PassinArt theater creates space for Black artists and community at Albina Arts Center

PassinArt began in 1982 and is the oldest continuously operating Black theater in Oregon.

Based in Portland, its mission is to “entertain, educate, and inspire artists and audiences while addressing critical issues facing our community.” The name is a nod to its vision of passing on art, history and culture from one generation to another.

The company doesn’t just mount full-scale theatrical productions; it also holds free monthly readings, festivals of new works and other events.

And this weekend, PassinArt is inviting the whole Portland community to its Open House & Block Party. Artistic Director Jerry Foster says they want to introduce people to the new headquarters at the Albina Arts Center on Northeast Killingsworth Street, along with all the different kinds of work PassinArt offers.

We talk with Foster to learn about the kinds of plays the company stages, the new work it supports and the community events it hosts.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. PassinArt was founded in Portland in 1982, and it is still going. It’s now the oldest continuously operating Black theater company in Oregon. And it’s about to embark on a new chapter. It’s moving to new headquarters at the Albina Arts Center on Northeast Killingsworth in Northeast Portland, and it’s having an Open House & Block Party this weekend to celebrate.

Jerry Foster is the longtime artistic director of the company. He joins us now. Congratulations, and welcome to Think Out Loud.

Jerry Foster: Thank you for having me.

Miller: What’s the mission of PassinArt?

Foster: The mission of PassinArt is to entertain, educate, and inspire artists and audiences, while addressing critical issues facing our community.

Miller: Where does the name come from?

Foster: The name means passing on art, history and culture from one generation to the next.

Miller: Has that idea passing art and culture on from one generation to the next evolved in your own mind as you’ve gotten older? You’ve been doing this for decades now. I wonder if it’s changed the way you think about that, about generations?

Foster: Well, when you are passing on the traditions, you’re educating. You want to be able to keep the culture alive. It becomes deeply entrenched in the work that we do. We want to really hold to that truth, and that’s what keeps us going, that’s the gas that pushes the vehicle.

Miller: Did you come to this yourself from an interest in theater, from being on the stage? I ask you as someone who’s just hearing your voice and thinking, man, I could hear this voice for hours.

Foster: [Laughs] I hear that a lot. I guess you would say I fell into it. Because what happened was, I had a friend of mine who was supposed to audition for a role, matter of fact for PassinArt. He couldn’t make it. So I was asked if I could sit in and read for the other people that were auditioning, and I did. And when it was over with, they turned around and asked me if I wouldn’t mind taking on that role.

Miller: It’s such a classic story, somebody goes to an audition with their friend just to support their friend, and then they’re the one who gets picked. How’d your friend feel about it?

Foster: Exactly. It happens, being in the right place at the right time, I guess.

Miller: Willamette Week had a lovely obituary for the PassinArt co-founder, Connie Carley, when she died four years ago. I want to read some of the lines from it: “It’s impossible to overstate PassinArt’s impact on Portland. Since the company’s first performance at the Matt Dishman Center in 1983, it has endured even as other local Black theater companies like Sojourner Truth and Portland Black Repertory Theater vanished. And while most of the city’s theaters have seen leaders come and go, Carley and Foster,” that’s you, “always seemed inseparable from PassinArt.”

There’s a lot in that paragraph to dig into, but I want to start with Connie Carley. What did she bring to PassinArt?

Foster: She brought the foundation to it. She kept things intact. Me, as the creative mind, I want to do everything. And she brings back the reality that we’re not able to do everything, but we can do some things. Because otherwise I would be all over the place.

Miller: You were a little bit of the dreamer, and she was the person who was looking at the numbers?

Foster: Correct, correct. And let me know what I can do and what I couldn’t do.

Miller: What did you want to do that you couldn’t at times?

Foster: Well, you may not have been able to do it at that point in time, but you really planned for doing it later on. When things come up or creativity happens, you want to do it now. But the reality of it is that you may not be in a position to do it now. And that’s what she brought to the team. It’s funny that as we worked together, we were able to finish one another’s sentences, she could look at me and know what I was thinking, and I could look at her and know what she was thinking. So that made the team very, very solid.

Miller: What was it like then to carry on without her?

Foster: It’s been a challenge. But we have to regroup, really look at moving forward and staying true to what the mission is. I think that’s what has kept us with our longevity, is to be able to be mission-bound in not only the shows that we pick, but also in other works that we did in the community.

Miller: How do you choose the plays to put on to your audiences? What’s your overarching vision?

Foster: Well, again, in taking a mission, and reading and looking at the play, and reading the information in the play, and then we have an artistic committee that will look at plays, or I should say screenplays, and then come back with some recommendations. And from those recommendations, we look at what are we gonna do with it. One of the things that we have done, we would hold table reads of these plays, and then we would decide whether it would [be] a reading, or if it would be a play.

Miller: A full dramatic production.

For people who haven’t seen it, can you describe what a table reading is like?

Foster: Oh, actors sit around a table, grab a script and go for it. Matter of fact, we do readings now. We have a Monday night reading series that we do towards the end of the month, once a month.

Miller: That’s free and open to the public?

Foster: Yes, it is. We’ll sit down, and we’ll have those readings and we’ll look at those plays, and then those plays let us know if it’s something that we want to advance to a full production or not.

Miller: You also, in addition to those readings and sometimes full productions, you do an annual December production of [Langston Hughes’] “Black Nativity.” For people who are not familiar, can you give us a sense for this play, which was turned into a movie 10 something years ago, what it’s about?

Foster: The play itself was first performed in 1962 and it was by Langston Hughes. The play is Nativity, set to gospel music from an African American perspective. And it has a lot of music and a lot of choreography going on, and it’s really a roof-shaking event. And if you haven’t seen it, you really need to see it. This is our 19th year of bringing it forth to the city of Portland. And it has grown tremendously.

Miller: At this point, is it sort of like “Nutcracker” for a ballet, where this is a beloved production, but also helps you get some money for the rest of the year?

Foster: Yes. It’s a production that really give people an opportunity to release from the things or issues that had affected them during the course of the year. The music itself is so universal that we have cross-cultural people that come to see it and to enjoy what we produce in terms of the musical aspect of it.

Miller: What are you going to be able to do because of your move to this new location at the Albina Arts Center?

Foster: Well, now it provides us an opportunity to really open up the space to community organizations, community to groups, as well as to individual artists, an opportunity to have a space close in to where they can come in and do their works and show their works. The Albina Arts Center itself was an important part of the Albina community back in the ‘60s. It was used as a community hub, art center and meeting place. It was incorporated to give intentional space for the development of natural and intellectual resources to the Albina community.

We’re working to bring that back, to have all of that activities happening in there. So in working with the youth, we have a space that we can bring the youth about to have programming. Also too, rehearsal space for the organization. “Black Nativity” has a class of 16, so we have to have that space to move about. And also other theater companies that need rehearsal space, to provide that for them too.

Miller: It’s striking to talk about this new life in this new center, given what I mentioned earlier, that the very first performance back in the early ‘80s was at the Matt Dishman Center – a fantastic place with a boxing gym, a gym, a pool, but not really a theater company space.

Foster: Well, you know, when you do theater, you could do theater anywhere.

Miller: Fair enough. I went to a show at an old Victoria’s Secret in the now done Lloyd Center Mall a couple of years ago. So it can be anywhere.

What can people expect at this weekend’s Open House & Block Party?

Foster: We have several artists that are going to display their wares, to do some demonstrations, and to invite the people that are in attendance to join in. We have line dancing that’s gonna happen on Friday, which is the highlight of it, with Sistahs 4 Life. We also have a DJ that’s gonna be playing music. On Saturday we have yoga, we have a Cuban salsa dance, we have African dance, we have painting and meditation. And on Sunday, we have a fashion class, as well as a drumming class and drumming circle that people will be invited to be a part of, along with Black ballet.

Miller: Jerry Foster, congratulations and thanks so much for joining us.

Foster: Thank you for having me.

Miller: Jerry Foster is the artistic director of PassinArt in Portland, the oldest continuously producing Black theater company in Oregon. He joined us to talk about the move to the new headquarters at the Albina Art Center in Northeast Portland and the Block Party & Open House starting Friday, in just a couple days.

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