Back to school? More like back to theater! For those of us who enjoy the under-appreciated art form, fall is that magical time when theater companies great and small announce their upcoming seasons. It’s usually pretty easy to find out what the big companies are up to, so instead of urging you to see a fancy musical at Portland Center Stage or Broadway in Portland (although if you’re a fan of jazz hands, you should do exactly that!), here are some season-opener picks from a selection of the city’s smaller companies. They’re quietly pulling off amazing work year-round, and they should be on your radar.
Antigone Project
(Profile Theatre)
Profile Theatre is doing the lord’s work: making a concerted effort to only produce plays written by women and people of color for its next few seasons. It’s a noble and necessary move towards greater gender equity in a national theater landscape that’s overwhelmingly white and male, and its impact is compounded by Profile’s format, in which each season is dedicated to the work of a single playwright. Under the new diversity initiative, the company’s chosen to focus on playwright Tanya Barfield for its current season, which will wrap up this fall with one final, epic installment before it moves on to a new season of plays by Quiara Alegria Hudes. Antigone Project: A Play in Five Parts features Barfield’s work, alongside fellow playwrights Karen Hartman, Lynn Nottage, Chiori Miyagawa, and Caridad Svich, in five short plays seeking to retell the myth of Antigone, the doomed daughter of Oedipus, interpreted by a cast of strong local actors including Lauren Modica and Cecily Overman. Alder Stage at Artists Repertory Theatre, 1516 SW Alder, Sept 7-11, Wed-Sat 7:30 pm, Sat-Sun 2 pm, $32-38