“A Year With Frog and Toad” by Robert Reale and Willie Reale, at
Oregon Children’s Theatre in 2012. Pictured: Joshua Stenseth and James Sharinghouse.
PORTLAND, ORE.: Oregon Children’s Theatre (OCT) announced last week that it will pause programming after summer camp season concludes on Sept. 1, as it begins an organizational restructuring and strategic planning process. This includes a halt to all productions and to the theatre’s education program, including its Young Professionals Company. OCT is launching a major fundraising campaign in tandem with the pause to safeguard a future for the company, as the company continues to face financial shortfalls and challenges.
“We are in a position where we must pause our work so that we can be intentional and strategic about how we move forward,” producing artistic director Jenn Hartmann Luck said in a statement. “We have been facing these challenges for many years, and in order for us to create a way forward, we must stop and assess who we are as an organization, what we need in order to continue producing shows and providing educational programming, and create a financial model that works so that we can come back stronger, ready to serve the youth and families in our community.”
In addition to calls for individual donations, the organization is working with local and regional foundations, securing available grant funding, and pursuing other revenue sources, partnerships, and sponsorships. OCT estimates that it needs to raise $1 million to sustain the organization now through the end of the year and to position itself to reopen in the future.
Following a call for donations in summer 2024, after raising nearly $130,000, OCT’s production with TheaterWorksUSA, Cat Kid Comic Club: the Musical, had sold-out performances at Portland’5 Centers for the Arts’s Newmark Theatre in November 2024. But OCT was unable to produce any additional mainstage shows at Portland’5 for the remainder of its 2024-25 season, and released performance dates with Portland’5 over the next few seasons.
“We know this financial model is unsustainable,” Luck’s statement continued. “The reality is that we simply cannot afford to perform in that venue currently and must preserve the funding we have in order to survive as a company. We recognize that, while we cannot afford to continue forward with ‘business as usual,’ our families and community may also need something different from us. We want to create an organization that serves the community in the way they want to be served.”
For the remainder of 2025, OCT plans to create a path forward by reflecting and evaluating its financial business model, securing funding, and gauging changes to programming, productions, and further activations in service to the community by surveying its patrons, families, and the broader community. Luck said the company is dedicated to reestablishing education programs as soon as possible.
“No one involved in this process is interested in closing OCT altogether,” said OCT board president Linda Slavin in a statement. “We know what the loss of a youth-serving organization like OCT would mean to the community, both in Portland and beyond. We are going to do everything in our power to keep going, and we are going to need the help and support of many people—donors, foundations, partners, and more—to keep the company open into the future. We have a plan, we can see a way forward, but we will not be able to take that journey without the support of our community.”
Founded in 1988, Oregon Children’s Theatre (OCT) is Oregon’s largest nonprofit professional theatre for young audiences and has served well over 2 million children, teachers, and families. Its mission is to create exceptional theatre experiences that transform lives. As of 2023, the theatre’s budget was just over $3 million.
