A Company Of Girls Returns To The Stage After Four Years

After four years, A Company of Girls (ACOG) will return to in-person public performances with upcoming presentations of "Charlotte's Web" and "The Seussification of A Midsummer Night's Dream."

A Company of Girls is a Portland-based after-school and outreach program whose mission is to strengthen and empower youth and their families and foster community through the arts.

"Charlotte's Web," performed by ACOG's Fledgling group (grades 3-5) will run May 19-21, and "Midsummer..." performed by the Ensemble (grades 6-7) will run May 25-26. All performances will be held at the STAGES theater space in Woodfords Church, 202 Woodford Street in Portland.

"Our last public performances were held in 2019," says Executive Director Jennifer Roe. "We were heading into performance time in March 2020 when the pandemic hit. Without missing a beat, we began working with our students online over Zoom -- and that started a three-year journey of finding safe ways to continue performing, in just about every way we could think of."

ACOG used Zoom throughout the early days of the pandemic to continue engaging youth and creating art, with staff making contactless deliveries of art supplies, costumes, props, and even baking supplies for students to use at home during virtual sessions.

"On the theater front, we began by rehearsing plays and playing theater games over Zoom," says Roe. "We then decided to do something very new for us and record a virtual performance of 'Wizard of Oz' in spring of 2020. We filmed the show via Zoom, setting up individual greenscreen studios in everyone's homes, and learned how to edit in iMovie as we went. It was a heartwarming collaborative effort and resiliency-building experience at a very tumultuous time."

Virtual and Zoom-enabled performances of "Little Women," "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever," and "A Christmas Carol" followed over the next two years, recordings that brought in friends, family members, pets, and even alumni from across the country.

While ACOG resumed socially-distanced in-person programming in fall 2020, "Charlotte's Web" and "Midsummer..." mark the organization's first live public performances in four years.

"Finally," says Roe, "here we are rehearsing for something we took so much for granted in the past -- live performances that we invite the community to enjoy and engage in. We could not be more excited, nervous and joyful to be back, even though we really never left."

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