An Octoroon is a raucously irreverent riff off a 19th Century hit melodrama set on a Louisiana plantation. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins offers a brazen and metatheatrical experience that twists a world of larger-than-life stereotypes into blistering social commentary. It's a hilarious and gasp-inducing satire from one of America's most thrilling writers.
Scenic Designer: Tal Sanders #
Costume Designer: Wanda Walden
Lighting Designer: Blanca Forzán
Composer/Sound Designer: Phil Johnson
Resident Stage Manager: Carol Ann Wohlmut +^
Props Master: Robert Amico
Resident Fight Choreographer: Jonathan Cole *
Dramaturg: Pancho Savery
Production Assistant: Karen M. Hill +
Production Assistant: Megan Moll
Board Op: Jason Coffey
+ Member of Actors Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the U.S.
* Member of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society
# The scenic, costume, lighting, projection & sound designers are represented by United Scenic Artists
± Equity Membership Candidate
^ Artists Rep Resident Artist
An Octoroon listed as #1 in Portland Monthly's top 20 shows you can't miss!
“Addressing race in theater—an art form too often dominated by white people in both its creation and its consumption—is an important task in any political moment, and this is one of the best treatments of it I’ve seen in recent memory.”
-Megan Burbank, Portland Mercury
FULL REVIEW
“An Octoroon always seems like it’s one step ahead of you—it constantly wonders aloud about its own limits."
-Shannon Gormely, Willamette Week
FULL REVIEW
“The play holds up a mirror to our ideas about race and then proceeds to shatter them…”
-Krista Garver, Broadway World-Portland
FULL REVIEW
"An Octoroon is worth seeing and discussing and seeing again."
-Meg Currell, Edge Media Network
FULL REVIEW
“…directors Lava Alapai & Dámaso Rodríguez understand what the show is trying to do and turn everything up to 11.”
-TJ Acena, Oregon Artswatch
FULL REVIEW
“Lessons drenched in vicious humor, and anger treated with laughter, can do more to bring our attention to serious subjects than anything else.”
-Holly Johnson, The Oregonian
FULL REVIEW
“It’s a feeling. It’s a visceral response. It’s electrifying in what it chooses to present to its audience. It’s about questions without clear answers.”
-Cassie Duncanson, Portland State University Vanguard
FULL REVIEW
“…it definitely will raise eyebrows with some people, which is a good thing.”
-Dennis Sparks, Dennis Sparks Reviews
FULL REVIEW
"Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins is using a genre associated with exclamation points to ask questions not only about the portrayal of race in America but also about the inadequate means we have for such portrayals." - The New York Times
FULL REVIEW
"This decade’s most eloquent theatrical statement on race in America today." - The New York Times
FULL REVIEW
"Messy, clever and sometimes gut-bustingly funny." - StarTribune
FULL REVIEW
"A knockout, a radical rethinking, a great time." - Philly.com
FULL REVIEW
"An Octoroon is like nothing we've seen in contemporary American theater." - Cleveland.com
FULL REVIEW
"A work that is infinitely playful and deeply serious and which dazzlingly questions the nature of theatrical illusion." - The Guardian
FULL REVIEW
