Moline teenagers start new theater troupe
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Chase Portner and his girlfriend Lexi Davis are recent Moline High grads, but they’ve already formed their own theater company, Proscenium Players.
Founded last year, the group’s first production was the 1993 David Ives comedy “All in the Timing” at Black Hawk College, Moline. This year, they are presenting the play “Eurydice,” June 21-22, and the Ken Ludwig comedy “Lend Me a Tenor,” on Aug. 2-3 at Black Box Theatre, 1623 5th Ave.
Portner (a 19-year-old 2023 MHS alum) has done theater since he was 8. His first show was Moline High School’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” and the first he directed was the next year (in 6th grade), co-directing “Annie Jr.” at Roosevelt Elementary. Davis (now 18) was in that show, and she didn’t really get back into theater until her junior year of high school. She graduated this past January.
In 7th grade, Portner did “Seussical Jr.” at Wilson and “The Little Mermaid Jr.” at Rock Island’s Center for Living Arts. He continued with the center through senior year of high school, including “All Shook Up” and “Les Miserables.”
Portner started Moline High theater with the comedy “All in the Timing,” which was Proscenium’s first show last year. His senior year, he directed “Almost, Maine” in 2023.
He attends Carthage College in Kenosha, Wis., majoring in music education. He plays piano, trombone and euphonium.
Portner was in the Moline High choir and marching band, and is in the main Carthage College choir.
“Their music education program is top-notch, as well as their theater program,” he said. “It’s a little bit of a newer program.”
Davis and Portner started going out last May, and did their first Moline High production her junior year, with “Scapin,” by the French playwright Moliere.
They did “Puffs” at Moline, and Davis has mainly worked on crew. For “The Wizard of Oz,” she did lead makeup and hair, and he was Tin Man, in March 2023.
“I thought it was funny they cast a man who can’t dance in the danciest role,” Portner said. “It all worked well.”
They were just bored, Davis said of starting Proscenium Players last summer, and picked “All in the Timing,” renting the Black Hawk theater for one performance only, Aug. 19, 2023.
“The main goal I wanted was to be affordable, where everyone can do it,” Davis said “I couldn’t in high school, because it costs us $700 just to do a show.” She is the oldest of nine siblings.
Proscenium also wants to keep tickets affordable, where audiences of any ages can come see shows. They’ve been planning this second season since last August, Portner said.
Booming theater market
The teenager was not timid in starting the troupe, despite the fact that the Quad Cities already has at least 13 permanent theater companies, not counting high school and college programs.
Proscenium is far from the only non-school theater company that serves students, but Center for Living Arts, Davenport Junior Theatre and Double Threat Studios serve kids up to age 18.
As the three-year-old Mockingbird on Main continues to search for a new space, Proscenium (which has a five-member board) wanted to strike out on its own. Mockingbird did its “The Glass Menagerie” at Black Hawk last July.
“I know the Quad Cities has a pretty vast theater scene and I’m very happy about that,” Portner said Thursday. “I personally loved directing ‘Almost, Maine’; I love the show and the whole process behind it. I just wanted to get out there and direct more.”
He felt he wouldn’t get that opportunity at other theaters, given his age.
“I really just wanted to have a fun environment,” Davis said.
Portner has not seen any prior shows at the 60-seat Black Box, but has heard lots of good things about it.
“What’s an affordable venue that would let a youth-run company produce shows?” he asked, noting it was hard to find another performance venue. After reaching out to BBT artistic director Lora Adams, “she welcomed us with open arms and we are very, very thankful,” Portner said.
The BBT charges a certain amount per performance, and he said they can only afford doing two shows, Friday and Saturday, June 21-22.
The Ruhl-Davenport connection
That is Sarah Ruhl’s ‘Eurydice.”
Davis will direct it, which features seven actors, with six teenagers and a 70-year-old playing the father. Portner won’t be in it, but is on crew. He will direct “Lend Me a Tenor” (1986).
“I personally chose ‘Eurydice’ because our first production was silly, fun, really funny,” she said. “I wanted to see if we could do one more emotional, dramatic and profound.”
Davis and Portner love Greek mythology and wanted something very different. She’d heard of Ruhl (whose parents grew up in Davenport), but didn’t know her voluminous work.”
St. Ambrose performed it in 2014, and Portner was in a Moline High production his junior year. “It’s such a beautiful show,” he said. Lexi wasn’t involved in it, and hasn’t seen “Eurydice” before.
Ruhl’s 2003 “Eurydice” – based on the Orpheus myth, which includes a reference to Ruhl’s grandparents’ home in Davenport – was performed at St. Ambrose University, Davenport, in 2014. Her Tony-nominated play, “In the Next Room (or the vibrator play),” was done at Augustana College, Rock Island, in 2018. Ruhl returned to Augustana to speak in 2019, the last time she was in the Q-C.
The “Eurydice” opera (with music by Matthew Aucoin and libretto by Ruhl) — which had its world premiere in February 2020 by the L.A. Opera — is of particular interest in the Quad-Cities since Ruhl has such close ties to Davenport, and the play is a love letter to her late father Patrick.
A Davenport Central alum who died of cancer in 1994, at age 53, he is buried in Davenport Memorial Park. Ruhl’s mother Kathleen participated in the early years of Davenport Junior Theatre in the 1950s.
Future plans
Proscenium plans to focus working with students (high school and college), and incorporate as a registered nonprofit organization.
Until they both graduate college (he in 2027 and she in 2028), Proscenium will only stage shows over the summer. Davis is going to Carthage too, starting this fall; she plans to become a history teacher. She currently works at Chili’s in Davenport and he works for his parents at home.
They have a Proscenium Players page on Facebook and Instagram, and are building a website.
Davis and Portner are paying for the troupe with the help of their families and fundraisers. One main benefit last summer was at a mini-golf course Davis’s parents used to own, and they plan to have another this summer.
Portner’s parents run a home-based T-shirt, screen printing and embroidery business, A Stitch or Two, LLC (since 2006). He also wants to get sponsors for Proscenium shows.
“I don’t think ‘GoFundMe’s and fundraisers are gonna get us where we want to be,” Portner said.
It’s not been as hard to fit performances into the BBT schedule as it is in the schedules of Davis, Portner and the cast, most all of whom have jobs.
Long-term, they want to find their own space as well. “I don’t want to be too much of a burden on their schedules,” Portner said of the Black Box.
The BBT has been open to many other uses in recent years, including The Mockingbird, GIT Improv and Haus of Ruckus. The Mockingbird’s new production of “To Kill a Mockingbird” runs tonight through Sunday, May 26.
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