Portland Center Stage

Stunning sets, beautifully executed Streetcar Named Desire! Bravo Chris Coleman and cast. refreshing portrayals of Stanley & Stellaaaaaaa

I just saw a wonderful performance of Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Chris Coleman. The cast was amazing, everyone was so good. The production was really beautiful too.

Portland Center Stage, as the name suggests, is the center of live theatre performances in Portland, Oregon.
In the 18 months since moving to the PDX metro area, I’ve seen a half-​dozen plays at Portland Center Stage. Most shows are small productions with a limited, but stellar cast. The staging and lighting is almost always simple (and effective) which allows the actors and story to shine.
Portland Center Stage is officially at the Gerding Theater at the Armory and has two performance venues. I’ve seen performances at both the the U.S. Bank Main Stage for 590 people and at the smaller Ellyn Bye Studio downstairs for up to 190 people. Neither space is large which means every ticket leads to a good seat. I haven’t tried the balcony of the main stage, yet, but it seems close enough for the 75 people sitting up there, too.
The Armory building was actually the 1^st building in Portland and all of the Cascadia region making it as historic as it comes for architecture in the PNW. It was renovated recently and is now environmentally friendly and Platinum Leed certified. Check out the history of the Armory with one of the free tours offered noon to 1:00 p.m. on the 1^st and 3^rd Saturdays during the performance season.
The theater group also puts in effort to improve accessibility to the theater experience in Portland. All shows have accommodations for those with mobility impairments, In addition, select performances offer audio-​described, sign-​interpreted, and open-​captioned performances. The 2^nd Sunday matinée performance of every production is audio described while the 3^rd Thursday evening performance of every production is sign interpreted. Large print programs are also available at the concierge booth in the main lobby and online.
The Armory Café (on the Mezzanine) and the lobby offer free WiFi and over-​priced drinks. Table service is available in the Café for brunch before matinees and after 6:00 p.m. on performance nights. I’ve only tried a few of the lobby bar drinks. Instead, I always plan to hit a local restaurant beforehand and a bar afterwards making the Portland Center Stage a wonderful center-​piece of a night downtown near the Pearl district.

Reasonably priced in the city and highly experiential in nature.
As a season ticket holder for over eight years, I will never cut this from my budget. A way of learning and experiencing the world without ever getting on a plane. The varied themes and interpretations expand thought and theory. A warm and wonderful place for entertainment with people I love.

I hadn’t been here before and it was a really great venue in which to see a play in. Comfortable seating and a «happy hour» bar right outside the doors. In a really beautiful building as well Everyone we encountered was nice and friendly too.

Great venue to see a play. A must visit when in Portland. Not a bad seat in the house, they also sell Coffee & Wine before the show.
This is an ideal «date night» with your significant other. Can’t wait to return for another play
Restrooms are very clean and the ushers are very helpful.

Beautiful facility, great show, friendly staff. If you show up 15 minutes before the show starts, you can buy Rush Tickets for any of their shows got only $ 20. We had the best seats on row H…

Amazing, just plain amazing.
This is one of the best playhouses I’ve been on this side of the world, and I’ve been to quite a few up and down the West Coast.
Clean and welcoming lobby. The staff was very friendly and accommodating. The bar served promising food and beverages (they had alcohol. To clarify, I didn’t partake. I didn’t have time).
The acoustics in the theater was very good. There are adjacent theaters but you wouldn’t hear the other production playing next door. The inside was clean and the chairs were comfy. The crowd that came was also rather pleasant.
Came here to see Vanya & Sonya & Masha & Spike. That was an intensely funny play. Parking is available on the street or in adjacent parking structures across the street and around the corner.
If I’m ever back in town and something is playing that tickles my fancy, I’m coming back here with a skip to my step.
See you soon!

Every production I have seen on the main stage has been pretty awful. The seats in the main theater are really uncomfortable. The people who attend the shows are snobby q-​tip heads that seem satisfied with mediocre entertainment.
Every show I have seen in the small studio theater has been excellent, ground breaking, and exciting. Skip the main stage drivel and head downstairs instead!

It’s worth getting season tickets, because every show is thought-​provoking as well as entertaining. Some shows we might have missed because they didn’t catch our attention, and they ended up being our favorites. The set design is always amazing in the main stage. Having both the large, traditional theater space AND the black box theater for more intimate shows makes PCS a full service experience that stacks up to anything I’ve seen on Broadway.

The whole Romeo/​Juliet thing didn’t work out so well for everybody involved. Lord and Lady Macbeth should probably never have been introduced. A lot of great theater is made out of unwise couplings. In distinct contrast, however, Portland Center Stage marries perfectly with the Gerding Theater at the Armory, where it is now housed.
This company was once a Northern outpost of Oregon Shakespeare Festival and performed in the Winningstad theater. They won me over back then with a brilliant same-​season scheduling of ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ using all the same cast in the key roles. Then they hit a gold vein with David Sedaris’ ‘Santaland Diaries’, which they wisely milk for both laughs and revenue year after year.
Since the move to the Gerding Theater, Portland Center Stage has kept stepping up their game. I remember being blown away by the adaptation they did of ‘Sometimes A Great Notion’, which I think of as the quintessential Northwest novel. And then they did it again with another regional classic, ‘Snow Falling on Cedars’. When they returned to the Shakespeare well last season it was with the imaginative staging of ‘Amazing Cymbelline’, which was –as advertised — amazing.
This season we managed to see ‘Clybourne Park’ before it closed and we agreed that it continued a long string of solid performances. We don’t have the budget to see everything this company produces but so far, only ‘The North Plan’ seemed a little thin, and really that didn’t even dawn on me until I had stopped laughing well after the curtain came down.
The lobby is inviting and the café is actually a decent place to grab a bite if you’re running behind before show time. The performances spaces themselves are open and inviting, without a bad seat as far as I can tell. The fact that the space is all LEED certified means you can breathe easy and know that the environment isn’t toxic, even if the onstage relationships are.

I went to my first show here last night and the space was beautiful. It’s inside of an old armory, and everything about it is pretty wonderful.
The show was a really good production that me an the lady I was with enjoyed a lot. They also had a really good question and answer session afterwards that had a lot of participation and provoked a lot of good talking afterwards.
If you don’t go to plays, you should because they’re dope. If you do and haven’t been here, you should. It’s my favorite venue I’ve been to in the greater Portland area so far for plays. We sat in the balcony and it actually ended up being a pretty good seat. Have a little culture PDX peeps, and do it here.

Yes, yes, yes, what everyone else said… The shows are always stellar, the building is beautiful and eco-​friendly, the volunteers and staff are super helpful, the seating is comfy and there’s lots of good eats in the surrounding neighborhood. Tickets are not cheap but these days supporting the arts is a requirement, not an option. PCA almost always offers 2-​for-​1 Chinook book deals in addition to student, youth and group prices.
My only beefs are the parking situation, which they can’t exactly help, and the lack of an «eject» button for audience members who check their iThings every five minutes during shows. People. IT CANNOT BE THAT IMPORTANT! If you’re bored, kindly leave so that the rest of us can enjoy the show… Oh, and I guess my last beef is the fact that their «youth» designation no longer applies to me. Haha.

I try to go to a show or two or more every season. The very first few was before they moved to the current Gerding theater. The production has definitely stepped up a notch after the move. No matter what the play is, I’ve always been impressed with the sets.
The building itself is awesome too. One of the earlier LEED certified buildings, all the toilet’s water comes from collected rain water, there’s no heating because the stage lights warms the place up, etc etc. I learn all these by going on their backstage tour. They offered this occasionally throughout the year.
The tickets can be expensive, but for people on a budget, you can line up for rush tickets. For any unsold ticket 10 minutes prior to the show, they’ll sell it for $ 20 cold hard cash. This is how I’ve seen most of the shows. They really don’t have bad seat in the house, so it’s worked out for me every time. All their evening shows starts at 7:30, which is perfect because free parking in the Pearl starts at 7.
When you get a chance, you should definitely try seeing a show @ the PCS, it’s arguably the best theater in town.

Portland Center Stage is a dream come true.
I have been to two of their top rate productions: «One flew over the cuckoo’s nest» and «Sweeney Todd»
Both had complex sets, beautiful orchestra, amazing actors, great service (so good I got sold for season tickets), a delicious cafeteria, bar and all for the most incredible price ever.
They are always having promotions, discounts for students, seniors and even people under 25. This has enabled me to go the theater even though I am a hungry part time server/​student.
I will recommend to check out their season schedule and make a date with a bf, friend, mom, grandma, anyone will appreciate coming here.
Support the arts and have an amazing experience at PCS!

Yeaaaa!!! Meat pies (burgers) at the Little Big Burger and walk around the block to Portland Center Stage to see «Sweeney Todd». The old Gerding Armory is the building and it’s worth the price of admission just to lounge in the lobby & schmooz with whomever. And, the greatest bargain of all, The Pearl ;-)
Gerding Theater at the Armory. 128 NW Eleventh Avenue Portland, Oregon 97 209

My neighbor mentioned to me that Anna Karenina was playing and did I want to go. I thought what an excellent opportunity. So, he picked up the tickets for the four of us. Based on some of the reviews, that might be a good thing so I don’t get the marketing calls.
What a delight! My neighbor got us front row seats and we were all excited to go at $ 37 a seat I thought that was quite a deal. The bad news was on the night of the performance it was canceled due to cast illness. They sent my friend an email and then allowed us to selected some different dates. The nice thing was they extended the time they were performing (by a week or so) so that they could cover all of us that got canceled out.
Having just missed the streetcar we made the quick walk down to the theater. Great access to the streetcar, however, if you are more timely than we were.
The front row seats were great. Most of our group is in the six foot and over range so it’s nice not to have your knees bump up against the back of a seat.
This production even featured Portland Native Gretchen Corbett. Gretchen probably best know for her stint on TV’s the Rockford Files, plays Mother Shcherbatskaya as well as some ensemble parts.
Kelley Curran as Anna Karenina, was fabulous as well. All of the cast, were spot on. They even were able to bring some humor to this particular story which can be somewhat somber at best.
I would highly recommend this play to others.
I will definitely be back to see another production at this location.

PCS has a beautiful, environmentally conscious theater in the heart of the Pearl.
I have been a season ticket holder for 3 years and have enjoyed every production, (my favorite being Pillow man) and I always recommend PCS for those that haven’t been to the theater in a long time.
If you follow them on line, they often offer free tickets for the first 20 people to respond!
Also, if you are under 30, there is a special package rate for you! Otherwise, I might not be able to afford it.
Only downside is that they hound you for donations… It cost enough just go get your foot in the door, you know?
Play on!

I recently attended Portland Center Stage’s production of Bust. This is a one woman show performed by actress and comedian Lauren Weedman. During this 90 minute show, she portrays a series of characters that portray here experiences as a volunteer in the Los Angeles County prison system and the various unintended consequences of her good works.
The play was just OK and I found myself dozing through some parts of it. Lauren Weedman is certainly talented, but I just didn’t connect with the flow of the show, the characters portrayed, and the play’s somewhat abrupt ending. And with «Swimming to Cambodia» as my «Gold Standard», I left wanting more.
The Theater space itself was handsome and cozy inside this architecturally stunning Armory. However, I found pre-​show seating to be unorganized and post-​show staff performance to have some parallels with a few prison characters in the play. In other words, I saw first hand what PCS’s «4^th Wall» looks like. It’s not a pretty Initman sight.

Doesn’t everyone have a list of celebrity crushes? Well last year I saw my #1 guy perform live and I was underwhelmed. Sigh. It was one of those experiences where it was probably impossible for this poor actor to live up to all my expectations and projections of what he would be like in person. And he was just a guy. A guy outperformed by a high school English teacher.
So I was a little nervous about seeing Storm Large in ‘Crazy Enough,’ her one-​woman show at Portland Center Stage. I’ve had a big ‘olé girl crush on Storm ever since watching her on Rockstar: Supernova three years ago. And, my bad, I didn’t get tickets to see her perform in the PCS production of Cabaret last year.
I don’t know what I was worried about. It is a tour de force performance filled with humor, music, rock star strutting and naked (emotionally, not physically, dang it) confessions. She was better than I imagined and when does that happen?
The show’s run has been extended several times and I highly recommend you get tickets, whether you are already a fan or you just want to see one of Portland’s divas in all her glory. This is a great venue since it is in the smaller performance space at the Gerding Theatre. It is a small venue that feels like a jazz club, which lends itself to the confessional nature of the show and every seat is a good seat.
But don’t bring your parents. There were some older audience members at the show (season ticket holders?) and it was a bit *awkward* given the subject matter and annoying when their hearing aids were going off during the musical performance. This show is filled with f-​bombs and ‘mature content,’ so don’t say you weren’t warned. I’m not a big fan of profanity, but from her lips it sounds like poetry.
**Special tip — Both the Entertainment and Chinook Books have buy one, get one free coupons for PCS performances.