Profile Theatre is proud to be partnering with Blacque Butterfly Presents on the In Dialogue Main Stage events for The Antigone Project: A Play in Five Parts.  We have collaborated to feature a series of local spoken-word artists performing in our lobby prior to each performance of the production.  Mirroring the collection of diverse voices embodied in Antigone Project, the artists are from varied backgrounds, experiences and perspectives, all of which come to bear on the profound and provocative  work that they will be sharing with our audiences.

To find out more about Antigone Project, click here.
To see past In Dialogue Events, click here.

Wednesday, September 7th:
Angela Davise | 6:55pm

Thursday, September 8th:
ShaRhonda McCauley | 6:55pm

Friday, September 9th:
Nafisaria Scroggins-thomas  and Akela Jaffi | 6:55pm

Saturday, September 10th Matinee:
GG Warren and Anayla Warren-Premsingh** | 1:25pm

Saturday, September 10th Evening:
Habiba Addo | 6:55pm

Sunday, September 11th:
Wilma Alcock and Blacque Butterfly** | 1:25pm

(**): Mother-Daughter Pairing

Additionally, as part of our year-long collaboration with Geezer Gallery, we will be displaying the work of Farooq Hassan in our lobby for the duration of this production.  Mr. Hassan’s varied exploration of the female form and the female psyche reflect the versatility of expression embodied in The Antigone Project.

Artist Bios:

Habiba Addo is a native of Ghana, West Africa.  She holds a degree in Theater and a Certificate of Dance from Portland State University.  She has performed and taught in the United States and internationally for over fifteen years.  She teaches and performs dance, rhythm and stories from Ghana, Guinea, Gambia and Senegal.  She also shares the rich African cultures present today in Cuba and Brazil. A guest teacher and performer for Portland Public Schools for over fifteen years, Habiba has also performed and taught the community in dance, storytelling and theater through organizations such as Young Audiences, White Bird, Oregon Ballet Theater, Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, Tygres Heart Shakespeare Company, Mambo Queens, Northwest Afrikan American Ballet, Montessori Schools, Cedarwood Woldorf School, Oregon Episcopal School, Miracle Theater, Milagro Bailadores and Portland State University’s World Dance Office. She is a recipient of the Lila Jewel award (2000), an Arts Alive grant (2000) and multiple technical assistant grants from Regional Arts and Culture Council (1998, 2002 and 2012).

Wilma Alcock – Wilma has written poetry as a Write around Portland participant and spokesperson.  She was also  featured in Give!Guide and the voice of the Portland Harbor River clean project and she is also a freedom writer.

Akela Auer “Akela Jaffi” is a Portland native. She has been performing since she was small because it’s in her bloodline and because she knows nothing else. While her craft is made up of many different mediums, dance has been her main boo for over a decade. She recognizes the power movement has to open up the darkest doors of the self and inspire others to seek within for guidance. She intends to always dance as a form of prayer and healing.

Darlene Solomon “Blacque Butterfly – Blacque Butterfly is an entertainer. Her love for the arts has allowed her to explore several layers of her calling. Be it spoken word, motivational speaking, singing, dancing, theater or event promoting she has allowed the Creator to use her ministry to inspire others to follow their calling. Darlene is a native Oregonian, born and raised in NE Portland she has released and published a chapbook entitled “Black girl can I comb your hair” and a spoken word CD entitled Collide -A – Scope (Where life, love and grace collide.) She is currently in the studio working on her sophomore project. She is featured on a variety of collaborative projects.

Angela Davise, Georgia born,  California Grown,  Portland Grounded, started her journey with musical expression several years ago.  From the time she was a child she searched for outlets to release the emotional depth of her heart through the expression of, poetry, art, and dance. The music of Angela Davise evokes an emotional response to the deepest of secret cries within the heart.  The total abandonment to the world of listeners to be completely transparent in songwriting paints a very clear picture of struggle and survival, sadness and joy, defeat overcome by victorious cries of an unrelenting hope.

Farooq Hassan spent his youth in crowded cafes and on the docks in Iraq, striving to capture on paper the colorful scenes playing out before his eyes. As a young man, he taught high school. “We did our best to create art, not politics,” Hassan recalls. For 50 years he built his standing as an artist. His work was exhibited in London, Amman, Basrah, and Baghdad. In Iraq, he was considered a national treasure.

Then, politics changed his life forever. Between 1980 and 1991 Hassan moved 22 times, always one step ahead of political strife in Bagdad. Life in Iraq was especially perilous. In 2010, Hassan and his wife, Haifa, joined their daughter in Portland. Hassan was 71 years old and he had lost everything: his reputation as a master artist, the paintings he had created in Iraq, and his home. So, he set about renewing himself through painting.

ShaRhonda “Rose City MissChief” McCauley is a spoken word and hip-hop performance and recording artist.  The rapoet most recently self-published and released her first anthology of poetry called Rhyme Scheme:  Power Edition Volume 1.  The Portland, OR native has performed at many community events, schools, and local concerts as a soloist and as a group as one of the original members of the hip-hop trio Rose Bent.  She recorded two projects with the group and also a limited play spoken word album and mixtape as a soloist.  She has collaborated with many other local talents and has had opportunities to showcase her talents in other regions as well.

Sherrie Warren “GG Warren” – GG Warren is a writer, photographer, bass player, jewelry designer, licensed massage therapist, and proud mother. Her writing stems from emotions, and situations she has personally experienced, or what she would like to experience. Love, loss, tragedy, loneliness, triumph, and undefinable happiness are all her inspirations.

Anayla Warren-Premsingh – Anayla Warren-Premsingh is 18 years old and just graduated from Jefferson high school. She will be attending the University of Oregon in the fall. Her major is undeclared, but she’s looking into getting into international studies and minoring business, or possibly, majoring in human physiology. She started writing “creatively” when she could string words together in a sentence on a piece of paper. She writes poetry and short (and maybe one day) long, stories.

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Two Prospectors: The Letters of Sam Shepard and Johnny Dark

Despite the publicity his work and life have attracted, Sam Shepard remains a strongly private man who has said many times that he will never write a memoir. However, he has written intensively about his inner life and creative work to his former father-in-law and housemate, Johnny Dark, who has been Shepard’s closest friend, surrogate brother (they’re nearly the same age), and even artistic muse for forty-five years and counting. Two Prospectors gathers nearly forty years of correspondence and transcribed conversations between Shepard and Dark. In these gripping, sometimes gut-wrenching letters, the men open themselves to each other with amazing honesty. Shepard’s letters give us the deepest look we may ever get into his personal philosophy and creative process, while in Dark’s letters we discover insights into Shepard’s character that only an intimate friend could provide.  Illustrated with Dark’s candid, revealing photographs of Shepard and their mutual family across many years, as well as facsimiles of numerous letters, Two Prospectors is a compelling portrait of a complex friendship that has anchored both lives for decades, a friendship also poignantly captured in Treva Wurmfeld’s film, Shepard & Dark.

We are pleased to announce our facilitator for the final Book Club of the year, Professor Stephen Weeks. Professor Weeks is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Lewis & Clark College where he teaches both American and British drama, as well as a full slate of performance courses in acting, directing, and playwriting.  He has also taught at Brown University and the School of Drama at the University of Washington, has been a dramaturg and literary manager in Los Angeles, and is on the Artistic Council at CoHo Theatre.  Professor Weeks received his Ph.D in Drama at Stanford University where he studied under Martin Esslin, the dramaturg at the Magic Theatre while Sam Shepard was the resident playwright.  Professor Weeks also spent some time working at the Magic Theatre in the time shortly after Sam Shepard’s departure.

August 4, 2014
Cruising Paradise: Tales by Sam Shepard

In Cruising Paradise, Sam Shepard reveals himself an expert storyteller. The short stories and tales (some clearly autobiographical) are at once lonely and wild with humor and humility. “…these stories give readers a most intimate view of the writer who has become synonymous with the recklessness, stoicism, and solitude of American manhood.”

Some of the tales in Cruising Paradise were performed as part of our Festival of One Acts.

We are pleased to announce that our conversation will be led by Pancho Savery. Pancho Savery is Professor of English, Humanities, and American Studies at Reed College, where he teaches courses on modern and contemporary drama ( both American and European), African American literature, nineteenth and twentieth century American literature, and Reed’s required freshman course on the Ancient Mediterranean (Greece, Rome, Persia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt). For the last fourteen years he has worked with Oregon Humanities teaching Humanity in Perspective, a free course for adults; and for the last four years he has been part of the Oregon Humanities program The Conversation Project, in which he travels around the state convening community conversations. His two programs are on censorship and the second amendment. He has also given talks at all the major Portland theatres and is associated with The August Wilson Red Door Project. His poems have appeared in the Oregonian, Hubbub, and elsewhere.

May 5, 2014 6-7:30
Just Kids by Patti Smith

Just Kids is an autobiography of Patti Smith, whose look at New York in the 1960s and 1970s paints a very clear picture of the world in which Sam Shepard wrote and produced his first plays. Smith and Shepard had an affair, chronicled in the book, during which time they cowrote and premiered the play Cowboy Mouth.

About our guest leader:
David Sumner is professor of English and environmental studies at Linfield College. He specializes in American nature writing, rhetoric, Western American literature, and the connection between literature, landscape, and ethics. He teaches various courses in American Literature, philosophy and literature, and American nature writing. He also directs Linfield’s writing program and oversees the Linfield writing center. Professor Sumner has published in the fields of literature and the environment, rhetoric, and writing pedagogy including a series of interviews with contemporary nature writers such as Terry Tempest Williams, Barry Lopez, and David Quammen. His most recent article, “Eco-terrorism or Eco-tage: An Argument for the Proper Frame” appears in the fall 2013 issue of ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment.

FOOL FOR LOVE
Nov. 13, 2013
Hollywood Theatre

We are thrilled to partner with Hollywood Theatre to present a screening of Sam Shepard’s 1985 film Fool for Love directed by Robert Altman and starring Sam Shepard with Kim Basinger, Harry Dean Stanton and Randy Quaid.

Fool for Love, originally a play, is quintessential Shepard: a rowdy night, a flea-bitten motel room with lovers, siblings, a ghostly father, and a long-awaited reckoning in America’s dusty west.

Profile Artistic Director Adriana Baer will talk briefly before the film about our upcoming Sam Shepard Season.

Join us for a reception from 6:00-7:00 in Hollywood’s upstairs lobby for beer and music by Bourbon Jockey.

The Profile Theatre Guild invites you to join us for our new series of Dinners with the Artists!

Wrap up the Athol Fugard season and learn about My Children! My Africa!
with Artistic Director Adriana Baer
Saturday, May 18
Hoda’s Middle Eastern Cuisine | 3401 SE Belmont.

“All of us are born to burn.”

NoPassport theatre alliance and press in collaboration with Profile Theatre and other venues across the US and abroad present free script-in-hand readings of SPARK, a new play by Caridad Svich in the month of November 2012 to honor veterans of wars recent (Iraq, Afghanistan) and past, and to promote spiritual healing.

November 14, 2012

Obie Award Winning playwright Caridad Svich

SPARK tells the story of three sisters living in the U.S. caught in the mess of war’s aftermath when one sister returns home after serving in the Middle East.  What happens when soldiers come home?  When women of little economic means struggle just to make do?  At its heart, this is a story of strength, family, and survival in battle and at home.

RaChelle Schmidt directs Lava Alapai, Bobby Bermea, Chantal DeGroat, Anya Pearson and Ashley Williams

For more information about NoPassport and the national reading scheme, click here.