Co-Founders is the story of an underrated young Oakland coder, Esata, who hacks her way into the most competitive startup accelerator in San Francisco. Determined to save her house as an influx of wealth threatens to push her community out, Esata forms an unlikely partnership with a prep-school dropout. Created by three extraordinary Bay Area voices Ryan Nicole Austin, Beau Lewis, and Adesha Adefela, and directed by Jamil Jude, this exciting new musical features a deliciously catchy score that draws from the Bay’s rich hip-hop traditions, as well as soul, gospel, funk, jazz, R&B, and more.

History meets hip-hop in Mexodus, an electrifying live-looping musical, composed in real-time by multitalented writer/performers Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson. The play explores the often-untold stories of the Underground Railroad that led south into Mexico. Mexodus is a groundbreaking, theatrical experience of resilience and resistance, celebrating the power of Black and Brown solidarity.

Josh’s life is a mess. He’s come home to Denver from NYU to get his life together but can’t manage to stay sober. Struggling with fogginess, memory loss, shame, and regret, he finds unlikely allies in his four loveable grandparents.

Cousins Sade and Mina used to be inseparable. Now leading very different lives, they return to their childhood town for the funeral of their mother and aunt. While Sade is on a three-day furlough from prison and Mina experiences a brief reprieve from her career and life on the West Coast, the two try to make sense of grief, home, love, and kinship. As the clock ticks down, the cousins grapple with their conflicting memories of the past and their shared hopes for the future. Poetic and theatrical, Furlough’s Paradise explores family dreams of a utopia yet to be realized.

Portland Center Stage will produce The Brothers Size by Academy Award winner Tarell Alvin McCraney (Moonlight, Choir Boy). Weaving together the mundane and the mystic with poetry, African mythology, and music, The Brothers Size is a compelling contemporary tale of freedom, belonging, and the ties that bind.

Sharon races home from school a couple days after her 8th birthday to beat her teenagebrother Spikey to the last slice of birthday cake. When she enters the kitchen, she finds her mother wielding a knife. One actor plays 16 characters in this tour-de-force about Sharon’s decades-long dream of saving her mother from the soul-crushing grip of mental illness. A testament to the steely resilience of the human heart and the enduring nature of hope, Crazy Mama will leave you breathless, moved, and profoundly inspired.

In 1930s New York, the hopes of the Harlem Renaissance have been tempered by the realities of the Great Depression. Best friends and artists Angel and Guy dream of a glamorous future but can barely eke out a living in the jazz clubs, while their neighbor Delia and local doctor Sam deal with bombs and break-ins as they try to bring a family planning clinic to the neighborhood. When Angel catches the eye of a handsome newcomer, their clashing values set off a chain of events that will change everyone’s lives. Lyrical and deeply moving, Pearl Cleage’s classic drama will immerse you in the joy, sorrow, and resilience of a society on the brink of change.

A mysterious album featuring Nazi-era photographs arrives at the desk of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum archivist Rebecca Erbelding. As Rebecca and her team of historians begin to unravel the shocking story behind the images, the album soon makes headlines around the world and ignites a debate that reverberates far beyond the museum walls. Based on real events, Here There Are Blueberries tells the story behind these historical photographs—what they reveal about the perpetrators of the Holocaust and, ultimately, about our own humanity.

September 2020 – San Francisco, CA. High school science teacher Amari must let go of her grief while starting a new relationship; her brother, QC, grapples with the realities of long-COVID and his future as an artist; and her student, Alé, is just trying to pay for remote therapy. Painted with the background of the ongoing pandemic, Black Lives Matters uprisings, and an upcoming election, these interconnected San Franciscans face yet another sobering moment: the day the sky turned orange.

Description coming soon.