Our 2013–2014 season has been announced!

If you’d like to join us for the new season, you can call the box office at 503-445-3700. Season ticket packages are on sale now. Season tickets are not available for purchase online at this time.

Fiddler on the Roof

Based on Shalom Aleichem stories by special permission of Arnold Perl; Book by Joseph Stein; Music by Jerry Bock; Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick; Directed by Chris Coleman; Choreography by Kent Zimmerman

September 14–October 27 on the Main Stage

Tradition and family: can they endure historic change?

Winner of nine Tony Awards and with a record-setting Broadway run, Fiddler has become an American classic.

Tevye, the loquacious father of five daughters, fights to maintain his family and their traditions while outside influences encroach upon their lives. He must cope both with the strong-willed actions of his three older daughters—as each one’s choice of husband moves further away from the customs of his faith—and with the edict of a tyrannical and unjust Tsar.

With vibrant dances, beloved songs—“Sunrise, Sunset,” “If I Were a Rich Man,” “Tradition”—and profound heart, Fiddler has touched audiences for generations.

2010 Olivier Award for Best Play

The Mountaintop

By Katori Hall; Directed by Rose Riordan

August 31–October 27 in the Ellyn Bye Studio

“I’ve been to the mountaintop…”

April 4, 1968. Memphis. The Lorraine Motel. A time and place burned into the American psyche. But what about April 3? How did Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spend his last night on Earth?

Playwright Katori Hall creates a surrealistic fantasy in this breakout Broadway hit about a chance encounter between King and a mysterious hotel maid who brings him a cup of coffee and prompts him to confront his life, his legacy and the plight and future of his people.

The Second City’s A Christmas Carol:

Twist Your Dickens

By Peter Gwinn and Bobby Mort; Directed by Matt Hovde

November 16–December 22 on the Main Stage

“The entire recent tradition of American satire can be summed up in three words: The Second City.”

A complete send-up of the holiday classic, fully festooned with the improvisational genius behind the legendary comedy troupe The Second City. Dickens’ famous Victorian characters may wonder what was in their egg nog as Scrooge, Tiny Tim and those know-it-all ghosts find themselves hopelessly mixed up in zany holiday sketches with anachronistic characters, uproarious improv and an ever-changing stable of drop-in local celebrity guests.

(Recommended for high school age and up.)

Special Holiday Offering

The Santaland Diaries

By David Sedaris; Adapted for the stage by Joe Mantello; Directed by Wendy Knox

November 26–December 29 in the Ellyn Bye Studio

Based on the true chronicles of David Sedaris’ experience as Crumpet the Elf in Macy’s Santaland display, this cult classic riffs on a few of Sedaris’ truly odd encounters with his fellow man during the height of the holiday crunch.

NPR humorist and best-selling author of When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Me Talk Pretty One Day and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris has become one of America’s pre-eminent humor writers, and this production has become a Portland holiday tradition.

NEW this season! The Santaland Diaries is included as an option as part of the Create Your Own Series or Flexpass. VIP passes (included with the Everything Series) may now be used for The Santaland Diaries.

Chinglish

By David Henry Hwang; Directed by May Adrales

January 11–February 9 on the Main Stage

A smart comedy of cross-cultural missteps.

In Chinglish, an American businessman heads to Asia to score a lucrative contract for his family’s firm—but the deal isn’t the only thing getting lost in translation when he collides with a Communist minister, a bumbling consultant and a suspiciously sexy bureaucrat. The perils and fraught pleasures of Chinese-American business transactions become fascinating—and hilarious—drivers of this new comedy by Hwang, award-winning playwright of M. Butterfly and Golden Child.

From JAW 2012

Bo-Nita

By Elizabeth Heffron; Directed by Gretchen Corbett

February 1–March 16 in the Ellyn Bye Studio

Life’s not easy for Bo-Nita. It never is for a 13-year-old, but especially one who winds up with a dead, semi-ex-stepfather on her bedroom floor. With humor, pathos and a dash of midwest magic realism, Bo-Nita follows one mother and daughter’s journey through a working-class America of dwindling resources, and the lengths they must go to stay together and keep their beat alive.

A Small Fire

By Adam Bock; Directed by Rose Riordan

February 22–March 23 on the Main Stage

“An unforgettable banquet.” —The Village Voice

A Small Fire follows John and Emily Bridges, a long-married couple whose happy, middle-class lives are upended when Emily falls victim to a mysterious disease. As this indomitable woman’s senses are slowly stripped away—smell, taste, sight—she finds herself suddenly and completely dependent on the husband whose endless devotions she had always taken for granted.

From the author of The Receptionist and The Thugs. PCS audiences will recognize the complete originality and deep humanity found in Bock’s characters.

“Raucous, funny and unexpectedly touching, as we are made intimate witnesses to a frank demonstration of how much of life, of love and of happiness remain within reach even when so much appears to be lost.” —The New York Times

Othello

By William Shakespeare; Directed by Chris Coleman

April 5–May 11 on the Main Stage

A profound tragedy of the power of love and jealousy.

A highly esteemed general serving the state of Venice, Othello the Moor secretly marries Desdemona, the daughter of a senator. As their marriage is revealed, jealousies around their love match and Othello’s rise to prominence are unleashed, marking destructive rifts in a tale that piles secret upon secret, and betrayal upon betrayal (both real and imagined). A society seething with intrigue sets the stage for the machinations of a bitter ensign, Iago, and the ultimate tragedy—when love does not trust, and power is prized above all things.

The Last Five Years

Written and composed by Jason Robert Brown; Directed by Nancy Keystone

April 26–June 22 in the Ellyn Bye Studio

“I’ve been waiting for someone…
I think I could be in love with someone.”

An emotionally powerful and intimate musical about two New Yorkers in their twenties who fall in love. The title is not only a reference to their relationship, but also a call to the structure of the play itself, with the element of time folding in on itself and echoing the sometimes disorienting quality of love. Cathy tells her story of the courtship backwards, while Jamie tells his story chronologically; will these two manage to hold on to their prize?

The Last Five Years is a charming and bittersweet song cycle, and was a Drama Desk Award winner. It is our first musical offering in the Studio since Crazy Enough.

A New Musical Based on the Life of Lizzie Borden

LIZZIE

By Steven Cheslik-deMeyer, Tim Maner and Alan Stevens Hewitt; Directed by Rose Riordan

May 24–June 29 on the Main Stage

Lizzie Borden took an ax…

A rock-show retelling of the bloody legend of America’s favorite ax-wielding double-murderess and Victorian hometown girl. Lizzie Borden, who has become fodder for jump rope rhymes and TV movies of the week, was a Massachusetts woman who was acquitted in 1892 of the ax murders of her father and stepmother, and lived the rest of her life as American’s first infamous tabloid star. But did she really do it? And if so, how?

All titles subject to change.

2013–2014 Season Ticket Prices