STOREFRONT ACTORS THEATRE

Years: 1970-1991

Storefront as the company was commonly known produced at various locations in Portland beginning at Portland State University, then taking over a storefront in NE Portland. It also produced plays at the Winningstad Theatre, Chateau L’Bamm, and Paris Theatre. Polina Olsen Storefront Theater October 18, 2012 · "According to her son Nick, Anne Gerety stumbled on the North Russell Street storefront when she got off at the wrong bus stop on her way to Kaiser Permanente. Once the home of Polish immigrants, the industrialized neighborhood now lay decrepit and abandoned. Gerety looked around the rat-infested space, saw plaster falling off brick walls, and thought, 'Perfect.'" Read more about the Storefront Theatre in "Portland in the 1960s: Stories From the Counterculture." Photo by Henk Pander, Courtesy of the artist. www.facebook.com/PortlandInThe1960sStoriesFromTheCounterculture — with Clark Huddleston, Anny Celsi, Victoria Mercer, Victoria Mercer, Ross Kerr, and Susan Sweeney.

The company was not known as a gay theater, but it did use gender-bending in its shows and presented many gay-themed and gay shows over its history. Below is by no means the complete listing of LGBTQ shows produced by this company.

1976 -Myths

1976 - Pilk’s Madhouse

1977- Jewel Box

1980 - The Fifth of July

1982 - Quarters

1986 - The Normal Heart

Check out The History of Storefront Actors’ Theatre onstage | The Southeast Examiner of Portland Oregon also Storefront Theatre (oregonencyclopedia.org)

The theater received nationwide attention with an article in Mandate magazine, in August 1977 for the show Jewel Box.

In 2015 triangle productions! Executive Director wrote and company produced a show entitled Throwback Thursday: Wild, crazy and important legacy of Storefront Theatre gets an encore - oregonlive.com https://www.oregonlive.com/history/2015/04/throwback_thursday_wild_crazy.html also a book Almost Lost History of Oregon: Storefront.

Above Left, Northwest Gay Review, July 1976; - Above Right, Northwest Gay Review, November 1976 Below: Northwest Gay Review, February 1977

Other sources of information: Drama on a Cosmic Scale. A small Oregon company's audacious staging of a neglected epic proves that modern theater needn't be small-minded. CELTIC M... - CSMonitor.com