Claudia, A Viral Love Story

Episode 1: A Fishmonger, His Granddaughter and a Flight From Wuhan

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A fish-stall in the Wuhan market, New Year’s Eve 2019. Momo (Barbie Wu) visits her GonGon (Francis Jue) with a secret. When tragedy strikes, Momo takes off to see the world and finds herself in Atoosa’s (Kristina Haddad) empty cafe in a strangely empty airport in Tehran. Written by Hansol Jung and Hilary Bettis and directed by Josh Hecht.

Claudia, A Viral Love Story

Episode 2: A Cafe Owner, Her Husband, and His Lover

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It is midnight in a two bedroom flat in Tehran. Babak (Doren Elias) finds Atoosa (Kristina Haddad) awake on the futon in the living room. After conflict and consideration, Babak leaves in the middle of the night to Milan where his lover Hayder (Amir Arison) is waiting to embrace him.

Get a sneak peek of Quiara Alegría Hudes’ 26 Miles with this brief podcast with an introduction by Artistic Director Josh Hecht and listen to a scene from the play with actors Julana Torres and Alex Ramirez de Cruz.

Buy tickets to 26 Miles here.

Pictured: Director Rebecca Martinez with actors Julana Torres and Alex Ramirez de Cruz. Photo by Sharath Patel.

From the Community Council for The Rep

Three Haikus of Reflection
(Water by the Spoonful)

We are dysfunction
Skeletons in our closet
No one is alone

Of all emotions
Only two bond us the most
That is Love and Pain

Don’t forget to love
Give a bit of love each day
a spoonful can save
– Santos Herrera

If Life Had Rehearsals
(A reflection after attending rehearsals for Water by the Spoonful and The Happiest Song Plays Last)

One is in a corner tuning a Puerto Rican Cuatro.  Another dances in the hallway by himself. Another does sit-ups. Another whispers lines to himself. Two others chat quietly, and I can only assume it’s something funny. They both giggle, and I wish I knew the joke. Another lies on the couch. Eyes closed. Soaking in a bit of rest before they begin. All is part of a personal routine. Actors prepare for what’s to come, for what will be asked of them, to live a different life, to be angry, to lose a loved one, to be happy. They will be asked to live. They will be asked live again and again and again until that life is perfect. Until every word, every movement, every entrance and exit, every punch line is perfect. And I think of Shakespeare, and how all the world’s a stage and how everyone is a player with entrances and exits, and I wonder how different life would be, if everyone rehearsed, if everyone took the time to go over their lines to find just the right way to say it, to take a moment to dance by themselves before starting their day, to rest, to joke with a friend, to exercise, to create music, to know when to enter, to know when to exit, to know when it’s over. Would life be perfect? We’ll never know, but it’s fun to wonder.
– Santos Herrera

An Artist’s Commitment to the Community Helps Heal our Veterans

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning in Portland, Oregon and I’m driving with the windows down on 84 west and take the downtown exit. I’m on my way to a rehearsal for Water by the Spoonful to see the work that goes into making a Pulitzer Prize winning play a success on a Portland stage. Water is the second play of a trilogy that Profile Theatre will be putting on, a trilogy written by Quiara Alegría Hudes inspired by a relative of hers that was a veteran. That’s how I got involved. It was important enough to Josh Hecht, the artistic director and director of the final two plays of the trilogy, to invite veterans like myself into the process. I am a Purple Heart recipient and Iraq War veteran who has spent the last ten or more years trying to help other veterans suffering from the unseen wounds of war with art. I put on art therapy groups with painting, monthly writing groups, and workshops around the country, so when I was asked to be on the community council, I jumped on it.

Spending my Sunday morning in a brown rehearsal room was an amazing experience for me. As soon as I walked in the room I felt the artistic and creative energy. There were eight people in the room. Half were actors and the other half were just some of the staff behind the scenes who work so hard to make the production come together.

I watched as the actors went through their lines. Josh listened and spoke softly. He gently coaxed out ideas from the actors about their characters, their dialogue, and the space they inhabit. He did this instead of giving obvious instructions. In this way all the actors understood the changes made. It was all very inspiring.

Josh’s commitment to community engagement is something that I wish more artistic directors across the country shared. I know that art heals the soul because it saved my life after coming back bone-broke and soul-shattered. Art helped me put my life back together again, so being able to bring veterans to the shows, having the monthly writing groups that Profile Theater has hosted and produced, and allowing our veterans to speak to the audiences and be a part of the process has done so much toward helping veterans in the Portland community.

…The Happiest Song Plays Last finishes up the trilogy.  As a special bonus in all of this, Profile Theater has partnered with the Writer’s Guild Initiative… they have been bringing award winning writers across the country to work with the veterans in the monthly writing groups, and they will be showcasing the veterans’ work on stage on November 13th. I hope to see you there.
– Sean Davis

Spoonfuls of Notes on a Scene, Rehearsed Three Times.

• Rehearsal begins with notes.
• “Collapse happens just a beat after his exit but before the next line”
• During break, actors’ conversation covers road rage song and Barry Bonds, and concussions in football vs. steroids. 
• Actress performs handstand into laying down on stage, complimented.
• Motivation conversation. Play around with letting some of that excitement into it, so that here is a real turn, her disappointment as she waits and waits and waits.
• Break up each sentence into a step into the realization he isn’t coming.
• At the end of the first time, laughter and a reference to Ghost.
• Second time a little more fuerza, all business and all shock
• “If you need to go, then go” is more intense, more insistent.
• She is relaxing into the sorrow.
• Line flub on “It’s okay” allows Odessa to restart to her preference.
• Third time, a little more sunk into the sadness, earlier.
• More angry less insistent, claims her space, her function in the emergency.
• Actors use laughter to get back into the scene.
• A reminder that this is heightened, we’ll both keep our eye on it, look at the moment letting her go.
• A characterization of the creative conversation: open, receptive, collaborative, each person has an opinion that is specific, rooted in action or text, and to be valued.
  -Katy Liljeholm

Upon walking in I hear, “it’s those moments of breath that allow the audience to catch up”. The actors are rehearsing a fight scene. Another actor, waiting to be called, turns to a friend and says, “what’s up sweetness and light”. I am watching scene practice for the upcoming play Water By the Spoonful.
I notice how the director starts his comments, almost always, with “I wonder…”
I notice how the actor questions how a ghost would fight.
I notice how I close my eyes when the actors say something that cuts deep, and keeps reverberating in my head.

From the Community Council for 26 Miles.

Excerpt from blog post The Staggering Resilience of Teenage Girls:
Good theatre should always leave you feeling like you’ve watched these characters be permanently transformed by whatever moments of their life you observe onstage, and this play definitely accomplishes that.  I’m excited to see more of the journey as it moves forward to production, and to reflect on how it lands after the second, third, fourth viewing.  But for now, what I’m taking away – and what I hope anyone reading this takes away too – is to be thoughtful and intentional about the way we communicate to, and about, girls and young women.  When we make jokes about their pop music and their selfies and their eyeliner, they’re hearing us tell them they aren’t worth taking seriously.  But they are.  They so deeply, truly are.  They deserve to be heard, and seen.
(Read the full blog post here.)
–Claire Willett

I attended a rehearsal of 26 Miles by Quiara Alegria Hudes presented by Profile Theatre. It was so refreshing to watch the actors work their scene, review their character’s lives, work through the social constructs their characters live in, and then see the actors make new choices for their characters, discover new things, take risks. I kid you not, I felt like I was in a Narrative Therapy session. The director was like the therapist working closely with the client helping them uncover/discover/reveal their emotional lives beneath the surface to make new bold creative choices. I’m in love with Profile Theatre! Thank you for making loud, proud choices and presenting relevant work during these trying times. Blessed be!
–Joaquin Lopez

Admittedly, when I was approached with an invitation to join Profile Theatre’s Community Council for their current  show, 26 Miles, I proceeded with immense caution. In the past I’ve found these sort of invitations to be disingenuous or these experiences unwelcoming and tokenizing to an ambitious and assertive  woman of color actor such as myself. Typically in these spaces, I’m overwhelmingly surrounded by older, whiter, wealthier, more well-educated folks than myself. The end result is not the engaged and inspired one that was likely dreamed up, but one of deep resentment at being a politely checked off box of a diversity effort. It’s an appeasement of a trend towards “equity” while still keeping art, creative work, and most importantly theatre elevated and accessible mostly to those who identify with whiteness.

When I walked through the door of the rehearsal room at the first read through I was unsurprised to again find myself adrift amidst by the typical theatre patrons: affluent white folks over the age of fifty who come looking to be entertained. I took a deep breath and continued forward into the room, determined to follow through with my commitment to the Community Council. I found a seat, selected some snacks, and began to observe.

Here’s what I noticed that was different from my past experiences: There were two folks animatedly speaking in Spanish to one another. These two people turned out to be two of the actors in the cast. I was struck by the authenticity of their identity– real people cast in real roles that feel as though they’re truly written for them. While this may not seem notable, as an actor and woman of color, there a precious few strong, beautiful, authentic, and inspiring roles written with us in mind. Here, Profile Theatre has found a treasure  in the work of Quiara Alegría Hudes. In addition to doing a spectacular job in casting, they’ve also selected a director who clearly loves the play and feels some deep connection to the work as a part of the Latinx community herself. I can honestly say that Profile has a new fan.

The play itself is stunning. There were so many moments in which I felt that the anger, pain, confusion, disgust, and hope that Olivia experiences are a mirror of my own childhood. I too grew up a mixed-race child, raised by one side of my family and always feeling like I didn’t know or understand half of my own heritage– for me, raised by my Japanese family and devoid of my Mexican ancestry. I too angrily and clumsily sought to uncover the missing pieces of my identity without realizing that’s what I was doing. I too enveloped myself in creative pursuits, chased excellence, and clung to an obsessive dream of escaping someplace and seeing some distant creature (for me, it was wolves and not buffalo.) I too know how all-consuming humiliation and non-acceptance from peers can feel, and how it can make irrational and self-destructive actions feel like the only reasonable option.  I too didn’t appreciate or understand how deeply my mother loves me, how forgivably human she is, and how much we truly need one another to grow past our own pain into whole people.

The initial read through was memorable, the second rehearsal I attended was thoughtful, delightful, and deliberate. I look forward to seeing the staged production next week, where I’m sure it will be nothing short of breathtaking, heartbreaking, and immensely healing for someone like me: a young woman on a lifelong journey of fitting together the halves of my own identity.
– Melissa Magaña

When I first read 26 Miles, I was surprised to find myself in the character of 15-year-old Olivia. Like Olivia, my parents were divorced and I never experienced any of the culture of my Mother’s Colombian side of the family. She was a “Spanish Beauty” in her day and I “don’t even tan right,” as Olivia quips to her Mom. Like Olivia, I was a writer with an obsession for buffalo and Yellowstone Park. Yup, odd as it seems, buffalo enthralled me and the majestic view of Yellowstone’s Hayden Meadow, with hundreds of the magnificent beasts entranced me. I desperately wanted a little stuffed animal buffalo I found in the gift shop, but I didn’t have enough money and I felt a little childish desiring a toy at age 10, so I bought this post card.

Invited to a rehearsal for Profile Theatre’s production, I walked in expecting to find myself on-stage in Olivia. But memory and nostalgia butted heads with reality and the present, and now that I am the mother of a teenaged daughter, I found myself relating to the mother character. Beatriz and I have little in common except the shared experience of loving your daughter so much that her pain cuts you so deeply, you can’t breathe. And when someone teases and hurts your child, the anger is so hot, you can’t see.  Despite this astounding love, mothers make mistakes. We need our children’s forgiveness just as much as they need our acceptance.
–Diane Englert, Executive Director of Staged!

When I first heard this play I was grappling for a timeline. A direction. The second time I heard the play, it was like driving home. I knew where we were headed and I could get lost in the gush of the wind…Being on Profile’s Community Council has allowed me the incredible opportunity to practice watching theatre…this is what I wish most for my peers: the opportunity to practice. To appreciate the levels of creation in theatre one must practice.
–Margaret McKay

From the Community Council for Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue.

Last week, I got to eavesdrop on rehearsals for Quiara Alegría Hudes’ Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue at Profile Theatre in Portland, and I was so pleasantly jolted back home listening to the actors and directors negotiate Spanglish, Spanglish accents, Spanglish music and Spanglish family matters, all in service to such a sharp script. The play reads to me like a critique of the US war machine and its exploitation of brown people, an amazing and kind of ruthless tribute to Rican dads, and one of the kindest provocations to Latino masculinity I’ve seen. I’m looking forward to the final production—the first in a trilogy Profile is producing throughout the year, including Water by the Spoonful, which is my favorite. Go see.
–Roy Pérez

I attended the last dress rehearsal of Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue, which was a full run-through without pause. In sitting in a theatre in which you are the only person not connected to the production, you notice so many things you might not normally think of, such as the difference the absence of an audience makes, especially when, for example, a funny line is spoken. Getting to look behind the scenes makes crystal clear how much theatre is a collaborative endeavor with hundreds of small parts coming together to make an amazing whole.
–Pancho Savery

When I came in to speak to the cast of this amazing play (Pulitzer Prize finalist!), they were so welcoming and eager to hear about my story as a Purple Heart recipient with multiple tours. We all sat in a small room, with more people than chairs, and I told my story. I described the depression, rage, and guilt that comes with surviving a coordinated ambush in combat and then being sent home to attempt a transition back into the civilian life. They created an atmosphere safe enough for me to tell them some of my most vulnerable stories including past thoughts of suicide and acts of self destruction. Afterwards, they asked questions for a while. Some about their characters, other about my life, but also some questions about veterans in general. These last questions, I noticed, were changing their views on how they pictured veterans. At the end I must have hugged each one of them before leaving.
–Sean Davis, Military Advisor for Elliot 

I’m honored to be the military advisor for Elliot: A Soldier’s Fugue at Profile Theatre, and I’ll tell you why. We’ve all seen dozens if not hundreds of works of military fiction written, directed, and produced by creatives who mean well, their heart is in the right place, but they don’t ask veterans for their advice on their work and they focus on the veterans PTSD and/or their injuries.

As far as the details go, I am very grateful that people believe the military experience is worth writing about, but some of that gratitude disappears, whether I like it or not, when I see small things done wrong. For example, the salute is a simple action that is done wrong so many times and could be so easily corrected. Only the tip of your ring finger touches the end of your right eyebrow. Easy! But it is almost always overlooked and when that happens the whole work loses credibility, at least to the population of the audience the work is trying to honor. It sounds nitpicky to many, but that is what the military is: attention to detail.

Not only did Josh, the artistic director, and Lauren, the Director of Education and Community Engagement, ask me to come in and speak to the actors, they believed in my idea to bring veterans in before a showing of the play so the audience could get a better understanding of the diversity of our veteran population.

I would like to speak on both of these happenings:

First, when I came in to speak to the cast of this amazing play (Pulitzer Prize finalist!), they were so welcoming and eager to hear about my story as a Purple Heart recipient with multiple tours. We all sat in a small room, with more people than chairs, and I told my story. I described the depression, rage, and guilt that comes with surviving a coordinated ambush in combat and then being sent home to attempt a transition back into the civilian life. They created an atmosphere safe enough for me to tell them some of my most vulnerable stories including past thoughts of suicide and acts of self destruction. Afterwards, they asked questions for a while. Some about their characters, other about my life, but also some questions about veterans in general. These last questions, I noticed, were changing their views on how they pictured veterans. At the end I must have hugged each one of them before leaving.

Last Sunday, before the show we had a panel of veterans meet some audience members and take questions. On the panel was a Vietnam Veteran who is also a Native American, a former Marine with five (3 to Iraq and 2 to Afghanistan) combat tours, a female veteran who was deployed to protect the Eastern Seaboard on a Destroyer on 9/11, and an Army infantryman who lost both legs in Iraq, and me. After I introduced them all and asked a few questions we opened it up to the audience and the questions were amazing, respectful, and intelligent. By the end of our little session we had changed many of their views on what, exactly, a veteran is. I know this because they told us… in those words. There is a stereotype of “the veteran” in our society. We are supposedly all white, male, gun ho, non-creatives with our souls and hearts torn apart by war. That stereotype was completely blown away after the meeting. I saw it happen in real time, and that is why I’m proud to be a part of Elliot: A Soldier’s Fugue. This play helps people see the humanity in the warrior.

I’m honored to be a part of this production because it’s been my mission to not only help other veterans for the past 10 years, but it’s also been my mission to change how those who haven’t served see our military members. Yes, we have lived through very traumatic events and many of us suffer from those memories or even physical injuries, but we, as a society, should focus on our abilities and not our disabilities. We need to know that our veteran population (10% of this country) are just as diverse as the population as a whole.

-Sean Davis
Military Advisor for Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue and Profile Community Council

Profile’s Community Council are people from the Portland area of varying ages, ethnicities and  backgrounds who are invited to view the backstage process from beginning to end and share their perspectives with our communities.

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I attended the last dress rehearsal of Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue, which was a full run-through without pause. In sitting in a theatre in which you are the only person not connected to the production, you notice so many things you might not normally think of, such as the difference the absence of an audience makes, especially when, for example, a funny line is spoken. Getting to look behind the scenes makes crystal clear how much theatre is a collaborative endeavor with hundreds of small parts coming together to make an amazing whole.

-Pancho Savery, Profile Community Council

Profile’s Community Council are people from the Portland area of varying ages, ethnicities and  backgrounds who are invited to view the backstage process from beginning to end and share their perspectives with our communities.

On Monday, November 13th we celebrated the end of this year-long program!  The emotional evening was a public performance of the veterans’ writing staged with professional actors on the Alder Stage.  

This reading was presented in conjunction with our rotating repertory production of Water By The Spoonful and The Happiest Song Plays Last, the final two plays in a trilogy of work centered around Elliot Ortiz, a veteran of the Iraq war.

From Artistic Director Josh Hecht

One of the things that most attracted me to Profile Theatre when I applied for the job of Artistic Director last year is the company’s long-standing commitment to real community engagement. My desire to lead a theater company stems from my belief that, at its best, theater can help us have conversations we might not otherwise have. A theater that was already putting significant human capital and programming resources into community dialogue felt like the right home for me.

One of my biggest priorities as I start my new tenure at the helm of Profile is continuing to broaden the communities we reach and serve, and continuing to deepen the two-way engagement with our city.

At the center of our 2017 Quiara Alegria Hudes season we will present all three plays in Hudes’ “Elliot” Trilogy: Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue, Pulitzer Prize-winner Water By The Spoonful, and The Happiest Song Plays Last. The first follows three generations of a Puerto Rican-American family, all of whom have served in the US Armed Forces – the grandfather in Korea, the Father and mother in Vietnam, and Elliot who serves two tours in Iraq. The two subsequent plays follow Elliot’s re-introduction into civilian life and his struggle to find his place in the world.

What better an opportunity to engage with our own veterans community. There are currently nearly 22 million American combat vets, 2.5 million from the current engagements in the Middle East alone. Profile has created a one-of-a-kind collaboration with the Writers Guild Initiative, the professional trade organization of screenwriters and playwrights, to bring award-winning writers from across the country to Portland. Here they will work with local veterans and their families, mentoring them in a writing practice designed to help them reflect upon and share their experiences through the written word. We’ve also partnered with the American Legion Post 134 in NE Portland, various Veterans Resource Centers at colleges in the area, and the Wounded Warrior Project’s regional base in Seattle to identify local participants in these workshops.

The group gathered in February for two days of intensive writing workshops. They also saw our production of Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue. Throughout the year, we continued to meet one Saturday afternoon a month to create community, share work and continue our practice. Finally, in November, selections of their writing were presented with professional actors and director on Profile’s stage alongside our repertory productions of Water By The Spoonful and The Happiest Song Plays Last.

Our goal is manifold: To use the theater as a site of community-formation. To think of the theater, not just as an institution that can start conversations, but as a place the community goes to have those conversations. But also, to provide a place where various communities can see their own lives reflected back to them on the stage, so that we might know ourselves and each other as necessary parts of this great American tapestry.

If you are interested in learning more about our veterans’ collaborations this year, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line. I hope to see you at the theater.

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Throughout the run of Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue, Profile is pleased to partner with Do Good Multnomah. Do Good Multnomah is a non-profit organization that provides low-barrier emergency shelter to houseless Veterans in Portland, Oregon. By partnering with the community, we are establishing a model for sheltering and serving houseless Veterans that emphasizes relationship-building, one-on-one engagement, and direct community participation.

When you come to the theatre  to see Elliot, consider bringing a donation to help local houseless veterans.

Needed items include:

• Blankets
• Socks
• Hats & Gloves
• Hand Warmers
• Backpacks

Leave items in the donation bin by the box office.

Buy tickets to Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue here.

Learn more about Do Good Multnomah here.

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Cast

Jimmy Garcia*
Pop

After studying at Southern Oregon University and performing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Jimmy is happy to be back in Portland where he began his acting career years ago on the stages of Miracle Theater, Stark Raving Theater and Portland Center Stage companies. In Southern Oregon, he performed a variety of roles working with such esteemed directors as Bill Rauch, Libby Appel, and Pat Patton to name a few. He has most recently performed in ART’s A Civil War Christmas and can next be found at Miracle Theater’s world premiere Oye Oya.

Anthony Green*
Grandpop

Tony holds a BFA in Acting and a Master of Theatre Studies in Production and Design from Southern Oregon University.  Most recently Tony was seen in Defunkt Theatre’s critically acclaimed production of Hir, Jewish Theatre Collaborative’s production of Davita’s Harp and Into the Beautiful North at Milagro Theatre.  Other Portland credits include American Night, O! Romeo!, How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent, BoomCrackleFly and the Drammy Award winning Oedipus El Rey at Milagro, Equus at Post5, Cymbeline with Anon It Moves, Antony and Cleopatra with Portland Actors Ensemble, King Lear, King John and Mary Stuart at NWCTC.

Anthony Lam
Elliot

Anthony is excited to be performing at Profile Theatre for the first time. He was last seen as Atómiko in Into the Beautiful North at Milagro Theater. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a B.F.A. in Theater Arts. He has done commercial work throughout the Northwest and recently played the tactical cop in the season premiere of Grimm. When he is not acting, he spends his time with his wife, chasing his three children all over the place.

Cristi Miles*
Ginny

Cristi is a performer, director and teacher based in Portland, OR.  Portland credits include: The Journey Play is the Whole thing, Enter THE NIGHT, The Three Sisters, Song of the Dodo and  R3 with PETE; Midsummer (a play with songs) with Third Rail Rep, Mr. Burns: A Post Electric Play, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and Dying City with Portland Playhouse. She is co-artistic director of PETE, an Assistant Professor of the Theatre at George Fox University and trained at The Oregon Center for Alexander Technique (AmSAT certified teacher). Brandeis University, MFA.

Creative Team

Alice Reagan
Director

Alice is a New York-based freelance director.  Credits include Jackie by Elfriede Jelinek at Boom Arts, Or, by Liz Duffy Adams at Shakespeare & Company, Phaeton (a diggle of a fragment) by Mac Wellman at Classic Stage Company, Enter THE NIGHT by Maria Irene Fornes with Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble, The Miser by Molière with Brave New World Rep, Nomads by Julia Jarcho at Incubator Arts Project, I Came to Look for You on Tuesday by Chiori Miyagawa at La MaMa.  She is the recipient of two Foundation of Contemporary Arts Grants, the Princess Grace Award (Fabergé Theater Award) and Princess Grace Special Project Grant, and was a Drama League Directing Fellow.  Alice is Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in Directing at Barnard College.  MFA: Columbia.  alicereagan.com.

Kaye Blankenship
Scenic Design

Kaye is a scenic, lighting, and props designer originally hailing from Sammamish, Washington. She earned her BA in theatre from Lewis & Clark College in 2012, and after a year working in New York, she is back in Portland and excited to work with Profile Theatre once again. Favorite past shows include: The Antigone Project (Profile), Annapurna (Third Rail), Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood LIVE (Mills Entertainment), A Winter’s Tale (Anon It Moves), Static (Third Rail), Ramona Quimby (OCT), Snowstorm (CoHo), In The Next Room (Profile Theatre), and Waxwing with String House Theatre, where she is also a founding company member.

Miranda K. Hardy
Lighting Design

Miranda is a Lighting Designer based in Portland.  Previously with Profile she lit Bright Half Life and Master Harold and the Boys.  She is an associate company member with Portland Experimental Theater Ensemble designing lights for R3 [Drammy Award], The Three Sisters, All Well, or, the whale, and Procedures For Saying No, designing scenery and lights for Song of the Dodo and Drowned Horse Tavern.  She has worked on shadow/animation spectacular The Letting Go and Kaddish For Bernie Madoff.  Miranda has worked in New York City, as well as nationally and internationally including four seasons as the resident Lighting Designer at Festival Di Due Mondi (Spoleto, IT).  M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts.

Jenny Ampersand
Costume Design

Jenny is a designer based in Portland OR.   Her costume work was last seen at Profile for Bright Half Life.  She is an associate artist with PETE (Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble), Liminal, and The Late Now.  Other local credits include, costumes for Third Rail’s The Realistic Joneses, Oregon Children’s Theatre’s Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Liminal’s 7deadly Sins (Drammy Award), scenery for PETE’s Enter THE NIGHT, Shaking the Tree’s A Doll’s House, Phame’s Up the Fall, and puppets for Strawberry Theatre Workshop’s This Land-Woody Guthrie.  She received her BFA in Scenic and Costume Design from Cornish College of the Arts.

Phillip Johnson
Sound Design

Phillip is a theatrical artist based in Portland Oregon and the Technical Director of Ridgefield High School’s drama program. His recent productions include Hands Up (Red Door Project), Worse Than Tigers (ACT Theater/Red Stage), Contigo Pan y Cebolla (Milagro Theater), The Antigone Project, A Lady Onstage (Profile Theater), and The Importance of Being Earnest (Valley Repertory Theater).  When he isn’t designing or teaching Phil  is traveling the world spreading art education to impoverished areas. He most recently taught theater in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. Phil Has a B.F.A. and M.A. from Ohio University. For updates, downloads and links to show soundtracks please visit PhilJohnsondesignstheworld.com.

D Westerholm*
Stage Manager

Profile Theatre: 2014 Tanya Barfield Season, 2013 Sam Shepard Season, 2014 Sarah Ruhl Season, The Road to Mecca. Other Portland stage management credits: Trevor, The Skin of Our Teeth (ASM), The Price (Artist’s Repertory Theatre); The Light in the Piazza (Portland Playhouse). Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Production Assistant: The Unfortunates (2013), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2013), Troilus and Cressida (2012), The Very Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa (2012), Julius Caesar (2011), The African Company Presents Richard III (2011). BA in Theatre Management from Western Washington University, MFA in Stage Management from Columbia University. Active member of Actor’s Equity Association.

Esther McFaden
Production Assistant

Esther is making her Profile Theatre debut with Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue. Recent credits include A Christmas Carol (PA), To Kill a Mockingbird, Blues for Mister Charlie, The Heidi Chronicles, and Julius Caesar (SM Intern) at Trinity Repertory Company, and Trevor (PA) and The Skin of Our Teeth (PA) at Artists Repertory Theater. Other favorites include Upside Down, A Musical Tale After the Christ (SM) with the Upside Down Theatre Company, Godspell (SM) with YA4Ever, and Chicago (SM) with the Young Artists Ensemble. She is a graduate of Emerson College.

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

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