Profile Theatre – The First Fourteen Years

Profile Theatre was founded in 1997 with the mission of celebrating the playwright’s contribution to live theater. In 14 years, Profile has grown to be one of the most significant theatre companies in Portland, with a reputation for bringing intelligence, excellence, and passion to the stage. We’ve done things a bit differently from other theatres in town. Each year we have showcased a single playwright, giving our audiences the opportunity to enter the writer’s world for a full season – to experience each play as part of a flowing dialogue, seeing the important connections that help us to grow and learn and understand.

We believe that live theater begins with the playwright’s words. Over the last 14 years our featured playwrights have included Arthur Kopit, Constance Congdon, Tennesee Williams, Arthur Miller, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, Romulus Linney, Terrence McNally, Lanford Wilson, Wendy Wasserstein, John Guare, Neil Simon, Horton Foote and Lee Blessing. Profile is one of only three theatres in America that offer this approach to theater, and the only one West of Chicago, providing a unique theatre experience that can be found nowhere else in the Pacific Northwest.

As well as presenting both full productions and staged readings of the playwright’s work, many of our featured playwrights come to Portland to work with our artists and participate in audience talkbacks and lectures. Profile has won a number of Drammy awards (Portland Area Theatre Critics Award), and Profile’s productions consistently earn the Critic’s Choice designation in the state’s largest newspaper, The Oregonian. Our mission is supported by a strong Educational Enrichment program that includes special student matinee performances and in school workshops.

We thank our artists and our audiences for this incredible journey.