There are plenty of things Portland could use more of right now. Sunny winter days would be nice. A magical solution to traffic wouldn’t hurt. But somewhere near the top of the list should be places where kids can put down a screen, use their imaginations, laugh loudly, see something completely new, and maybe discover something about themselves in the process.
That’s why the return of Oregon Children’s Theatre is such genuinely great news.
Oregon Children’s Theatre announced that programming will return in 2027, roughly a year after the longtime Portland organization paused operations while confronting serious financial problems. For an organization that has spent decades introducing kids to live theater, the pause was more than another piece of unfortunate arts news. OCT might not make it back at all.
The financial problems weren’t minor. OCT said it lost a major grant in 2022 that represented about one-third of its revenue, while the lingering effects of the pandemic continued creating problems for theaters everywhere. Even after cutting expenses and staff, the organization concluded its old model wasn’t sustainable. That’s especially striking considering OCT says it still served more than 80,000 children in 2024.
So when the theater went dark, this wasn’t the theatrical version of taking a long vacation. OCT launched a $1 million fundraising effort and began examining how it could rebuild without simply returning to exactly what it had been doing before.
And now we know the answer isn’t just “open the doors again.”
OCT has unveiled a new mission built around making theater and arts education more accessible to kids throughout Oregon and Southwest Washington. Its three-year plan includes expanding educational programs, developing more partnerships with schools, offering residencies and after-school programs, and eventually growing its theatrical productions again. The organization also plans to rely more heavily on partnerships and smaller productions rather than immediately attempting to recreate its previous operating model.
That last part might sound like boring nonprofit strategy talk, but it’s actually one of the most encouraging pieces of this story.
A successful children’s theater shouldn’t be accessible only to families who already know where to find it, can afford the tickets, and can easily get downtown. Taking productions and educational programs into schools and different communities means OCT can potentially reach kids who might never otherwise sit inside a theater.
And you never know which kid that will matter to.
For some children, theater is just a fun Saturday activity. That’s perfectly fine. Not everything your kid does needs to become a formative life experience worthy of a college application.
For others, though, seeing live theater can be the moment they discover storytelling, music, acting, costumes, set design, or simply the strangely wonderful experience of watching an entire room of people create something together. OCT’s renewed mission puts a particular emphasis on creating welcoming places where children feel connected and included, something that matters well beyond whether a kid ever decides to step onto a stage themselves.
Families won’t have to wait forever to see what this new version looks like.
OCT’s first major production will be “Gretel! The Musical,” a collaboration with Portland State University running February 25 through March 6, 2027, at Lincoln Performance Hall. Recommended for ages 8 and older, it puts a new spin on the familiar fairy-tale world with music, puppetry, and a story centered around a young girl navigating grief, fear, and her own strength.
Then things get especially interesting in May.
“Mariposa/Butterfly,” a bilingual production designed for ages 2 to 6, will perform at Alberta Abbey before moving to the Chehalem Cultural Center in Newberg. School performances will also reach Beaverton’s Patricia Reser Center for the Arts. In other words, OCT’s promise to take its work beyond one traditional theater space isn’t some vague five-year idea buried inside a strategic plan. It’s already happening.
Field trips are returning as well. OCT plans performances for school groups beginning in February 2027, with tickets priced at $12 per student and $6 for Title I schools, plus limited financial assistance.
That matters because children’s theater occupies a pretty unique corner of the arts. Plenty of wonderful entertainment exists for adults, and Portland already has some terrific family programming. But organizations devoted specifically to introducing young audiences to theater aren’t interchangeable.
When one disappears, you can’t simply tell kids, “No problem, we’ll catch something else instead.”
Oregon Children’s Theatre still has work ahead. Its own plan describes the 2026-27 period as a foundation-building year, with bigger expansion expected in the years that follow. This isn’t suddenly the same OCT Portland knew before the pause, and that seems to be the point.
Instead, it gets another act.
Portland gets to keep an institution that has spent more than three decades bringing stories to children, while OCT gets an opportunity to rethink how those stories reach them. If the result is a financially healthier organization that brings theater into more schools, more neighborhoods, and more communities, its difficult year away might ultimately lead to something better.
Besides, kids deserve places where dragons can appear, witches can live in houses with chicken legs, and breaking into song for absolutely no reason is considered perfectly normal behavior.
Welcome back, Oregon Children’s Theatre.
Tiffany Wilson is a 42-year-old stay-at-home mom from Tigard, Oregon, raising three kids—Sophie, Noah, and Riley. She’s a warm, hands-on parent who mixes daily routines with creative fun, whether it’s a backyard scavenger hunt or building a blanket fort in the living room.