Adriana Baer will succeed Profile Theatre Artistic Director and founder Jane Unger, who is stepping down after fifteen years with the company. Following Unger’s announcement of her departure last fall, the organization’s board and staff undertook an extensive, carefully-planned search for a new artistic leader.

Baer was selected from a field of candidates that applied from throughout the United States and Europe.  “It is a testament to the contribution Profile has made to the American theatre community that we received applications from so many qualified applicants,” said Profile Board Chair Mary Simeone. “The Board of Directors is thrilled to welcome Adriana as the new Artistic Director of Profile Theatre. Her affinity for our unique mission was obvious from the first interview and she already has shared compelling ideas as to how to build on that mission to bring our programming to an even wider audience. She will no doubt be a major asset to both our theatre and the theatre community of Portland as a whole.”

Adriana Baer is the former Associate Artistic Director of San Francisco’s The Cutting Ball Theater where she directed productions including Woyzeck (Bay Area Critics Circle Award for Best Direction), The Maids, and No Exit and produced, among others, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Macbeth, The Hidden Classics Reading Series and Risk is This… New Experimental Plays Festival.  During her tenure at The Cutting Ball, the company received four “Best of San Francisco” awards, including one for No Exit.

Her New York directing credits include Romeo and Juliet, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Seagull, The Hairy Ape (Columbia Stages), Stage Door (Atlantic Theater Company Conservatory) and new play premieres including Killing Time co-conceived with Phil Callen and Kevin Dutcher, Tender was the Night by Jeffrey James Keyes and The Suicide of the Glutton by Jason Platt. New play development workshops and festivals include work at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Bay Area Playwrights Foundation, Crowded Fire, Primary Stages and the Lark Play Development Center.

Additionally, Adriana has worked with The Public Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, SF Circus Center/Pickle Circus, Boston Children’s Chorus and Theatre Communications Group. Associate and assistant directing work includes Opera Boston, American Conservatory Theater, California Shakespeare Theater, The Acting Company (Staff Repertory Director 2012 National Tour) and Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  Adriana is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and holds an MFA in Directing from Columbia University.

Baer’s tenure will formally begin this summer.  She and Unger are currently working together to craft Profile’s 16th Season, featuring the works of renowned South African playwright Athol Fugard.