CoHo Residency Program

What is the CoHo Residency Program?

CoHo’s mission is to strengthen the producing capabilities of the artists in our community to create new and compelling work. The CoHo Residency Program is a six-month-long opportunity for artists to develop an idea or revive an old project and take it to the next level.

At the start of the program, artists are given a budget to manage and are encouraged to bring on a mentor of their choosing to help them develop their work. 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. Recipients will also receive access to the CoHo Resource Center and space for rehearsal, devising, writing, designing, and working. Materials such as CoHo’s props, costumes, and set pieces may also be borrowed and utilized for presentations.

The Residency Program includes a private/invited showing for the artists to receive professional feedback, then culminates in a ticketed showing for a public audience at the end of the semester. For audiences who enjoy new work mini-festivals like Risk-Reward and JAW, these casual showings are a rare chance to see a sampler of solo performances, original plays, ensemble devising, one-on-one performance encounters, and so much more. After the Residency concludes, many of the artists we support have been able to leverage their participation to achieve more competitive awards and residencies, taking the works-in-progress they developed with CoHo and transforming them into full-scale productions that appear on both a local and national level.

Who should apply?

Are you a marginalized artist who’s had trouble in the past getting access to the resources, mentorship, or space you need to bring your latest creative work to life? Sounds like you’d be a fantastic fit for the CoHo Residency Program!

In our aim to expand our outreach and diversify programming, our goal is to embrace the talent organically growing in our Portland-based communities and surrounding areas. This program’s focus is to platform local talent and increase exposure for performers typically sidelined by the current theatre industry. Residency candidates must meet the following criteria to apply:

Candidate’s projects must be aligned with CoHo’s values
Have at least the seeds of an idea for what you want to do with your residency
Not mandatory, but bonus points if you are an active CoHo community member (come to shows, are Resource Center members, attend workshops or clown meetups, etc)

Does this sound like you? Please apply! We’d love to see what current projects you have in the works and learn more about you to see if your production would be a good fit for the CoHo Residency Program. Click the link below to apply today.