Acting Classes and Authentic Connection in Portland
Saturday morning classes at Twilight Theater! Wednesday night classes in SE Portland.
Film – This Vast and Mysterious Ocean
Written and directed by John Bergstrom and produced by desert island studios.
Stage – Home Free & I, Human
Directed by Chris Harder for The Actors Conservatory 2022 One Act Festival at Portland Center Stage in the Ellyn Bye Studio Theatre.
Video – Time Capsule
In the pandemic year of 2020, fourteen Americans isolated by self-quarantine desperately hold on to their bonds of love and friendship remotely — as their lives unravel, their future unknown. Their recorded stories are found in a time capsule years later.
Stage / Livestream – From These Streets I Rise
“FROM THESE STREETS I RISE is just good theatre… thanks to Chris Harder’s direction and the skillful work of the streaming team, I almost felt like I was actually sitting at CoHo!” – Review
Stage – Cop Out – Beyond Black, White & Blue
A brand new, direct address style performance piece that reflects the complicated personal and professional experiences and emotions of police officers in our country today. @ Hollywood Theater
Portland Theatre Links
This is a growing list. Please feel free to contact me about Portland Theatres I should add. Thanks.
ALS Association of Oregon and Washington
Mission: To discover treatments and a cure for ALS, and to serve, advocate for, and empower people affected by ALS to live their lives to the fullest.
Film – 2021 Conservatory Graduate Showcase
Directed by
Chris Harder & Shelly Lipkin
Scenes and monologues selected and filmed by the graduate students of The Actors Conservatory.
Podcast – Vinegar Tom
Audio Drama – The Crucible meets Oooo Hooo Witchay Woman meets Handmaid’s Tale.
Stage – 2020 Graduation Showcase
Directed by
Chris Harder & Shelly Lipkin
Scenes and monologues selected and filmed by the graduate students of The Actors Conservatory.
Stage – Wolf Play
In a world where people struggle to have children, one American couple decides to ‘un-adopt’ their young Korean son because they have a newborn at home.
Stage – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Directed by Beth Harper & Chris Harder
Presented by the Portland Actors Conservatory @ Artists Rep
Stage – It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play
The beloved holiday staple comes to life as a live 1940s radio broadcast with the story of George Bailey.
Stage – Caught
“Caught” is unlike any other play you’ll see this season. Not just because you never know what’s coming next.”
Stage – The Thanksgiving Play
“Artists Repertory Theatre’s production is perfectly cast. Chris Harder brings off-kilter energy to Caden”
Outdoor Stage – Shrew!
New adaptation of Taming of the Shrew by Amy Freed at Sun Valley Shakespeare Festival’s outdoor stage.
Stage – Marjorie Prime
“Harder’s a master of stillness and understatement (think back to that quiet yet emotionally staggering performance in 2014’s Intimate Apparel), and he strikes a delicate balance here — semi-sweet, pleasantly plausible, never quite artificial, just a little flat in spots. He’s a sandy-haired anodyne, earnest and inviting, drawing us into this brave new world, where memory is a prime motivator.”
Proscenium Live – Festival of New Work
Portland Shakespeare Project Presents
August 4th, 5th and 6th
at Artists Repertory Theatre
Alder Stage
Staged Reading – Mnisose
A new play in development by Mary Kathryn Nagle tells the story of one of America’s first feminists, Sacajawea, and draws a line from a completely original view of Lewis and Clark to the present …
Stage – 26 Miles
Quiara Alegria Hudes play about finding love and connection on a spontaneous road trip with a brilliant teen and her estranged mother.
June 15 – 25, 2017
Stage – Head. Hands. Feet. Tales of Dismemberment
A delightfully dark descent into the wild terrain of fairytale and myth. Bluebeard, The Red Shoes, The Handless Maiden & Iphigenia.
Oct 7 – Nov 5
Stage – The Skin of Our Teeth
Rare and epic revival of the 1943 Pulitzer Prize winner.
May 17 – June 19
Stage – We Are Proud To Present…
A multiracial cast of six idealistic actors sets out to improvise a story about the first colonial genocide of the 20th Century in Africa.
March 8 – April 10
Stage – The Yellow Wallpaper
“Chris Harder’s John has a steam trunk chest full of 19th century confidence in his practicality and the grand roads that empiricism is paving.” – Oregon Arts Watch
Stage – The Turn of the Screw
“There is, of course, the purely actorly pleasure of watching Harder switch from character to character, which he does not showily (he never even changes costume, wearing formal Victorian men’s attire from start to finish) but subtly, with the slightest twisting of the apparatus.” – Bob Hicks
“Quite a feat and he does it brilliantly!” – Dennis Sparks
Drammy Award Finalists Announced!
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A PLAY
Chris Harder
Intimate Apparel
Artists Repertory Theatre
BEST ACTOR IN A PLAY
Chris Harder
The Snowstorm
CoHo Productions
+ Many Hats Collaboration
Teen Summer Classes at Portland Center Stage
Under the guidance of working theater professionals, participants will explore a wide variety of contemporary theater studies including monologues, scene study and playwriting.
Stage/Tour -The Centering
“…beautifully performed… Harder exhibits masterful command of the script… A mesmerizing and moving, well-written and affecting play- a superb fringe performance.”
Fishing For My Father
“Charlie Chaplin taught us years ago that Everyman can both act the clown and demonstrate enormous dignity, and Chris Harder’s fisherman shows us the same thing.”
Cyrano – Portland Center Stage
Set in 17th century France, the classic romantic comedy Cyrano tells the story of a great swordsman with a beautiful soul, who is handicapped by a huge nose that makes him believe he is incapable of being loved by the beautiful Roxane.
The Snowstorm – CoHo Productions
This visceral, sonically vivid new performance piece brings the classical piano music of Rachmaninoff to life through cutting edge physical theatre spun around a classic romance with magical elements of puppetry and mask. The power of music to connect, to ignite, and to heal weaves through this original fable by some of Portland’s most inventive and cherished collaborating theatre-artists.
Intimate Apparel – Artists Repertory Theatre
“It is exquisite!” The same could be said about the performance by Chris Harder as that magnanimous merchant,”
Othello – Portland Center Stage
Set in 17th century Venice, this is Shakespeare’s profound tragedy of the power of love and jealousy. A highly esteemed general serving the state of Venice, Othello, secretly marries Desdemona, the daughter of a senator.
Classes at Oregon Children’s Theatre
Summer Classes for kids!
Perfect for the aspiring young actor. Apply theater exercises to scene work, monologues, and audition techniques.
Fall Festival of Shakespeare
The Fall Festival of Shakespeare is a non-competitive region-wide collaboration between Portland Playhouse and area high schools. The Festival is a spectacular theatrical event.
Ten Chimneys
This revealing comedy peers into the backstage lives of Broadway power-duo Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in Jeffrey Hatcher’s new play brimming with theatre lore.
Mother Teresa is Dead
Young wife and mother Jane (Nikki Weaver), gripped by personal and moral crisis, flees her family and her home in the UK without word.
Angels In America
Harrowing, uproarious, and magical, Angels in America is a fiercely theatrical modern morality play and a landmark of the American stage.
Antigone Now
In the midst of a bombed-out city still feeling the aftershocks of war, the rebellious Antigone defies her uncle to bury her disgraced brother. This deeply stirring adaptation of Sophocles’ Antigone transforms the poetry of ancient Greece into a contemporary, electrifying production. Great for ages 11 and up.
Stage – Fool For Love
“As Eddie, Chris Harder dances through this minefield with a cowboy’s crooked gait and a crocodile grin, relishing his gamesmanship. He really captures Eddie’s combination of rough allure and sly menace in a performance that’s as unsettling as it is wonderful to watch.”