In early 2021, PTF Founder Dave Register sought a way to reinvigorate live theater in Portland after a year of COVID19 closures. Eager audiences sought safe avenues for live entertainment, and an intimate, outdoor production seemed like the right project to pursue. 

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Dave approached the owners of Tandem Coffee Roasters and pitched the idea of staging Annie Baker’s The Aliens—set behind a coffee shop in Vermont—in the lot behind their roastery in East Bayside. Owners Will and Kathleen responded enthusiastically, and helped enlist Mayo Street Arts to coproduce the production. After a sold out and critically celebrated run, a new theater company was born, and preparations began for the first annual festival the following year. 

Now entering its fourth year of production, PTF has performed across the city at Mechanics Hall, The Hill Arts, and Mayo Street Arts. The festival employs an annual summer staff of over fifty artists and administrators, and has produced remarkable works from contemporary playwrights such as Annie Baker, Martyna Majok, Lucas Hnath, Antoinette Nwandu and Sylvan Oswald. Recognized for its cultural immediacy and careful treatment of contemporary issues in its work, PTF has been covered extensively in American Theatre Magazine, Portland Press Herald and Arts Fuse.