Bag and Baggage Productions

The story of Bag&Baggage (B&B) reads like something out of Elizabethan history. Founded in 2005 by a small group of theatre practitioners, B&B’s original mission was to travel the state of Oregon performing high quality, accessible, classical theatre for communities without a resident professional theatre. Like a travelling troupe of Elizabethan players, this small band of performers would arrive in places like Hood River, Corvallis, Beaverton, Astoria, Sandy and Hillsboro with everything they needed to put on a show in their “bags and baggage…” (hence our company name, which comes directly from Shakespeare’s great pastoral comedy As You Like It).

The company grew quickly, gaining a reputation for artistic quality, affordability and a very quirky sense of humor. In 2006, the company had doubled in both audience numbers and budget size and we found our services to be in greater and greater demand.

Over the course of the next few years, the company (like Shakespeare’s theatre troupe) found a series of patrons in the Hillsboro area and we decided to focus our work exclusively for the citizens of our Artistic Director’s home town of Hillsboro, Oregon.

In 2007, the company was approached by Denzil Scheller, the owner and operator of the soon-to-be opened Venetian Theatre. Originally built as a vaudeville stage, and used as a movie theatre throughout the 1980s, the Venetian was spectacularly refurbished by Denzil in partnership with the City of Hillsboro. Now a state-of-the-art, 400-seat performing arts theatre, Bag&Baggage is proud to call the Venetian their primary performance venue.

Opening our first season in 2008-2009, Bag&Baggage quickly attracted the attention of local and regional press who praised our work as thoughtful, inventive and of a high professional standard.

Our performances follow a standard schedule each season: First, we open each season with an outdoor summer Shakespeare event at the Tom Hughes Civic Center Plaza. Next, we return to the Venetian for 4 consecutive shows beginning in September with an American classic, followed in December by a holiday themed production, then a major literary adaptation of Shakespeare in March and, finally, closing our season in May with a classic of English drama.

Since our first season, audience numbers have consistently grown year by year. Currently, Bag&Baggage sells upwards of 15,000 tickets annually, making us the largest non-profit arts organization in Hillsboro and one of the largest in all of Washington County.