In Dialogue Staged Readings include new and contemporary plays in conversation with Sarah Ruhl’s body of work, as well as readings of Ruhl plays not included in our Main Stage season.

Three Sisters
by Anton Chekhov
Adapted by Sarah Ruhl
In collaboration with Reed College
March 2 & 3, 2015
Directed by Linda Alper

Join us for Profile’s In Dialogue Book Club!  

Over the course of the season we will explore the worlds of our main stage productions by reading a variety of different works, then gathering together and engaging in lively discussion over wine and refreshments.  The book club will be meeting throughout the season at the beautiful NW home of two of our patrons.

2015 Books:
February: Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
May: 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater by Sarah Ruhl
September: Gilead: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson
November: Orlando by Virginia Woolf

If you have any questions about our book club or other In Dialogue programming, please contact our Director of Education and Community Engagement, Lauren Bloom Hanover.

Dates of run: January 29 – February 15, 2015
Directed by: Adriana Baer
Featuring: Dana Millican, Don Kenneth Mason*, Patricia Hunter*, Dana Green*, Jonathan Hernandez, Shawna Holt and Jake Turner

“Compelling, intelligently wrought production” – The Oregonian

“Sparklingly oddball” – Oregon ArtsWatch

“Wes Anderson-style whimsy”  – Willamette Week

When Jean takes possession of the cell phone of a dead man, she is thrown into a mysterious journey of self-discovery and awakening. Through this small modern device, she finds adventure, purpose and even love – but at what cost? This hilarious and paradoxical treatise on the digital world probes at the thin line between reality and fantasy, privacy and openness, and even life and death.

Creative Team: Rachel Finn, Carl Faber, Sharath Patel, Kristen Mun , D Westerholm*, Rudy Schuepbach, Ruth Nardecchia, Will Bailey, Jillian Gibson

In Dialogue events for Dead Man’s Cell Phone.

Featured Charity: Portland Women’s Crisis Line. Learn more here.

See the Dead Man’s Cell Phone press kit here.

See the Dead Man’s Cell Phone program here.

*Member Actors’ Equity Association, the professional union of actors and stage managers.

Dates of production: June 11-28, 2015
Directed by: Adriana Baer
Featuring: Lauren Bloom*, Foss Curtis, Karl Hanover*, Matthew Kerrigan, Leif Norby*, Beth Thompson and Ashley Williams.

“…a sparkling cast… and quite lovely to look at [with] ravishing period costumes…” – Oregon ArtsWatch

“There are laughs aplenty in this tight period piece… An able cast agilely steps from the comic to the tragic…”  – Portland Monthly Magazine

“… realism at its best … a rare play that takes meaningful risks… [it] hits you with images so poetic and destabilizing that you’re shocked to attention… I think [this is] why most of us bother to go to the theater in the first place. Why pay up just to see the same safe stories that leave you cold?… We want to feel something, and with a production like this one, we do.” – Portland Mercury

Enter the home of Dr. Givings: husband, doctor, inventor and healer of feminine hysteria. As this man of science pioneers new therapies for women in the dawning age of electricity, his young wife Catherine begins to wonder what exactly is going on behind the closed door of his operating theatre. In the Next Room, or the vibrator play is a wickedly humorous tale of sex, intimacy and the discovery of pleasure.

Creative Team: Stephen Dobay, Kristeen Coster, Sarah Gahagan, Sharath Patel, Kaye Blankenship, Olivia Murphy, Jillian Gibson, Bailey Maxwell and D Westerholm*

In Dialogue Events for In the Next Room, or the vibrator play.
Featured charity: Dress for Success. Read more here.

See the press archive for In the Next Room or the vibrator play here.

See the program for In the Next Room or the vibrator play here.

*Member Actors’ Equity Association, the professional union of actors and stage managers.

Dates of Run: November 5-22, 2015
Directed by: Matthew B. Zrebski
Featuring: Crystal Munoz, Ben Newman*, Ted Rooney*, Elizabeth Rothan* and Beth Thompson

“Must see”  – Artslandia
“Sparkling gem”  – OregonLive
“Best piece of theatre I’ve seen in a long time”  – PQ Monthly
“Elegant, immersive production” – Portland Mercury

Orlando, a young Englishman, sets out to encounter love and adventures with queens and kings, princesses and archdukes, historic poets and fictional sea captains. Riding waves that transcend time and space, Orlando transforms again and again. This epic tale of discovery, based on Virginia Woolf’s novel, crashes through the ages as a whimsical, gender-bending fantasy.

Design and Production: Drew Dannhorn, Carl Faber, Em Gustason, Alison Heryer, Ross Jackson, Tal Sanders and D Westerholm*

In Dialogue Events for Orlando.
ASL interpreted performance November 13, 2015.
Featured Charity: Oregon food bank. Learn more here.

*Member Actors’ Equity Association, the professional union of actors and stage managers.

Presented in collaboration with Shaking the Tree Theatre

Dates of run: Parts I and II: September 9 – 13, 2015
Shaking the Tree’s Part III: September 25 – October 24, 2015
Directed by: Samantha van der Merwe
Featuring: Foss Curtis, Sam Dinkowitz, Shawna Holt, Mickey Jordan, Colin Kane, Matthew Kerrigan, Diane Kondrat*,  Garland Lyons, Alexandra Ramirez and Paul Susi.

Politics, love, humor and belief collide as small town communities prepare their annual production of “the greatest story ever told.”  This three-part story travels from medieval England to World War II Bavaria and then to contemporary South Dakota.  Ruhl’s writing exposes the transformative effect of creating theatrical events, while asking big questions about humanity, faith and doubt.  Passion Play is funny, imaginative and full of wonder.  It is, like all plays about plays, about the people creating the work, and the society that surrounds them.

Creative Team: Sara Ludeman, Natasha Stockem, Samantha van der Merwe, D Westerholm*, Annalise Albright Woods and Jeff Woods.

See the Passion Play media kit here.

See the Passion Play program here.

*Member Actors’ Equity Association, the professional union of actors and stage managers.

DEAD MAN’S CELL PHONE
directed by Adriana Baer
1.29.15 – 2.15.15 | Morrison Stage

When Jean takes possession of the cell phone of a dead man, she is thrown into a mysterious journey of self-discovery and awakening. Through this small modern device, she finds adventure, purpose and even love – but at what cost? This hilarious and paradoxical treatise on the digital world probes at the thin line between reality and fantasy, privacy and openness, and even life and death.

IN THE NEXT ROOM, OR THE VIBRATOR PLAY
directed by Adriana Baer
6.11.15 – 6.28.15 | Morrison Stage

Enter the home of Dr. Givings; husband, doctor, inventor, and healer of feminine hysteria. As this man of science pioneers new therapies for women in the dawning age of electricity, his young wife Catherine begins to wonder what exactly is going on behind the closed door of his operating theatre.  In the Next Room, or the vibrator play is a wickedly humorous tale of sex, intimacy, and the discovery of pleasure.

FALL FESTIVAL: PASSION PLAY
directed by Samantha van der Merwe
9.9.15 – 9.13.15 | Morrison Stage

Traveling through time and around the world, centuries of religion, faith, and politics collide through performances of the Passion of the Christ.  This sweeping exploration of the “greatest story ever told” exposes its transformative effect on the small communities that enact it, while asking big questions about humanity, faith, and doubt.  Join us for Parts One and Two of this epic journey.

Produced in collaboration with Shaking the Tree Theatre who will present Passion Play: Part 3 as their Fall production.

ORLANDO
directed by Matthew B. Zrebski
11.5.15 – 11.22.15 | Alder Stage

Orlando, a young Englishman, sets out to encounter love and adventures with Queens and Kings, princesses and archdukes, historic poets and fictional sea captains.  Riding waves that transcend time and space, Orlando transforms again and again.  This epic tale of discovery, based on Virginia Woolf’s novel, crashes through the ages as a whimsical, gender-bending fantasy.

IN DIALOGUE

In Dialogue is our series of lectures, pre-show talks, post-show discussions, concerts and other supplemental programming that explore our featured writer’s world.  Profile Theatre is committed to providing our audiences with opportunities to engage with our featured writer in unique and varied ways.  Through our In Dialogue programming, we extend the event of a Profile production beyond the bounds of what is onstage, bringing the community together for an exciting, provocative and inspiring experience.

In Dialogue readings include new and contemporary plays in conversation with Sarah Ruhl’s body of work.

In Dialogue Staged Readings
FREE ADMISSION

THREE SISTERS
by Anton Chekhov, adapted by Sarah Ruhl
in collaboration with Reed College
3.2.15 – 3.3.15 | Alder Stage

THE REVOLUTIONISTS
by Lauren Gunderson
5.4.15 – 5.5.15 | Alder Stage

THE LADY ONSTAGE
by Erin Bregman
7.13.15 – 7.14.15 | Morrison Stage

STAGE KISS
by Sarah Ruhl
10.5.15 – 10.6.15 | Morrison Stage

Click here to learn more about Sarah Ruhl

Sarah Ruhl (1974- )

It is a great honor to be in the unbelievably excellent company of the playwrights Profile has produced, and a great honor to be part of such a singular theatrical dedication to the writer. – Sarah Ruhl

Sarah Ruhl’s Plays include The Oldest Boy, In the Next Room, or the vibrator play, The Clean House, Passion Play, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Melancholy Play; Eurydice; Orlando, Late: a cowboy song, Dear Elizabeth  and Stage Kiss.  She has been a two-time Pulitzer prize finalist and a Tony award nominee. Her plays have been produced on Broadway at the Lyceum by Lincoln Center Theater, off-Broadway at Playwrights’ Horizons, Second Stage, and at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi Newhouse Theater. Her plays have been produced regionally all over the country, often with premiers at Yale Repertory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theater, the Goodman Theater, and the Piven Theatre Workshop in Chicago. In 2014 she was the second most produced playwright in the country. Her plays have also been produced internationally and have been translated into over twelve languages. Originally from Chicago, Ms. Ruhl received her M.F.A. from Brown University where she studied with Paula Vogel. She has received the Susan Smith Blackburn award, the Whiting award, the Lily Award, a PEN award for mid-career playwrights, and the MacArthur “genius” award. You can read more about her work on www.SarahRuhlplaywright.com. Her book of essays 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write was published by Faber and Faber last fall. She teaches at the Yale School of Drama,  and she lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Sarah Ruhl, winner of the MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship and twice-Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright, grasps her pen like an alchemist. The style of her plays is entirely unique, structured more like poetry than prose, mixing lyricism with irony, and balancing the sacred and the mundane while capturing the essence of everyday life. She weaves tales of wonder that look like our lives and feel like our lives, but reveal truths we couldn’t see on our own. In her plays, a sea of language and emotion carries us to a deeper understanding of our own innermost selves, as our minds are stretched and we are lured to let our imaginations run free.

Sarah Ruhl writes how life actually feels, not how it looks.  It’s like she’s tapped into the spiritual subconscious of all of us. – Adriana Baer, Artistic Director

View the Full Season Details