June 20th -28th 2025

Weekend 1

POPPY PEOPLE ACT II: DOWNRIVER
By Jared Maurice Dancler & Special Company
Friday June 20th at 7:30pm

BOOK TICKETS

"There is a place, a place for my soul.  I know there’s a place.  Is there a grave meadow?"

Ashi & friends present another glimpse into the world of Poppy People, where grief is playing understudy to every role known.  Somní, having awoken in the realm must seed this emerging story with remembrance, must find his soul in everyone we meet. Come from the mountain where water is re-born, Somní follows the river down, down to a burdensome marshland possessed by shadows.  ​

“Can we play with our dead?”

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21 New Messages by Stefan Feuerherdt
​& Up the Hill by Val Landrum
Saturday June 21st at 7:30pm

BOOK TICKETS

21 New Messages by Stefan Feuerherdt
​Directed by Chris Harder, featuring Val Landrum
In this intimate immersive play, a woman returns to her mother’s home to pack after an unexpected tragedy – and discovers a trove of unheard messages on an old telephone answering machine. In a unique twist, it's audience members who read the messages aloud, becoming storytellers to the actor on stage. As the messages "play," they reveal glimpses of the woman and her mother’s life and their complicated bond, and the woman is forced to confront her own patterns and choices. 
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A poignant exploration of generational echoes,emotional inheritance and community, the show premiered at Portland’s Fertile Ground Festival in April 2025 and will receive an international debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2025. 

Up the Hill by Val Landrum
It’s been thirty years since Emily lost her life to childbirth. It’s been three years since George and her son have visited. She’s now the only one left in the cemetery at the top of the hill, with the exception of a supernatural being named S.M. Simeon who is trying to save her from a fate worse than death. 
When George finally does show up, his memory has left him and Emily must now get him to remember it all as the pocket watch ticks away. Based loosely on Thorton Wilder’s Our Town and the events that happened in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire in 1913, Up the Hill was first workshopped this past January 2025 through PDX Playwrights’ Scenario @ CoHo Theatre. ​

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Weekend 2

WE’RE GONNA DIE
By Young Jean Lee
​Starring Sammy Rat Rios
Thursday June 26th & Friday June 27th at 7:30pm

BOOK TICKETS

"A combination of pop concert and autobiographical lament for the human condition, We're Gonna Die's forthright acknowledgment that life can be a rough business is bracing, funny, and, yes, consoling.Young Jean Lee is, hands down, the most adventurous downtown playwright of her generation." -Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

"One of the most inexplicably pleasurable experiences of my theatergoing life . . . A goofily grim and oddly uplifting meditation by one of the most restlessly experimental--and wildly entertaining--writer-directors working in the theater today." - Adam Green, Vogue

WE’RE GONNA DIE was originally produced by Caleb Hammons for Playwrights Inc., in association association with Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company
WE’RE GONNA DIE premiered in April 2011 at Joe’s Pub in New York, NY
WE’RE GONNA DIE was developed in part through a residency at the National Theatre Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center”

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KIKI'S HOT JUICY AMERICAN PIE 
Directed and performed by Kimo Camat
​Saturday, June 28th
Doors open 6:30pm, Show begins at 7:30pm 

BOOK TICKETS

​Kiki’s Hot Juicy American Pie is a bold, joyous declaration that rewrites the script on shame, sex, and the beautiful act of being our authentic, queer selves in a world that’s uncomfortable with our truth. A cabaret styled concert where intimacy, sensuality, and the unapologetic celebration of every swerve, curve, and quirk of the human body take center stage.
In a culture that whispers in shame about sex, where body dysmorphia and comparison culture can sometimes steal our peace, this concert flips the narrative. From sexual awakenings to reveling in the magic of self-love, this concert will explore what it means to feel at home in our own skin.
Serving as a remount of part two of their Kiki Series, Kimo and his band want to celebrate the summer with you with a big sexy concert! This show also falls on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York where our community fought for our voices to be heard. While we’ve come a long way in the 50+ years and have a lot to celebrate, we still have a lot to fight for. We invite you to sing along, walk in with palms facing up, and most importantly, treat yourself with a little more kindness today. 

​Director/Lead Vocals: Kimo Camat
Music Director/Piano: Mak Kastelic
Bass: Juliet Terrill
Guitar: Joseph Mammarella
Drums: Paul Van Sickle
Saxophone: Peter QB
Backing Vocals: Maddie Tran
Backing Vocals: Christina Avellan Mantilla
Backing Vocals: Eddie May
Stage Manager: Joey Torres

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PAST FESTIVALS 
​2024

Join us for 4 evenings of events, including a yard sale & Shaking the Tree's 21st birthday party 
July 12th-20th 

A fashion performance brand launch by Josh Sin, directed by Rebby Yuer Foster​. Words by Ken Yoshikawa. Featuring Philip Coulon, Sizheng Song, Marcel Johansen, Mari, Kayla Hanson, & Deniz Aydemir. 
​Doors open 7pm. Performance at 7:30pm.

SATIRE is a lifestyle brand that creates innovative experiences for all five human senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste. On July 12th, 2024, Satire will unveil its latest innovations and brand experience through a keynote speech by its CEO and founder, a glimpse into the near possible future, and an anti-fashion fashion show. 

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Come and snag a piece of Shaking the Tree ephemera!
We've been pricing things deep in the StT vault and you will be tickled to see what we're getting rid of.
We'll have set pieces, props and costumes on sale between 12-7pm. You might find something from a show you loved!!

You could time your visit with this night's show in our theatre and stay for some entertainment after shopping.

There will be refreshments and food in our courtyard, as well as vendors Taylor Ilese with crochet goods, Wendi YuLing (costume designer of We Wrote This With You In Mind) with an assortment of items, Mia Rose with vintage clothes, Analucia with handmade clothes, & Coho Theatre with items from their past season & information on the resource center.

We can't wait to see you there!

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Solo plays by Orlando Reyes Cabrera & Pedro Dominguez. Directed by Anthony Shepard & Kamryn Fall.
Doors open 7pm. Performance at 7:30pm
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Fuerza written by Orlando Reyes Cabrera is about trying to navigate a new chapter of life in a new environment with circumstances and ideals they grew up with. Orlando attempts to illustrate their ancestors' experience - existing with an idea of a larger than life world. A world filled with opportunity. A world that at first glance is brushed with bright colors, wonder and rays of sun. Then quickly having to navigate hopelessness and resilience in the “real world” once they realize that everything is not what it seems.

thought-o-vision: In the midst of the night, Ped was just playing video games until they found out they're gonna die in the morning! Now it's up to a body possessing alien with an eye condition to help them in their final moments to find peace in their short but funny life. Created during their acting apprenticeship at the Portland Playhouse in 2020, this is Pedro's attempt to tackle their mortality and their regular spiral inducing thoughts in their "hehe/haha"' MO, trying to show some levity of the dark thoughts we all have.

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A play reading by Brandt Maina | RIOA wa ROE. Featuring performers Marcel Mawulorm Johansen, Brandt Maina | RIOA wa ROE, & Olivia Matthews
​Doors open 6pm for installation viewing. Performance at 7:30pm

For this staged reading of Moon Bloom, our favorite local honey-and-grass-fed Kenyan writer, Brandt Maina | RIOA wa ROE shows us the sultry side of sadness. Saliva dripping from tightly clasped teeth, this artist knows what they are doing. Enticing us with a sweetish sordid invitation to the far too intimate privacies of his medulla’s interstices. “What do YOU remember, hmmmm?” Of the 9 plays from Maina's SpringSummer2023 series, Succinct Suppositions, play No. 5, Moon Bloom, is the one RIOA wa ROE fears the second most as it dwells where the well runs thick. Ahh, swell — to soften the delivery of this staged reading, Maina, a convoluting abstractionist, invites us to gaze at a chrysalis burping his/her newborn perp-and-duck, you-liar. Yes, yes, yes — the reading will be presented between/in/of an installation of his collection, The Natives' Springing Sprints, 24 double-sided minimalist white ink drawings on black paper mounted on dangling cedar splines. No Borox, No Glue. She is here to remind you that the generation below you is unfathomable succulence. Tea, Te, Twight. And yes, and yes, because he/they/she is generous, fertile even, they/she/he will present us with a dance performance, offer us a gilded medi-trepidation, and recite a reading of something yet undecided, something brief —ooh the CHAOS of it all! Why should we trust a they/man from the Land of the MauMau.  
Fear and Faith
Fear and Faith
A tsunami of frothing meadowfoam lifts into your moth 
Fills, the ankle thrills 
The Good Angel is always right --
everything
everything?
everything leans in/to the night
obtuse and concave 
Come thither and
Extend the neck of thy head back
Roll thy golf balls and
Summon the Heavens to Fyeather Dust us with Perfect Peace 

The Table is Set
Everyone is Welcome

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Shaking the Tree's 21st Birthday Party 

Last but certainly not least in our Nothing Left to Lose festival, we are throwing a birthday party on Saturday, July 20th from 7-10pm! Come celebrate with us as Shaking the Tree turns 21 and can finally gamble at casinos, adopt a child, book a hotel room, drink at Disney, rent a car - the possibilities are endless! This is a FREE community event that is just as much about you as it is our theatre. Your support over the years has been immeasurably appreciated. Whether you’ve worked at our theatre in a creative capacity or are part of the incredible audience filling our seats with butts, we love you and want to party with you!

We’ll be featuring live music by Lake whose original compositions you heard in our past productions Model Minority, In a Different Reality She’s Clawing at the Walls, and We Wrote This with You In Mind. Sammy Rat Rios, who you saw in our most recent production The Brother and the Bird, will be performing a live solo set interspersed with videos from some of our favorite moments of past plays, and we'll reveal our new logo design. And of course we can’t finish the night with anything but a dance party DJ set by Calm Radio. 

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2023 

4 evenings of performances
July 7th-15th, 2023

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Day 1

A reading of a play by Josie Seid, featuring S. Renee Mitchell, Jasmine Cottrell, Lauren Steele, Gerrin Mitchell, & Jonathan Cullen.

A contemporary retelling of the Greek tragedy Hecuba is told from an African American perspective, integrating modern themes and concepts, A principal, haunted by a school shooting, uncovers a series of unthinkable crimes and conspiracies… and is pushed toward taking a shocking act of revenge.

Day 2

A live video / dance installation by Skye Ritcher, featuring a live movement performance by Skye Ritcher, Sara Parker, & Nick Jurica. 

​Sarno is a multichannel video installation featuring a live dance performance that explores the interplay between projected video and live choreography, highlighting the conversation between the two mediums. The choreography serves as a meditation on the parallel influences exerted by the human brain and digital media on shaping our perception of reality. The dancers engage in a durational practice of continuous movement in which they reach exhaustion repeatedly, before eventually disintegrating into the movement itself. 

Sarno raises the question of which entity, the brain or the screen, offers a more potent distortion of reality. The performance does not have the objective of determining which lens, whether it be the human brain or the screen, possesses a more powerful capacity to distort reality. Instead, it aims to spark contemplation and dialogue about the complex relationship between human cognition and digital media, highlighting how both can shape our understanding of the world in profound and sometimes unexpected ways.

The curiosity in the brain's power over perception and the screen's similar ability to distort it arise from the artist's 10 year bout with chronic pain that brought an end to their professional dance career and their subsequent engagement with lens based media. Recently published research into the field of chronic pain and psychosomatic syndromes have made clear the connection between the neural pathways in the body and the brain's ability to signal pain long after the acute pathology has left the body. The artist invites the audience to suspend their surety of the stimuli that they perceive during the performance and to contemplate the implications of shunning what we think might be real. ​

Day 3

A performance art piece by Marcel Mawulorm Johansen, with live music by Quomni. 

"Growing up in Ghana, rites of passage were commonplace - we’d learn about them in school but i’d rarely encounter them in real life. A good portion of the christian community, including many close to me found many of the old cultural practices and rituals to be idolatry... demonic. Consequently, I believed the same and viewed them with fear: but on the inside, I was drawn to them still. Having lived away from home over 7 years, I find that much of me is still very Ghanaian — many of those parts not seeing the light of day often, if ever. This performance invokes different parts of me in one sitting, with witnesses present.
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Rites of passage across various cultures serve as markers of growth and transition.
I invite you to bear witness to this ritual, a new age culture quilt from a Ghanaian wanderer, American resident, symbolizing transcendence of values, beliefs, and “selves” that no longer serve. I invite you to reflect on your own rites of passage and ponder their role in your growth as a person. To shed old skin, emerging yet another version of yourself, ready to be marked anew by life in different ways.
What would you have people watch you do as a symbol of transition? ... What would be your ritual?"

Day 4

Live music & visuals by VoxOwl: Matthew Gailey, & THEY GAMBLE: Michael Gamble & Devin Febbroriello
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​​VoxOwl is a live looping act, incorporating mixed reality and real instruments, lofi beats and soulful vocals, for a truly unique musical and visual experience. 

The “Gold Rush" by THEY GAMBLE is an  A/V performance featuring audio reactive projections and improvisations by interdisciplinary performance artists THEY GAMBLE.  Gold Rush is an exploration of the symbolic, literal, and figurative nature of Gold. How is it that one precious metal atomic number 79 has held such a firm position of power for so long? What is the point of gold?  Why does it have value at all?  During our performance we will utilize a midi controller to synthesize the electromagnetic forces of a gold nugget into an audio visual display, and interact with sound to create an improvised sonic and visual landscape.  The live  time based audio reactive processing will be presented in tandem with a series of found/original video footage, spoken word, and sound effects collected through our research about Gold.