Portlands newest troupe, Puddletown Theatre Collective, makes its first outing at 8 pm on Sunday, October 18 at Portlands First Congregational United Church of Christ, 1126 SW Park Ave. The one-night concert reading of Adam Guettels 1994 musical Floyd Collins is free with a suggested donation. Founder Chase Davidson leads the cast in the title role.
Davidson has logged a couple of decades in theater across New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, including a national tour of Spring Awakening (more than 700 performances over two years) after studying at the Boston Conservatory. His take on the industry is blunt: Hardly any of them are operating as they should, he says, pointing to business models that leave artists struggling to sustain a livelihood. Since moving to Portland during the pandemic, hes been building an alternative.
Rewiring the economics
Puddletown is organized as an LLC, a choice its business plan says gives working artists ownership and a direct say in the companys direction. That framework is designed to support approaches such as profit-sharing, project-based leadership, and artist-driven decision-making. Through fiscal sponsorship with Fractured Atlas, supporters can make tax-deductible contributions. Davidson traces inspiration to cooperative models from early touring troupes up through repertory companies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries outfits that shared proceeds rather than carrying the real-estate burden that often pushes ticket prices up without raising artist pay.
Accessibility is personal for Davidson. I grew up working class, he says, recalling a single childhood trip to New York that packed in a few Broadway shows. In the past 20 years, prices have really gotten out of control. Im just doing my part to make theater as accessible as can be. Hes comfortable labeling Puddletowns approach with the S word socialism and describes admission as almost like kind of a trust system.
The debut: a cave, a church, and a chamber band
Guettels Floyd Collins chronicles the 1925 ordeal of a Kentucky caver whose entrapment sparked a media frenzy and a national debate wrapped in class, greed, and exploitation. Davidson says the show moved him, and he expects the scores bluegrass- and country-tinged writing, with a quasi liturgical but not blatantly religious hue, to resonate in the venues warm, woody chapel, better known for concerts than plays. The concert reading format keeps staging minimal: actors on scripts with live music from a seven-piece chamber orchestra conducted by company music director and veteran Portland theater musician Stephanie Smith, part of a 10-performer lineup.
Instead of large sets, Puddletown leans on projections. Davidson was impressed by lighting director Stephen Eggers at the church, whose recent work on a Legends of Zelda concert combined music and imagery. He brought Eggers aboard to create lighting and visuals for Floyd Collins. It feels like were actually in the cave, Davidson says. Renting the church for the night cost $1500, a reminder of how unconventional spaces can trim expenses while shaping atmosphere.
Davidson doesnt hide his ambitions beyond musicals, citing interest in a stage adaptation of Stephen Kings Misery in a vacant house and eyeing Urinetown for Portland, where, he notes, class issues are never not relevant. For now, this premiere is a proving ground for Puddletowns artistic and financial principles and it happens to fall on his 41st birthday.
Vía orartswatch.org
