Fuse Theater Ensemble is reliant on its supporters to keep the lights on. It’s no secret that funding for the arts has become much more competitive as government funding and private organizations have scaled back in recent years. We pride ourselves in the work we do to bring art from marginalized communities to Portland and provide a space for those without a voice to find theirs.

Giving Tuesday fundraising accounts for the vast majority of all fundraising done for non-profits in the United States so we’re taking this opportunity to plan ahead as much as we can for the entire 2025 season! To that end, we need to raise $100,000 to finish funding all of our shows for 2025! This may seem like a big ask, but we believe with your help, we can make it happen.

Speaking of our season, we want to share exactly what we plan to do this year. Below are each of our shows and a little insight into what our goals are for this year.

Great White Goes Down (World Premiere play)

by Ajai Tripathi & Patrick Hilton

April 3 - 27, 2025

as part of The Fertile Ground Festival

We open the season wrapping up some unfinished business. Over the past two seasons, audiences have marveled at the beauty, rawness, and candor of Ajai Tripathi’s two plays, Great White Gets Off and Great White Gives it Up. As part of Fertile Ground 2025, we will produce the final installment of his Great White Trilogy, Great White Goes Down. Join Sandeep and Bert as they bring closure to their whirlwind relationship that has traveled the world and spanned centuries. Didn’t see one or both of the first two plays? That’s ok because we will be presenting those plays as special performances during the run.

Assassins

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Book by John Weidman

May 15 - June 16, 2025

as the feature production of The OUTwright Theatre Festival

Our second show of the season will be the feature production of The OUTwright Theatre Festival (the longest-running queer theatre festival in the country.) A show that needs little-to-no introduction with music and lyrics by a godfather of the queer canon, Stephen Sondheim, Fuse will present Assassins. In response to the current social climate, Fuse continues its exploration of staging classic theatre through our uniquely queer lens (ala Cabaret, Our Town, and A View from the Bridge) by bringing one of the greatest musicals ever written, produced as only Fuse can and will produce it.

Bring Back the Swing (World Premiere musical)

Music, Lyrics, and Book by Ernie Lijoi

August 7 - September 7, 2025

Our third show gets us back to our bread-and-butter: producing local queer playwrights. For those who have enjoyed our past productions of Under the Influence, The God Cluster, or The Pursuit of Happiness, we bring you the next creation from the mind of Ernie Lijoi. Bring Back the Swing tells the story of how the times have changed and how music and humor have changed with it through a score of original music that you will swear is filled with time-tested jazz standards. Replete with the lyrical wordplay, belly laughs, and time travel that have become hallmarks of Lijoi’s work, this nostalgic trip down memory lane will leave you filled with warmth and happiness.

Magnetic Electric (World Premiere musical)

Music by Ash

Lyrics by Ash and Mikki Gillette

Book by Mikki Gillette

Based on a concept created with Katherine Goforth

October 9 - November 2, 2025

Our final show of the season brings the work of three of Portland’s most prolific trans artists to our stage. Magnetic Electric is an original musical written by Mikki Gillette with music by Ash based on a concept created with Katherine Goforth. Trans woman Celine owns a college bar where she performs her music. Drama arises when a romance with Rain, a new adjunct professor, destabilizes her relationship with Cole, while Archer, a white nationalist provocateur, targets her venue. Set against a soundscape of original electronic music and featuring a cast of trans and gender nonconforming artists, this show only strengthens our foothold as the nation’s leading theatre in trans representation.

HISTORY OF FUSE

Fuse Theatre Ensemble Dares:

Our audiences to exit their comfort zones,  

Our peers to collaborate before competing,  

Our community to manage our resources sustainably.

Shift the Paradigm.  

Fuse is celebrating fifteen years of producing paradigm-shifting theatre in Portland, OR, and around the world. The recipient of six 2019 Drammy Awards, Fuse has become a stalwart of politically motivated theatre in the Portland community. Fuse's primary focus is the representation and celebration of marginalized groups, with a strong background in Queer works.

We are the recipient of grants from the Regional Arts and Culture Council, The Collins Foundation, The Queer Theatre Alliance, The Oregon Cultural Trust, and The Collins Foundation. We have traveled the world with our production of Suburban Tribe, won Drammy Awards for our productions of Cabaret, Tether: ADHD+BDSM, Under the Influence, and for our props design for Artist Rep's The Lieutenant of Inishmore. Fuse has been an ambassador of the Pacific Northwest theatre touring to New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Bali, Adelaide, Australia, and Avignon, France.

In slightly over a decade and a half, Fuse has fostered the creation of dozens of original works. These works include Craft/Craeft/Kraft, Slap That Bitch, Suburban Tribe, MySp_ce, #smarter_than_phones, Karaoke Night! (the musical), A Virgin in Neverland, Sonnetscape, Tether: ADHD+BDSM, The Importance of Being Frank, I am an Actress: A Passion Play, unde+ec+able, The Fear of Speaking, The Queers, American Girl, They/Them/Their, Blonde on a Bum Trip, The God Cluster: a queer pandemic revenge tragedy, The Pursuit of Happiness (or the Wacky Lesbian Adventures of Brillo Pad and Hula Hoop), Great White Gets Off and Great White Gives It Up. Fuse’s Atelier Festival has also provided workshops for numerous emerging works of theatre. Fuse produces Portland's annual celebration of the LGBTQIA+ contribution to theatre, The OUTwright Theatre Festival, as well as BlaQ OUT, a producing engine for emerging works at the Black/Queer intersection. Fuse also serves as a creative home for the producing engines: Fusion, Cause Cabaret, Kate's Theatrics, and Theatredust.

HISTORY OF OUTwright

In 2011, Portland-based Fuse Theatre Ensemble produced the Gay Pride Reading Series. After immense popular demand, Fuse rebranded it as the much more ambitious and inclusive OUTwright Theatre Festival. OUTwright’s 2018 production of Cabaret garnered 11 Portland Area Theatre Alliance Drammy Nominations and took home six awards including Outstanding Ensemble in a Musical and Outstanding Production of a Musical. In 2016, OUTwright's production of Under the Influence, by Ernie Lijoi, won the Drammy Awards for Best Original Score and Best Actor. Along with reconnecting us with classic LGBTQIA+ texts, OUTwright has paved the way for numerous scripts to receive fully staged productions at theatres across the world. Last year’s Feature Production, The Pursuit of Happiness, by Portland’s own Ernie Lijoi, started out as a workshop in 2019’s festival. 2014’s Animals Commit Suicide, by festival favorite C. Julian Jiménez, has received full productions in NYC and Chicago. 2015’s workshop of How to be a Sissy, by Brian Haimbach, was selected to perform at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And that is only a few of the shows that began their journey with OUTwright and paved their way to fully staged productions around the world.

OUTwright holds firm the belief that there is no greater canon of the LGBTQIA+ civil rights experience than the theatre. Our hope is to educate future generations on the struggles and successes of our predecessors by sharing these stories, both new and old, while also engaging our audiences in numerous outreach programs by providing workshops, panel discussions, and artistic opportunities.

Our 2025 Season

It's Fusic to Our Queers