2019

What we set out to do

Create 5 in works in 5 years of diverse genres which center underrepresented stories through collaborative relationships and projects.

2023

Where we’re landing

Embarked on seven new works spanning mainstage, video, workshop, and classroom projects. Added an additional genre to the five already determined. Centered BIPOC voices in the majority of projects.

looking back: 2023

When we started the 5 in 5 in 2019, several political factors were sounding an alarm to artists around the world. Since his inauguration in 2017, former President Trump’s executive order banned travel from several Muslim countries, multiple protections for trans people were rolled back including a ban on transgender military service, and ongoing discussion over immigration and the proposed wall between US and Mexico created an environment of dire calamity. 

I was one year out of grad school and ready to make an audacious proposal: rev up my new works game with an impossible goal to create five new works in five years. To do this, I’d double down on my commitment to collaboration in order to stimulate the creation of theater works partnering with and centering underrepresented voices. 

We couldn’t have known then how the global pandemic and the civil rights uprising of 2020 would alter the course of this intention. True to the initial goal, these projects have spanned the multiple genres we set out to explore: dance theater, devised work, plays with music, adaptation, and musical theater. And the original intention toward amplifying underrepresented stories became even more specific: elevate visibility for artists of color. 

The pandemic didn’t allow us to deliver finished mainstage productions, but rather custom-created offerings shaped by each moment in time. Our projects sprouted into different forms, including video, small-scale workshops for invited audiences, and even an unplanned community class designed to help us recover and make sense of the pandemic in our physical and social bodies. 

Over the course of the 5 in 5 initiative, some of our key collaborators have included Northwest Piano Trio, actor/director Charles Grant, composers Yawa Amenta and Eric Nordin, filmmaker Lava Alapai and playwright Anya Pearson. Great Wide Open will be co-produced with Portland Playhouse in April, 2023, and we continue to develop two of the new work commissions. 

The 5 in 5 has helped Many Hats become a necessary generator of new work for our community. We have manifested the 5 in 5 with the support of our generous and stalwart subscribers, our funders, and our community. Thank you!

original statement of intention: 2019

The 5 in 5 initiative is an intentionally audacious, self-imposed challenge to create five new works of theater in five years. The 5 in 5 Initiative responds with urgency to the dynamic world in which we live by providing support for voices of artists through collaboration, engaging perspectives of community members and underrepresented populations, and increasing the diversity of representation on and behind Portland stages. 

See the story on the 5 in 5 in Broadway World.

5 in 5 at a Glance:

—-Over the period 2019-2023, Many Hats will create and produce five new works, intentionally challenging the constraints of a small theater company with an accelerated production timeline meant to respond to the dynamic sociopolitical environment of our time

—-Is a five year experiment in the exploration of theatrical form

—-Will include the creation of a new musical, devised piece, play, dance theater work and adaptation of nondramatic literature or source

—-Each new work will represent an experiment in collaboration, inviting artist(s)/community groups into a creative process to:

———1)  Engage multiple perspectives with the goal of expanding understanding and promoting transformation

———2)  Amplify the voices of underrepresented groups at a time when vulnerable populations are endangered and dissent is discouraged

———3) Increase representation of diverse populations and model inclusivity through project selection, casting, and employment practice

—-Overall impact by 2023 is to have achieved increased visibility of collaborating artists/groups, created opportunity for emerging artists and voices, impacted and grown Many Hats’ audience, and promoted greater understanding in those audiences with a rapidly expanded body of work for the company