Bobby Bermea

Bobby Bermea is an award-winning actor, director, writer and producer. He is co-artistic director of Beirut Wedding, a founding member of Badass Theatre and a long-time member of both Sojourn Theatre and Actors Equity Association. Bermea has appeared in theaters from New York, NY, to Honolulu, HI. In Portland, he’s performed at Portland Center Stage, Artists Repertory Theatre, Portland Playhouse, Profile Theatre, El Teatro Milagro, Sojourn Theatre, Cygnet Productions, Tygre’s Heart, and Life in Arts Productions, and has won three Drammy awards. As a director he’s worked at Beirut Wedding, BaseRoots Productions, Profile Theatre, Theatre Vertigo and Northwest Classical, and was a Drammy finalist. He’s the author of the plays Heart of the City, Mercy and Rocket Man. His writing has also appeared in bleacherreport.com and profootballspot.com.

Bobby Bermea: Bruce meets Beckett

January 4, 2025Bobby Bermea

An aging man meets himself, 30 and 40 years earlier: Actor Bruce Burkhartsmeier and his telltale tape recorder take on the challenge and regrets of Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape."

‘No More Candy’: Mikki Gillette and Asae Dean, together again

October 11, 2024Bobby Bermea

Playwright Gillette and director Dean, who've developed a close working partnership over the years, dig deep into the story of a trans romance for their newest premiere.

Bobby Bermea: A theatrical ghost, rising

October 2, 2024Bobby Bermea

The Broken Planetarium gets ready to unleash "The Greenbrier Ghost." And like most things ghostly, this fresh work of music, theater, and free expression plays by its own rules.

Sam Hamilton and the art of moving the global time line

September 3, 2024Bobby Bermea

The experimental opera "Te Moana Meridian," premiering at PICA's TBA Fest, is also a push to decolonialize the Prime Meridian and shift it to international waters in the Pacific Ocean.

Shooting the breeze with Kristoffer Diaz about ‘Reggie Hoops’

July 29, 2024Bobby Bermea

Bobby Bermea talks with the Tony-nominated author of "Hell's Kitchen" about theater, writing, family, deadlines, underdogs, and Diaz's basketball story opening at Portland's Profile Theatre.

Bobby Bermea: PETE gets down to the Chekhov nitty-gritty

June 24, 2024Bobby Bermea

With its new adaptation "a seagull," the experimental theater troupe aims to sand off the romantic sheen and reclaim the intense verve and vitality of the Russian master's plays.

Bobby Bermea: All along the ‘Borderline’

May 3, 2024Bobby Bermea

12-year-old actors Eli Ingraffea and Mila Kashiwabara talk about the joys and challenges of starring in Milagro's new play about surviving along the Southwest border – complete with ghosts.

Bobby Bermea: Ken Yoshikawa, man on a mission

April 28, 2024Bobby Bermea

The Portland poet, actor and playwright, whose "From a Hole in the Ground" has just opened in a co-production from Corrib and Alberta House, is "interested in breaking the rules of reality.”

Bobby Bermea: Six picks from Fertile Ground

April 10, 2024Bobby Bermea

As Portland's sprawling 10-day festival of new performance prepares to hit the stage running, the creators of half a dozen fresh shows talk about what they're doing and why.

Bobby Bermea: Devising the future at Hand2Mouth

March 7, 2024Bobby Bermea

The Portland theater company's Youth Devising Residency program teaches young people stage skills and more. The show they created, "What Brings You Here?," is at PSU March 7-9.

All Rise: A new playwright steps onstage

February 28, 2024Bobby Bermea

Bobby Bermea: Promising writer and recent high school grad Evan McCreary gets a weekend of readings at IFCC with talent and a little help from his older friends.

Making films on Portland’s Desert Island

February 20, 2024Bobby Bermea

A bustling studio in close-in Southeast Portland is a magnet for makers of short films, music videos, commercials, and maybe even movies.

Bobby Bermea: A ‘Spear’ in the heart of racial reckoning

February 12, 2024Bobby Bermea

An Irish playwright and a Dublin director bring a contemporary play to Corrib Theatre about racial attitudes and the steps that white people "must take to clean up the mess they have made."

Bobby Bermea: Many Hats hatches a brave new festival

January 24, 2024Bobby Bermea

Boosted by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, "The Hatchery" will help launch new theater works that emphasize music and movement.

Bobby Bermea: ‘Die Hard’ – NOT a Christmas movie

December 20, 2023Bobby Bermea

Sure, it's an entertaining action flick. But its connections to Christmas are surface stuff. Go ahead: Watch it, and have fun. But when it comes to the spirit of the holiday, it doesn't fit the bill.

Bobby Bermea: Paul Susi’s odyssey to ‘An Iliad’

December 11, 2023Bobby Bermea

The Portland actor and friends are staging a one-night performance of a modern adaptation of Homer's classic Greek tale before taking it back on the road – including to prisons.

Bobby Bermea: ‘Great White’ hooks up

December 5, 2023Bobby Bermea

Ajai Tripathi's new play "Great White Gets Off," seeded during the pandemic, looks at racial and power dynamics and the way they play into a romantic relationship.

Lester Purry and the road to Scrooge

November 28, 2023Bobby Bermea

Bobby Bermea: The talented actor Lester Purry, who's created a bond with Portland Playhouse, is back in town and creating his own kind of skinflint in the Playhouse's "A Christmas Carol."

Bobby Bermea: A hope and a lament for Artists Repertory Theatre

November 15, 2023Bobby Bermea

Actor and ArtsWatch columnist Bermea looks at the Portland theater company's troubles and remembers the good times as he tries to sort out what's gone wrong.

Bobby Bermea: It’s Halloween. Curl up with a good jolt of horror.

October 31, 2023Bobby Bermea

Ready for your (virtual) date with Death? ArtsWatch's resident horror devotee scares up a few suggestions from fiction to podcasts to flicks, and explains the shuddering thrill of it all.

Bobby Bermea: The dark and gloomy glories of Tenebrous Press

October 27, 2023Bobby Bermea

The Portland-based purveyors of "new weird horror" are building a mini-empire of shock and shivers, including the novelette double feature "Split Scream" released on Halloween.

Let the spooky season begin, Posthaste

October 16, 2023Bobby Bermea

As Halloween hastens toward us, Tenebrous Press throws a party for "Posthaste Manor," Jolie Toomajan and Carson Winter's "new weird horror" novel about a very haunted house.

Bobby Bermea: Slash mob, Reformers style

October 10, 2023Bobby Bermea

The Reformers get into the Halloween spirit with a string of shows at Movie Madness inspired by '80s slasher flicks.

Bobby Bermea: For the Love of Craft

October 2, 2023Bobby Bermea

About 60 films of the weird and macabre will spool out at Portland's Hollywood Theatre in the 28th annual H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. Oh, the horror!

Bobby Bermea: Finding a theatrical ‘Home/Land’ with Hand2Mouth

September 14, 2023Bobby Bermea

A new artistic director and a revived, walk-through "immersive installation piece" at Zidell Yards keeps the veteran devised-theater company moving forward.

‘Happy Days’ (and Diane Kondrat) are here again

August 10, 2023Bobby Bermea

The Portland actress takes on the multiple challenges of Samuel Beckett's Winnie – in an old Victoria's Secret at the Lloyd Center mall.

Bobby Bermea: Mishelle Apalategui faces down the culture-as-usual

July 19, 2023Bobby Bermea

Apalategui's "Downward Facing," the show that just kept growing, takes its next big step in Fuse Theatre's Atelier Festival.

Lo Steele: Come on, get happy

July 10, 2023Bobby Bermea

Bobby Bermea talks with the Portland rising star of stage and song about her musical passion and her new album, "Happy Girl."

Bobby Bermea: Lighting a Fuse under ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’

May 27, 2023Bobby Bermea

Ernie Lijoi's new musical, about the day the nuclear bomb DOESN'T drop, takes the spotlight at Fuse's OUTwright Festival.

Bobby Bermea: A trans teen’s life & death

April 3, 2023Bobby Bermea

Mikki Gillette's "American Girl," premiering at Fuse, is based on the story of Vancouver, Wash., 17-year-old Nikki Kuhnhauser, who was murdered in 2019.