21ten's Summer Residency Program
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21ten is very excited to be entering our second year of the Summer Residency Program in 2025!
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The mission of the 21ten Summer Residency is to invite theatrical artists to create & produce, whether that be a new play, a devised piece, or already existing domain, that you hope to bring to life.
Residents are selected out of our application process and offered rehearsal, tech & performance time in the 21ten BlackBox Theatre, a production stipend, marketing support, and 21ten resources in order to bring their dream project to fruition.​
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The 21ten Summer Residency is funded in part by the Regional Arts & Culture Council and the Arts Access Fund.
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"The One"
a new work by Andrea Parson
directed by Jessica Wallenfels
July 3rd - 6th, 2025
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In order to love somebody else, you have to love yourself first. That’s what her mother once told her when she was 8 years old.
Thirty years later, Andrea is wondering, was she right? The self help gurus affirm it too! In order to find The One, you not only have to love yourself, but fall madly in love with yourself! Oh God…. In The One multidisciplinary performer Andrea Parson grapples with the notion of self love in an effort to find that special and elusive someone. A romantic partner, herself, something of the spiritual and unseen world, or maybe The One is sitting right in front of her! Or maybe it’s a mangy cat who goes by the name of Couts.
Through evocative movement, storytelling, and a clown sensibility, Andrea juxtaposes her modern day search for love with images of a 14th century medieval anchoress. Who? You know, those radical women who lived enclosed inside a small cell attached to a church as a bride of Christ. For real! Andrea invites the audience to join her as she weaves in and out of a sacred, comedic and personal reflection about love and loving.
"La Mariposa"
created by Sofía Leonila Marks &
Isabel Strongheart McTighe
July 10th - 13th, 2025
All performances ASL Interpreted
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La Mariposa is a devised performance ritual about a girl who has forgotten her name. She is haunted by dreams of her body becoming an expansive landscape. Mariposa searches for her identity in a dream world between a girl’s bedroom and the desert where spirits dance. In these borderlands she cries to her deities for strength and wisdom: Madre Viento, her mother, sings with her; Abuelita Coyote embraces her; and Quetzal Bird teaches her to dance with freedom.
"un/seen"
created & performed by erin rachel
July 17th - 20th, 2025
ASL Interpreted on Friday, July 18th
From local writer and composer erin rachel (unbound: a bookish musical) comes un/seen, a two-part immersive storytelling and sound experience:
Part I: un/seen
un/seen is a narrative experiment, blending storytelling and cinematic soundscapes to follow three generations in the aftermath of a fictional pandemic. the story explores unseen connections and the invisible threads of kindred spirits that guide us home. It is a story about endings and beginnings — but ultimately, it is a story about life, what we (choose to) see, and the choices we might make if we knew the time we have left.
Part II: Sonic Sound Exploration Each performance is followed by a dynamic sonic exploration — an ambient and electronic soundscape designed to deepen reflection, mindfulness, and listening.
Each performance will be unique, inviting the audience to perceive the magic hidden in the everyday.
"The Rainbow Passage"
a new play by Ajai Tripathi
July 24th - 27th, 2025​
Based upon an award-winning screenplay (Geneva International Science in Fiction Award for Best Feature, 2023), The Rainbow Passage follows a recovering drug addict who travels into the memories of his catatonic twin sister, a professor of radio astronomy, in order to rally their family to free her consciousness from being trapped on the horizon line of a black hole. Featuring an all Desi cast of characters, The Rainbow Passage is both science fiction and a metaphysical family drama about meditation, addiction and letting go.
Andrea Parson
"The One"
July 3rd - 6th, 2025​
Writer and Performer: Andrea Parson (she/her) Born and raised in Hillsboro, Oregon, Andrea Parson began dancing in the late 1980’s to the country records played in her family living room and in her mother’s aerobics classes. She began choreographing at a young age, making dances for friends and family, and often improvised down grocery store aisles. With dreams of becoming a professional dancer she furthered her studies at the Joffrey Ballet, San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, and Loyola Marymount University, where she received a BA in dance in 2009. After graduating she joined Northwest Dance Project in Portland, Oregon, where she received a Princess Grace Dance Fellowship award in 2010. For 11 years she performed nationally and internationally, finding much delight in dancing dramatic character roles such as Hedda Gabler and Carmen.
Andrea currently resides in Portland, Oregon where she creates solo shows, and devised ensemble dance theater productions. Her performance work blends contemporary dance, physical theater, storytelling and often comedy. Her latest award winning solo show, You Can’t Be Serious was presented at BodyVox Dance Center in 2023, as well as the Oregon Fringe Festival (2024), Hollywood Fringe Festival (2024), and United Solo Festival in NYC. As a choreographer Andrea has collaborated and created original dance works for both dance and theater organizations around the Pacific Northwest.
She is passionate about the intersection between narrative, movement, and voice. Interwoven with her artistic practice is her work as dance and movement educator. For over 15 years Andrea has taught contemporary dance technique, ballet, dance fitness, and creative movement to humans of all ages and levels. She recently received a Functional Movement Awareness Educator certification and is on faculty at Pacific University. andreaparson.com
Isabel McTighe
Sofia Leonila Marks
"La Mariposa"
July 10th - 13th, 2025​
Isabel McTighe (they/them) is a director and educator specializing in collaborative and devised theatre. They hold a BA in Theatre with a distinction in Performance from Lewis and Clark College and are a graduate of PETE’s Institute for Contemporary Performance and the SITI Company’s Skidmore Summer Intensive. Isabel’s work is rooted in emergent strategy and a daily practice of community care.
Recent directing credits include Big League Chew (PETE’s a/void/fest), Certain Death and Other Considerations (Edinburgh Fringe, Echo Theatre Company L.A.), I’m In Control Which Means Nothing Bad Will Ever Happen To Me (PETE Presents) and La Mariposa (Many Hats Collaboration, The Hatchery). Performance credits include The Lovers (PETE’s a/void/fest), I Think of You: Illuminating Mass Incarceration from the Inside Out (Lewis and Clark College and PCS) and spur(s) (Shaking the Tree, Open Space Residency)
Sofía Leonila Marks is a performer and multidisciplinary theater artist based in Portland. She trained with PETE’s Institute of Contemporary Performance (ICP), class of 2022, and graduated from Lewis & Clark College with degrees in Theatre and Biology. Sofía recently performed in Shaking the Tree’s Forbidden Fruit as the Apple, and in PETE’s, The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekov, as Anya. She also devised and performed in her original works: “La Mariposa” “There is Darkness and There is Darkness” and “Con serpientes vengo yo” or “I come with snakes.” In both performances, she explored her relationship with her body, femininity, monstrosity, and shame. The Aztec snake goddess Quetzalcoatl, “the one who is at one with the beasts,” was the inspiration for the performance and served as a guide for Sofía’s search for balance and self-acceptance. For Sofía, her body is a site of reflection, and a ritual tool for remembering herself and engaging in the borderlands of her identity as a mixed Latina in America. Through the transformative process of performance, she can push the limits of her body and voice in hopes of unraveling herself before an audience.
erin rachel
"un/seen"
July 18th - 21st, 2025
erin rachel is thrilled to collaborate with the staff at 21ten Theatre this summer. She is a 2025 Regional Arts & Culture Council Portland Arts Project Grant recipient and a former Tin House Scholar. A concert reading of her original musical unbound: a bookish musical recently premiered at Fertile Ground. She is developing a full-length workshop production of the musical and completing her first novel. Follow online at rockcitysea.com or IG @byerinrachel.
Ajai Tripathi
"The Rainbow Passage"
July 24th - 27th, 2025
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Ajai Tripathi is an actor, director, playwright, screenwriter and teacher. He earned his MFA in Screenwriting from the David Lynch Graduate School of Cinematic Arts. Gay, and born of Desi, Indigenous, and Mexican stock in Oregon, he writes from a minoritized perspective and works to increase the opportunities of Desi actors. He wrote three bilingual plays for Young Audiences, Sueños de Fútbol, Mijita Fridita, and Corré, Corré which have been performed throughout the Northwest with Teatro Milagro. With PDX Playwrights he produced Osho Returns, and shadow plays The Madness of Dionysus and Cosmogonos for the Fertile Ground Festival of New Works. He most recently completed his Great White Trilogy as a member of Fuse Theatre Ensemble, and a reading of Dreams of a Celestial Night for the OUTwright Theatre Festival. His screenplays have won plaudits from NYC International, PageTurner International Screenplay Association, Portland Screenplay Awards, and Geneva International Science in Fiction Screenplay Awards. His stories are dedicated to investigating unseen human connections experienced through a collective consciousness.
2024 Residency Productions
Thank You, Sorry
By Annie Trevisan & Shana Torok
July 5th - 7th, 2024
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A one-hour, structured, improvised play about a budding romance between two women from different generations. We explore themes of shame, feeling, age, gender, and ultimately what it means to love.
Do you know how to love? Do you know how to be loved?
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With the collaboration of Chris Harder and Ben Lawrence
Camp Fire Stories
By Murri Lazaroff-Babin
July 11th - 14th, 2024
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Camp Fire Stories is about home and memory; and the attempt to conjure both.
It's about how the idea of home changes over time, and the interesting ways in which we fill in the gaps of blurred memories from childhood.
With the collaboration of
Cristi Miles, Akitora Ishii, Leiana Petlewski, Ken Yoshikawa & Rose Proctor
Laundry Show
By Rachel Wells
July 19th - 28th, 2024
Double Feature with HATERS​
A liminal laundromat, a sock thief, and a never-ending stream of patrons. Quiet glances reveal magic in seemingly monotonous moments - asking what happens when solitary routines become disrupted? At one point everyone you’ve ever loved was a stranger. Laundry Show explores the moments of risk that may surprise us with our next love.
With the collaboration of
Wy DeShong, Dylan Hankins, Rachel Routh & Akitora Ishii
HATERS
By Daye Thomas & Kasia Caravello
July 19th - 28th, 2024
Double Feature with Laundry Show
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Can we attempt to really see one another?
HATERS is an exploration of identity and prejudice, following a Polish woman and a nonbinary Filipino individual as they navigate cultural stereotypes, political tensions, and personal biases through stand-up, traditional martial arts, and folk dance - ultimately finding a common ground in their shared humanity. We challenge our audience to confront their own preconceptions and explore the transformative power of empathy and connection.
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With the collaboration of
Johnathan Billington, Naomi Bowers, Sizheng Song & directed by Amelia Sommer​