PORTLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE THEATRE ARTS PROGRAM ...

program efforts on three different campuses. This has been the case since
the college created a theatre program. We are at a juncture where the
campuses are now individuating, and offering students many possibilities
that were not offered before. This offers great possibilities, but also creates
a new need for more structured logistics and more faculty and staff to
support the growth, infrastructures and needs.
Preamble:
The PCC Theatre program has been Sylvania-centered since it’s inception
in the early 1980’s. The SAC Chair/Artistic Director has been teaching
and producing main-stage plays at Sylvania, and has been the sole FT
Theatre SAC faculty member for the past 30 years. The position duties
require producing three annual productions (one per quarter, excluding
summer) at the Sylvania campus. Since the building of the Performing Arts
Center in 1994, the Sylvania campus program has (out of both opportunity
and necessity) deepened the relationship between courses and handson
production. This model of courses/production is an overwhelmingly
common one in Theatre programs at the college level internationally. One
other reason has been the collaboration between Academic Professional
& PT Scenic and Lighting Designer Dan Hays. His evolved role of PAC
Coordinator, PT instructor, PT designer and building scheduler has been at
the fulcrum of the Theatre program’s evolution as both a producing entity
and LD course offerings. As the program has evolved on the Sylvania
campus, it is also true that Rock Creek and Cascade are evolving into
unique producing entities as well.
Herein lies PCC Theatre Program’s challenge: As a multi-campus
institution, the resources available for theatre production vary widely
from campus to campus. However, in order to maintain consistency
of instruction, the curriculum has had to embrace the methods that are
effective on both producing and non-producing theatre campuses. In
order to create a relatively consistent model of quality instruction, we
are now challenged to look at ourselves simultaneously as one program
with varying missions and resources, and therefore potentially variable
curriculum. As Rock Creek and Cascade are now beginning to produce