COHO RESIDENCY PROJECT June 21 – July 7, 2024
The CoHo Residency Project is a semester-long opportunity for artists to develop an idea or revive an old project and take it to the next level. Over the course of the semester, each artist will be guided and supported by CoHo to help them cultivate an organic creative process that they can take with them wherever they produce in the future. Back for our third year, CoHo Residency performances will be both live and in person. Learn more about individual shows below, and book your pay-what-you-can tickets today!
SCROLL DOWN TO BOOK TICKETS TO THE 2024 RESIDENCY SHOWS
The 2024 CoHo Residency Lineup
By Any Means
Presented by Farah Haidari
June 21-22 2024 @ 7:30 PM
Runtime: ~80 minutes
By Any Means follows three college friends’ interwoven evolutions in political consciousness during the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprising in Portland, Oregon. Through scenes in the classroom and in the streets, the friends reflect on ethical philosophies while navigating rapid developments in a mass movement for racial justice. Surveying debates around diversity of tactics and efficacy of protest, By Any Means probes frustrations in leftist organizing while asking audiences to consider what we deem “violent” in state-sponsored versus collective actions.
RESERVE YOUR TICKETS TO THE 2023 RESIDENCY PERFORMANCE OF BY ANY MEANS
Meet the Artist
Farah A Haidari she/they (Playwright) is an Arab-American playwright from metro Atlanta. She is deeply grateful to Coho Theatre for the opportunity to explore the process of creating a cultural work for, by, and within community. She especially thanks Phil Johnson, Pancho Savery, Kent Ford, and the many politically conscious artists and friends who helped developed By Any Means. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Amherst College. Free Palestine, free us all.
ENDURANCE
Presented by OLIVIA MATHEWS
June 28-30, 2023 @ 7:30 PM, June 29th @2pm
ENDURANCE journeys through the emotional landscape of two stranded players as they navigate the aftermath of a shared loss. Through naturalistic scenes and expressive movement, they explore the ebb and flow of being stuck together, splintered, and superimposed onto a tundra of the mundane. It’s not a story of survival, but one of Endurance. And pickles.
Our story is inspired by the 1914 Endurance Expedition, a Trans-Antarctic expedition that took a dire turn when, less than a year in, The Endurance ship became trapped in the ice of the Weddell sea. Over the course of ten months, the crew watched as the ice slowly crushed the ship, causing it to sink and leaving them stranded in Antarctica for over a year. Miraculously, every person on the expedition survived. The wreckage from the journey remained undiscovered for 107 years until March of 2022, when we learned of the story and drew inspiration from the unlikely survival of the crew.
ENDURANCE explores the mental and physical spaces we occupy after personal and societal catastrophe. The piece delves into themes of loss, grief, isolation, and companionship by alternating between three modes of performance: stripped down, naturalistic scenes, expressive movement that abstracts the emotional predicament of the two players, and a third mode that melds the other two.
Equal parts existential and immediate, ENDURANCE excavates the emotional breadth that comes with being frozen in the space between loss and recovery. Our two players are stranded in an intentionally unnamed landscape, enduring the aftermath of an unnamed disaster, allowing for the specificity of their emotional predicament to unfold over the course of the piece.
Meet the Team
Olivia Mathews she/they (CoHo Resident/Actor)
is a performer, director, deviser, teacher based in Portland, OR. Olivia’s work is process focused, rigorous, expressive and devoted to collaboration as a means of practicing community and self-advocacy. Most recent performance credits include From A Hole in the Ground (Corrib Theatre), Blood Wedding and Forbidden Fruit (Shaking the Tree Theatre). Directing credits include Precipice (Vanport Mosaic) and The Americans (PETE). She also holds a certification from Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble’s Institute for Contemporary Performance. ENDURANCE deeply exemplifies, both in process and in product, the kind of artful collaboration Olivia aspires to. They are eternally grateful to and in awe of Akitora, Annabel, and Leiana for their brilliance and devotion.
Annabel Cantor they/she (Director) is a multidisciplinary theatre artist and recurring character in other people’s lives all throughout the Portland area. Recent credits include lighting design for The Stinky Cheese Man at Northwest Children’s Theatre, assistant direction for Forbidden Fruit at Shaking the Tree, and Daughter in Metaverse at Corrib. She holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and a certificate from PETE’s Institute for Contemporary Performance. Annabel is also a fall/winter 2024 resident at Shaking the Tree. At the core of their directing practice lies curiosity, open-heartedness, and a passion for rigor, nonhierarchical processes, and innovative design.
Akitora Ishii he/him (Actor) is a Japanese-American actor and designer based in Portland, OR. Stage credits include In a Different Reality She’s Clawing at the Walls (Shaking the Tree),
understudy for BLINK (Third Rail), and Of Mice and Men (Life in Arts). Design credits include
Sound Design for A Number (21Ten) and Lighting Design for Twister (CoHo Clown Cohort)
He also works as a sound and lighting swiss army knife with companies like CoHo, Profile, and
Third Rail, and teaches kids with Portland Playhouse and New Moon Productions.
BS Theatre Arts, Portland State Certificate holder, the Institute for Contemporary Performance, PETE
Akitoraishii.com
Leiana Rousseau Petlewski they/them (Movement Director) is an actor, dancer, choreographer/movement director,
musician, and theatre maker who strives to make work that explores universal experiences
within particular circumstances. They hold BAs in Dance and Applied Theatre from Pacific
University and a certification from the Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble’s Institute for
Contemporary Performance, which is where their passion for experimental dance theatre truly
took root and grew. They recently completed a Guest Alumni Choreographer’s Residency at
Pacific University and performed in a show with The Cabin Project, for which they co-devised
movement and co-produced/performed in dance films that were congruous to the movement
and shown during the performance. Recent stage credits include Junie in Great Wide Open
(Portland Playhouse) and Lavinia in Titus Andronicus (Salt and Sage). They have also recently
completed a Guest Alumni Choreographer’s Residency at Pacific University and Leiana’s
process of creation is centered around exploring what it means to be human, and they find joy in
making collaborative multimedia art that involves working with various art forms and artists.
SPRAWL
Presented by Dylan Hankins
July 5-8, 2023 @ 2 PM
S p r a w l is a psychodrama where its characters—a frantic, worried sick mother and her unenthused son find themselves shamelessly, honestly, and unflinchingly exploring their most desperate worries and most selfish desires in a shared dreamscape. Come sneak out with us!
Let’s enjoy the perverse thrill of seeing something you’re not supposed to. Let’s spy on our neighbors in the early hours of the morning. Let’s meet up with handsome strangers. Let’s hook up. Let’s get naughty. Let’s have a pillow fight! Let’s have fun until it isn’t fun anymore. Let’s get honest. Lets get too honest. Let’s shamelessly blurt out our most embarrassing secrets and most selfish desires. Let’s cry about it. And then let’s sneak back home….And all in time for morning.
From the madcap minds of Rachel Wells and Dylan Hankins, S p r a w l is a psychodrama that follows a young, closeted gay boy and his not-so-clueless mother (Kasia Caravello). As the barriers between their egos meld, the result is an unflinchingly sincere look at shame, sexuality, repression, and belonging.
Meet the Team
Dylan Hankins (CoHo Resident/ Actor) is an alumnus of Lewis & Clark (‘20) and PETE’s Institute for Contemporary Performance (ICP ‘21). He’s translated two works from the Spanish, Miguel Romero Esteo’s Tartessos: A Memorial (to/from) the Darkness and Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba. He’s directed two pieces, (De)composition (Tango Vortex Ensemble) and Confessions of a Garbage Collector (Lewis & Clark College). For more information about S p r a w l, or just about Dylan, you can follow him on instagram @icpdylan
Rachel Wells she/they (Director) is performer-creator hellbent on creating whimsical and heartfelt art. She holds a BA in theater with distinction in acting from Lewis & Clark College (2019) and a Certificate of Completion from the Institute for Contemporary Performance (2021) under the Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble. She hopes to continue to celebrate joy in chaos, community in heartache, and bravery in vulnerability.
Kasia Caravello (Actor) is an actor based in Portland, OR. Recently she appeared in two feature films by Antero Ali, “Tracer” and “Blue Fire”. Last year along with a group of 4 friends they produced their own play “[de]composition” which they performed at Shaking the Tree Theater. The ensemble continues to work together in preparation of a new play coming out this winter. Kasia enjoys collaborating with local filmmakers and artists. She trained with Brooke Totman, Howard Fine, Stacey Scott and Brandon Gill. She speaks Polish, English, Spanish and Italian. Lately she has been focused on grounding herself in technique and gaining new skills in contemporary dance.
Rose Proctor (Scenic Designer) is a performer, deviser, and visual artist from Eugene, Oregon. She attended Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble’s Institute for Contemporary Performance, was a member of the Third Rail Mentorship program, and is a graduate of the National Theater Institute.
Patrick Doherty (Actor) graduated from University of Portland (’17) with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and minor in Fine Arts. He is a hobby visual artist with a background in photography, painting, and filmmaking. A frequent collaborator with Dylan Hankins, he played a supporting role in REM 0: S p r a w l (2023). He is excited to flex his stage muscle in this next version of REM and on future projects.
Past Residency Performances
In an effort to make art at CoHo accessible, all Residency performances are live streamed to our virtual audience.
Check out the archival footage of the CoHo Residents from 2022 on the CoHo YouTube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLV1xkJgGJYhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zGKTjXCF7Yhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfb5Eu7AzPM&t=2374s
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Are you an Artist?
Are you an artist with a story to tell, who’s been looking for the right environment to nurture and foster your latest work? Do you have a thought or an idea that you want to turn into something more? The CoHo Residency Project is currently seeking residents for our 2023 season! Click HERE to learn more about the program or fill out the rental survey below to apply to be a resident with CoHo Productions.