Hibernate Program

BEdrock Theatre presents

Hibernate

Feb 14 - 23, 2025

at Leach Botanical Garden

Hibernate is Presented Through the Generosity of our sponsors:

Song List

“In the Night” | Music & Lyrics by Emily Eisele

“The Knitter’s Suite” | Music by Sean Grosshans

“Blow The Winds” | Music & Lyrics by Emily Eisele

“Soup Song” | Music & Lyrics by Joellen Sweeney

“Am I More Than This” | Music & Lyrics by Sean Grosshans

“Thaw” | Music & Lyrics by Emily Eisele

About the Production

ABOUT HIBERNATE

Hibernate was born out of a desire to connect more deeply with the seasons. We wanted to explore deep winter–that oft-overlooked lull between the jolly brightness of the holidays and first blushes of spring. In talking about this season, we felt we had a lot to reckon with and to learn from. We first presented Hibernate in February of 2024 and found that gathering with community to acknowledge the joys and challenges of the winter filled our cups; we are thrilled to have the opportunity to revisit this very special piece.

Inspired by the nighttime landscape of Leach Botanical Garden, we let the cabin-like setting of the Fireplace Room inform the development of this show. Our examination of winter took many forms: we learned how many plants and animals endure the season, dove into Celtic folklore and legend, and reflected on our own patterns of reflection, nesting, and solitary thought. In revisiting and adapting the show for Winter 2025, we found it to be a useful container for our current fears and wonderings—how do we acclimate to new and changing circumstances? How can we fortify ourselves and our communities against the storm? How can we endure without freezing our hearts? How will we know when the thaw is coming?

Winter invites us to sink into cozy softness and to face the bitter chill; it reshapes landscapes without and within. We are honored to gather in the den with you, now and always.

ABOUT BEDROCK TheATRE

Founded in 2016, Bedrock Theatre's mission is to connect audiences to their environment and to each other through immersive storytelling in natural landscapes. With music, movement, and person-to-person storytelling, our adaptations and original works are lovingly crafted to transform an ordinary path into the world of the tale. While Bedrock Theatre shares work in a variety of landscapes and venues, we primarily gather in and around Portland, Oregon, the traditional villages sites of the Multnomah, Wasco, Cowlitz, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Bands of Chinook, Tualatin, Kalapuya and Molalla. We respectfully acknowledge this land’s original caretakers, and honor the ongoing story of Oregon’s Native peoples, whose knowledge and stewardship of this landscape goes back tens of thousands of years. This year’s Hibernate is Bedrock’s third collaboration with Leach Botanical Garden. In 2019, the company completed a 9-month residency at the garden, developing an original adaptation of the Persephone myth. In 2024, Bedrock developed and shared Hibernate at Leach for the first time.

ABOUT LEACH BOTANICAL GARDEN

Leach Botanical Garden offers immersive, restorative, and educational experiences in a unique landscape of native plants and horticultural collections for the purpose of building community, celebrating nature, and inspiring environmental stewardship. The “Sleepy Hollow'' estate that John and Lilla Leach lovingly created and tended for over 36 years was donated to Portland Parks in 1980, and a grass-roots, non-profit organization was quickly formed to work in partnership with Portland Parks to care for the garden and ensure its future. Today, 18 staff members along with a dedicated group of volunteers care for the property, offer events and  tours, handle garden maintenance, work to replenish native plant habitat, engage underserved communities with hands-on learning, and provide visitor services to more than 30,000 people per year. Learn more at https://www.leachgarden.org/about-us. 

CASt & Production team Bios

Emily Eisele* (she/her) grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado, where her appreciation for the outdoors began. After spending the past decade or so in Portland, Oregon, she continues to be amazed by our fortunate proximity to mountains, ocean, forests, and more. Emily has a wide range of experience as both an artist and administrator with companies including CoHo Productions, Artists Repertory Theatre, and Third Rail Repertory Theatre. She currently works in nonprofit accounting at Susan Matlack Jones & Associates. A “many hats” type of collaborator, Emily is a performer, writer, musician, bookkeeper, and list-maker for Bedrock—depending on the day.

Sophina Flores (She/Her) is the founder of local QTPOC dance theatre company Roots and All Theatre Ensemble, centering marginalized identities and breaking the boundaries of realism, who you may know from Liminal, The Between Spaces, and Ritual Treatment . Recently she has worked as an Assistant Lighting Designer to Marika Kent at Portland Center Stage’s Gem of the Ocean and Choir Boy, and designed the lights for Bag and Baggage’s Troy USA and The Tempest, Passinart’s A Song for Coretta, and God’s Favorite, Salt and Sage’s Holy Name and Henriad, TAC's Core Values, FUSE’s Our Town, American Girl, Pursuit of Happiness, and Great White Gives It Up, OCT’s The Mad Ones, From the Ground Up’s FAQ, You Can’t Be Serious and Rhythm and Autism, Crave’s Our Dear Dead Drug Lord and Ashland, Lewis and Clark’s Henry IV Part 1, Hand2Mouth’s What Brings You Here and Memento Mori, Profile’s Reggie Hoops, and ART’s True Story. As a theatre maker, playwright, director, deviser, and choreographer, her work centers the intersectionality of identities as a neurodivergent, bisexual Puerto Rican woman, and prominently features themes of mental illness and trauma, with surrealist or magical realist motifs.

Sean Grosshans*(he/him) is from Lincoln, Nebraska. He received his B.A. in Theatre Directing/Management from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He moved to Portland, Oregon after graduation for the mentorship program with Third Rail Repertory Theatre. He immediately fell in love with the Pacific Northwest. Sean loves creating new works with an ensemble of artists. Sean tells his stories through music, photography/video, food and beverage.

Alexandra Schaffer (she/they) was born and raised in Oregon and, while she's traveled many places, she always ends up coming back home. With a background in collaborative theatre, Alexandra is many things: a writer, a content creator, an Intuitive Body and Integrative Health Coach, a beginning farmer, and an all-around nature enthusiast (to name a few). You can often find them taking pictures of plants and mushrooms, or reading about her latest earth-related interest. She has several ties with the fantastic company members of Bedrock Theatre, including participating in the Third Rail Mentorship Program with Emily, Sean, and Joellen; and belonging to a bookclub with Becca for 6+ years. They are very happy to be making a return to theatre alongside such wildly creative friends.

Joellen Sweeney* (she/her) is an actor, director and teaching artist, with a deep love for tide pools, waterfalls and especially springy clumps of moss. Her regional credits include work with Artists Repertory Theatre (The Revolutionists), Seattle Shakespeare Company (Much Ado About Nothing), Shaking the Tree Theatre (Forbidden Fruit, Blood Wedding and others), Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble (Uncle Vanya), Corrib Theatre (From a Hole in the Ground) and Northwest Children's Theatre (Elephant & Piggie). In addition to creating her own work with Bedrock, Joellen also directs site-specific and immersive productions for Renegade Opera (Bird Songs of Opera, Orfeo, She Loves You Back). When she is not at the theatre, Joellen is the Development Manager for North Pole Studio, a progressive art studio that supports artists with autism and intellectual/developmental disabilities. She serves on the Board of Young Musicians & Artists (YMA) and is member of The Verdancy Project Advisory Board. Basically, Joellen loves art, artists and the creative communities that spring up around making things we love! | MFA: University of Washington | Next Up: Silent Sky by Lauren Gunderson at the OMSI Planetarium.

Emily Trimble (she/her) is excited to be working with Bedrock for the first time! Originally from Texas, she graduated from UT Dallas and worked in Dallas for a few years at companies such as Undermain Theatre, WaterTower Theatre, and Dallas Children’s Theatre. She moved to Portland in 2012 and has since Stage Managed for Bag&Baggage Productions, Corrib Theatre, Broadway Rose, OPS Fest, and Oregon Children's Theatre. Some of her favorite shows she has stage managed have been In This Corner: Cassius Clay; A Year with Frog and Toad; Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed; and The Great Gatsby. When at home she can be found watching bad action movies with her husband, playing with her two cats, or doing a variety of fiber arts.

Mia Webster (she/they) Originally from Philadelphia, Mia attended Lewis & Clark College where she received a BA in Sociology with a minor in Theatre Studies, as well as a distinction in Technical Theatre and Stage Management from L&C’s Fir Acres Theatre. Recent credits include RENT (Fir Acres Theatre), 52 Pick Up (21ten), Here We Are Again Still (21ten), Piercing the Veil (Štepán Šimek/Musica Universalis/Kettlehead Studios//21ten), Taking Care of Animals (21ten), and I’m In Control Which Means Nothing Bad Will Ever Happen To Me (PETE Presents). 

Becca Wirta* (she/her) is a theatre artist, performer, and collaborator in Portland, Oregon. She is a member of Bedrock Theatre, as well as a founding member of Basement Stair Collective — creating immersive new works through a collaborative, design-forward process with the purpose of delving into the dark corners of the human experience to shed light on the spaces between grief and joy, the flesh and the soul, and the personal and the political.

Becca is a 2022/23 graduate of the Institute of Contemporary Performance with Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble. She has Bachelor of Arts degrees in Theatre Performance as well as Rhetoric and Media Studies from Willamette University, and spends her 9am-5pm working in public relations. Along with producing on a steady rotation with BSC and Bedrock, you may have seen her recently perform in 2024's Stage Fright and Fertile Ground festivals, as well as in staged readings with Third Rail Repertory Theatre, Shaking The Tree Theatre, and Readers Theatre Gresham. Up next: Becca is joining the cast of Silent Sky, presented by Mt. Hood Repertory Theatre and OMSI, and directed by THE Joellen Sweeney. A big thanks to Patrick, Una, and Agnes for all the unrelenting love and support. 

Continue the Journey

Hibernate INSPIRATIONS & SOURCE MATERIAL

• Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May

• The Cailleach: An Introduction to the Ancient Goddess of Winter (Celtic Mythology Explained), video by Moon Books Publishing, and Pagan Portals - The Cailleach by Rachel Patterson

• The Red Shoes (1948), Film written, directed, and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

• Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot

• Wintering by Sylvia Plath

• Hibernate Spotify playlist compiled by Sean Grosshans

• In loving memory of Philip Cuomo and inspired by his work with the CoHo Clown Cohort.

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