PORTLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE THEATRE ARTS PROGRAM ...

collaboration with the music and dance programs. Funding to afford their
high costs (royalties, hiring musicians or Musical directors) makes musicals
prohibitive, and FT faculty loads make the demands of musical theatre
production unlikely with their time commitments. In conjunction with that,
audiences were more interested in attending those more popular musical
productions. The focus of the program has shifted to reflect changing
resources and trends in local and national theatre.
Our current model has shifted to focus on the resources available at each
campus, so that they can to be empowered to produce theatre beyond the
classroom setting and onto the various spaces available.
Instead of an actor/production-centered model (as has been in the past),
the Sylvania campus has embraced a model with an appropriately adjusted
broader scope. Following the PCC Core Values, and the campus wide
emphasis on collaboration, the production model at Sylvania has shifted its
focus to a more collaboration centered model, making it possible to include
more students in higher crew and design positions in the productions. This
has allowed for more artistically ambitious productions, and more hands-on
learning opportunities both onstage and backstage.
Today’s PCC Theatre Arts program has to live up to an ambitious
legacy. Like the rest of the college, our challenge is to continue to
provide a meaningful and enriching experience while the foundations
of higher education are shifting at the state and federal levels. Despite
challenging economic times, ever increasing staff and faculty workloads
and diminishing resources, the PCC Theatre program continues to offer
quality instruction, meaningful productions, and serve the greater Portland
community on numerous levels. The ability to produce relevant and
challenging theatre productions while maintaining quality courses is crucial
to our identity. Our ability to do so is directly connected to the resources
(human, physical and financial) available. The Sylvania campus has been
able to maintain (and occasionally increase) the quality of our artistic and
academic work while our production budget has remained modest over the
last few years. While Rock Creek and Cascade are exploring venues of
production for the first time, these campuses are hopeful in their ability to