BendSearch.com: Theater and Performing Arts

The Bend Theatre for Young People (BTYP) was established in 1997 by Wayne and Rachel Mitchell who moved to Bend, Oregon, the previous fall. The Mitchell’s brought with them considerable experience in play production and educational theatre for elementary students. Local theatre artist and high school director Gary Bowne and professional costumer Deb Fisher, came on board to help staff the first Summer Conservatory in the spring of 1997. BTYP produced its first play, Runaway Fable, with fifteen students. Classes in voice and diction, pantomime, improvisation and mask-making were taught in morning sessions with play rehearsals filling out the schedule in the afternoons. Student enrollment for Summer Conservatory increased in 1998 and BTYP produced two plays, Zeem Dream and Romeo & Juliet. Classes were held at Central Oregon Community College (COCC) with plays performed at the Community Theatre of the Cascades (CTC). In August of that summer, BTYP produced its first children’s play, Golliwhoppers, with the newly established adult company, The Cascade Players, led by the Mitchells and Lilli Ann Linford, Artistic Director of Magic Circle Theatre at COCC. During the school year, the Mitchells ran intermittent classes and weekend workshops in the dramatic arts at two of the local shopping malls in Bend.