Class of 2021
Emmy Duckart graduated from UP in 2021 with a BA in Theater and a minor in French. That summer, she completed an apprenticeship with Original Practice Shakespeare Festival, and has been with the company ever since. She is now a core company member, and works with them year-round in the admin, fundraising, education, and publicity departments, in addition to acting during their summer season. Favorite roles with OPS Fest include Brutus (Julius Caesar), Romeo (Romeo and Juliet), Ophelia (Hamlet), and Rosalind (As You Like It). When she isn't acting, Emmy enjoys spending time with her wonderful spouse, Chloe, and menace of a cat, Pierre, as well as baking and playing TTRPGs.
Class of 2018
Elijah is in his 3rd year of post-graduate life since completing his MFA in Acting from the University of Montana (UM) where he performed in plays, musicals, and dance shows with the School of Theater & Dance and Montana Repertory Theater. In February 2020, Elijah had an original, solo dance piece selected for the National ACDA Conference which (like many things that year) got canceled. Later that year, Elijah released his debut album, Nothing to Say (streaming on all platforms), and he is currently working on releasing more music in the coming years.
For his final project at UM, he wrote and performed in an original one-person show titled SCREAMIN' FROM THE ZOO (SFTZ), then he moved back home to the Bay Area where he performed SFTZ at SF Playground as part of their 5th annual Solo Performance Festival. Later that year, Elijah had his first full-length play examining mental health, Five Lil Birds, produced by his alma mater, Saint Joseph Notre Dame High School (SJND), for their Fall Play. Elijah then went on to lead the Theater Program at SJND for the 2023-2024 school year where he taught classes as well as directed and choreographed their Spring Musical, HAIR: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical. He also worked with the African American Shakespeare Company as Tom in The Glass Menagerie and Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet.
Most recently, Elijah went on to pursue a professional career in basketball in the Philippines, but he is back in the Bay looking to continue building his brand and body of work. At this current moment, he is creating a secondhand, bleach-dye clothing brand called Black Bleach while developing a new one-person show titled SKIBIDI.
Class of 2018
Rebby Yuer Foster (they/them) is the Associate Artistic Director of Shaking the Tree Theatre in Portland, Oregon. They are a Chinese-American director & multidisciplinary artist. Recent directing credits at Shaking the Tree include SATIRE, We Wrote This With You In Mind, In A Different Reality She's Clawing At The Walls, MODELMINORITY, & 家人: A Self Portrait.
Rebby is a former Acting Apprentice at the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville ‘18-19. They grew up in Seattle, Washington and received their B.A. in Theatre & English at the University of Portland.
Class of 2019
A transplant from Lompoc, CA, Emily studied dramaturgy and performance at UP. Post-graduation, Emily has performed with Hand2Mouth Theatre, Shaking the Tree, Portland Revels, and Milagro. Primarily, she works as a stage manager - credits include What Brings You Here at Hand2Mouth, and Forbidden Fruit, Fucking A, MODELMINORITY, and Chick Fight at Shaking the Tree. Emily has also been a dramaturg on numerous productions, such as In A Different Reality She’s Clawing At The Walls (Shaking the Tree), i defy you, stars (Do It For Mead), and The Killing Fields (Orphic). Emily was a teaching artist for Hand2Mouth and Milagro, and is a current Hand2Mouth Company member. She also works for the PFA Department as their Academic Coordinator.
Class of 2020
Kai Hynes is a theatre and performance artist and educator. He currently works with Shaking the Tree as their Box Office Manager, as well as their Accessibility Coordinator & Instructor. Onstage credits with Shaking the Tree include Forbidden Fruit, MODELMINORITY, Family, Short Flix, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and he has also performed with Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble (PETE) and Hand2Mouth Theatre. Interested in making outside of traditional frameworks, he teaches devised theatre pedagogies through PETE and Hand2Mouth Theatre, and has recently been self-producing projects with friends/collaborators. He holds a B.A. in Theatre and English from the University of Portland and is a graduate of PETE’s Institute for Contemporary Performance.
Class of 2019
Kalā Müller (He/Him/His) is a Hawaiian artist who graduated with a BA in Theatre from the University of Portland in 2019, before going on to complete an MFA at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. Kalā currently works as an actor with Honolulu Theatre for Youth (HTY) entertaining countless keiki (children) and families across the Island of Oahu. HTY performs throughout Hawai'i, the continental US, and internationally, and Kalā is grateful to engage with so many diverse communities alongside those closest to home for him. His most recent project was The Pa'akai We Bring, a show about traditional Hawaiian Salt farming and the families that carry on this tradition, which toured throughout the US and Canada. Originally from Waimea on the Big Island of Hawai'i, he is thrilled to use what he learned during his time at UP to serve, support, entertain and inspire the children of Hawai'i (and even beyond!) now with his work every day.
Class of 2014
Matthew is an actor, fight choreographer, and teacher here in the Portland/Vancouver area. He is also a company member of Oregon Adventure Theatre, a theatre company founded and still run by other UP Alumni. He graduated from the University of Portland with a BA in Drama back in 2014 and has been working in the theatre ever since. As an actor, some of his most recent shows have been with Profile Theatre, including the world premiere of our orange sky as well as How To Make An American Son by Christopher Oscar Peña, as well as The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity by Kristoffer Diaz. He's also done a few shows with Anonymous Theatre Company and Oregon Children's Theatre, the most recent being Pirates of Penzance and Dragons Love Tacos respectively. Matthew has only somewhat recently stepped into the fight choreography world but has been training with the amazingly talent Kristen Mun-Van Noy on and off as one of her apprentices since 2019. He has worked on a few shows at this point including The Comedy of Errors with Oregon Adventure Theatre, The Hombres with Artist Repertory Theatre, and The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical with Metropolitan Performing Arts in Vancouver where he also teaches Stage Combat.
Class of 2018
MFA Program
Jessica Wallenfels (she/her) is Artistic Director of Many Hats Collaboration, a company devoted to reimagining music and movement onstage. Wallenfels has created several original works in Portland, New York City and Los Angeles including Great Wide Open, a co-production with Portland Playhouse, and The Snowstorm, an award winning fusion of live classical music, movement and theater. Between 2019-2023, the company's 5 in 5 project developed seven new works spanning mainstage, video, workshop, and classroom projects, centering BIPOC voices in the majority of projects. In 2024, the company launches The Hatchery, a new works festival supporting and celebrating theater that centers movement and music.
Wallenfels also works as a freelance director/choreographer and educator who teaches movement, devising and acting. Notable productions include The Wolves at Portland Playhouse and Into the Woods at Broadway Rose. Wallenfels was a choreographer for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for four seasons and six shows. Her choreographic work has also been seen at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Artists Repertory Theatre, and Portland Playhouse. In New York, she collaborated with The Civilians and showed work at La Ma Ma e.t.c., HERE Arts Center, ps 122, WAX, University Settlement, and Culture Project. Los Angeles credits include the Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Old Globe Theater, and The Mark Taper Forum.
Wallenfels holds an MFA from University of Portland, a BFA in Acting from California Institute of the Arts and attended Dell’Arte International. She is a four-time Drammy Award winner for Outstanding Choreography and a PAMTA Award winner for Outstanding Choreography. More at jessicawallenfels.com.
University of Portland
5000 N. Willamette Blvd.,
Portland, Oregon 97203-5798
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