater company, puts on full-scale musicals and other productions on the main stage and more stripped-down avant-garde plays in its intimate basement space, the Ellyn Bye Studio, both in The Armory, a historic building in the Pearl District.
In its own performance space, Artists Repertory Theatre favors tense dramas by contemporary playwrights. Shows by Profile Theatre, a company that focuses on developing playwright voices by selecting two or three early- and mid-career writers of national prominence in two-year cycles, can be found in partner theaters across town. Third Rail Repertory Theatre has a penchant for dark comedies and a take-no-prisoners acting style, performing at CoHo Theatre in Northwest Portland.
Pre-Show Bites
These lauded local eateries are all within walking distance of their respective theaters.
Children’s Theater in Portland
Portland’s rich collection of children’s theater companies offers kids a delightful introduction to theater, and those already under the spell of the stage will delight in fantastical productions featuring acrobats, puppets and more.
The beloved annual kids’ show ZooZoo at Imago Theatre features a menagerie of acrobatic actors dressed as animals like cats and frogs, plus insect puppet performers and masked mimes, all cavorting and leaping across the stage.
The Judy Kafoury Center for Youth Arts offers vibrant, accessible productions, often based on classic books. At the Judy, as it’s affectionately known, Northwest Children’s Theater offers vibrant, accessible productions for kids as young as 4.
Oregon Children’s Theatre offers shows and educational programs for all ages, but many of their performances, including rock operas and folk musicals, are aimed at kids 8 and up.
Shakespeare in PDX
Portland and Shakespeare go hand-in-hand — especially during the city’s gorgeous and long summer evenings, when performers like Portland Shakespeare Project, the Original Practice Shakespeare Festival and immersive company Speculative Drama offer free, open-air performances around town.
And for diehard followers of the Bard, the famous Oregon Shakespeare Festival is the must-do event, taking place nearly year-round in Ashland, Oregon, 4.5 hours south of Portland.
Diverse Voices on Portland Stages
Portland Playhouse undertakes critically acclaimed modern works, especially though not exclusively about the Black experience. In Southeast Portland,Milagro Theatre Group gives voice to the pan-Latino experience with bilingual stage productions.
Small and Emerging Companies
Longstanding small Portland companies like CoHo Productions and Portland Experimental Theater Ensemble (PETE) tackle everything from Dickensian classics to Beckett-esque absurdity, while in adjacent towns, upstarts Bag&Baggage (Hillsboro) and veteran Lakewood Center for the Arts (Lake Oswego) bring new twists to old classics like Agatha Christie and beloved musicals.
Curious Comedy Theater, which most often hosts standup and improv, shows a few plays, favoring minimal staging, spoof and solo work.
More Local Theater
These performing arts companies offer an array of formats and styles for theater-lovers.
Upcoming Theater Events
Dive into Portland's thriving theater scene at one of these upcoming shows.
Dance in Portland
For a city its size, Portland has a remarkably active dance scene that fills the city’s dance card with everything from ballet performances of “Swan Lake” and “The Nutcracker” to studio productions of the freshest and grittiest contemporary work by local choreographers. If a theme runs through all of this movement, it’s innovation — Portland dance has a restless, inventive spirit that welcomes collaborations with other art forms and often spills beyond the generally accepted boundaries of dance.
International Talent
The primary presenter of dance artists from outside the city is White Bird, which has brought mostly modern dance to theaters in Portland and Beaverton since 1997. White Bird’s tastes generally run to the more experimental and contemporary part of the dance spectrum, especially in its Uncaged programs at Lincoln Hall at Portland State University, but even its larger shows at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, or just next door on one of the stages at Antoinette Hatfield Hall, often feature advanced European and Asian choreographers alongside their American peers.
Ballet in Portland
The largest ballet company in the city is Oregon Ballet Theatre, which was formed in 1989 from a merger of two smaller companies. Since its emergence, the company sharpened its Balanchine core and added neoclassical and story ballets to its repertoire. Catch OBT’s popular “The Nutcracker” performance every December at the Keller Auditorium.
New Modern and Contemporary Dance
Choreographer Sarah Slipper founded NW Dance Project in 2004 to develop a core of athletic dancers who perform new contemporary works rooted in ballet.
Linda Austin’s Performance Works NW hosts an annual artist residency that showcases experiments in dance and performance at their Foster-Powell neighborhood studio and venue.
Providing a stage for multi-cultural, multi-genre, and multi-disciplinary performance-based works in the Central Eastside, New Expressive Works, founded in 2012 by Subashini Ganesan, Portland’s first Creative Laureate, has become a space for conversation and innovation in the performance art scene in Portland.
Credit: Diego Diaz
Often performing at New Expressive Works, Oluyinka Akinjiola’s Rejoice! Diaspora Dance Theater creates ensemble-based contemporary dance performances through African and diasporic dance with a call for social change and a space to celebrate Black joy.
push/FOLD is a contemporary dance company led by Samuel Hobbs. In 2019, Hobbs founded Union PDX, an annual festival of contemporary dance to celebrate the diversity of Portland’s dance scene and promote local choreographers’ work in the region.
Modern Acrobatics
BodyVox performances are modern with a playful edge. Founders Jamey Hampton and Ashley Roland bring the acrobatics of their work with iconic dance companies Pilobolus, Momix and Iso to BodyVox, and they’ve developed a company of dancers devoted to movement and audience connection.
Portland has several companies that have acrobatic or aerial styles, including A-WOL Dance Collective, Polaris Dance, and Night Flight. For the younger set, venerable companies Do Jump!, Afterglow Aerial Arts and Imago Theater offer youth-friendly shows and classes.
Combining dance and circus arts, Tempos Contemporary Circus stages performances and hosts regular classes from acro yoga to acrobatics for beginners and community dance jams.
Live Arts in Portland
Explore Portland's exciting scene of performance, theater and experimental arts.
Upcoming Dance Performances
Explore dance in Portland at these upcoming events.
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