The Third Rail Mentorship Program is a training intensive designed to give emerging theatre artists an artistic home for a season of hands-on experience in the day-to-day life of a professional repertory theatre. We welcome our Mentees into the fold by providing free training, compensated positions, and other professional growth opportunities. The program begins in September and continues through June.
Mentees work alongside Third Rail Company Members in both the rehearsal room and the administrative offices, gaining experience in all aspects of creating, producing, financing, and marketing a show.
This year’s Mentorship Program runs from September 26, 2025 – June 30, 2026.
Who we are looking for:
Ambitious, talented, disciplined, and diverse emerging theatre artists. Candidates should be over 21 years of age and not currently enrolled in school.
You want to gain a broader sense of what it is to be an artist of the theatre and already excel in at least one area (acting, design, directing, writing, producing, or stage management). You want to experience what it is to be part of a company. You want an artistic home. You have excellent communication skills, and have an entrepreneurial spirit.
What we offer:
An opportunity to be part of a company within a company; to broaden your identity from actors, designers, stage managers, writers, and producers into comprehensive theatre artists. You will attend regular weekend “intensives” that delve into various methods of theatrical practice, such as collaboration/devised work, viewpoints, movement, improvisation, design, and the business of theatre. Mentees will study side-by side with Third Rail Company Members and some intensives will culminate with a presentation.
Mentees with the appropriate skill sets will be given opportunities to assist our professional stage managers, designers, directors, and producers as well as shadow actors in the company as they prepare a role.
Mentees are given opportunities to learn the business of producing theatre. They will be invited to learn and assist in all facets of Third Rail’s enterprise: season selection, marketing, sales, and development.
Each Mentee will be partnered with a Company Member for the duration of the program. Each Mentee will learn both the art and the business side of theatre one-on-one from a professional.
What we expect:
Engagement. Mentees are expected to be involved with and attend Third Rail programming and intensives scheduled 1-2 weekends of every month. You will be invited to attend company meetings.
Mentees will be responsible for tasks related to administration and production. Work will be variable in terms of hourly commitment, with a minimum of 5-10 paid hours per month. We encourage our Mentees to be actively seeking theatre work during their tenure, provided they can fulfill their duties to the company.
For more information about the program or future opportunities to join the Mentorship Company, please contact Kelsea Ashenbrenner, kelsea@thirdrailrep.org.
Meet the 2025-2026 Mentorship Company
Ellie Barbuto is an artist seeking to create in, through, and for love. She holds a BA in Theater Acting/Directing and Design/Technology from George Fox University. Locally, she has worked with Wild Goose Repertory, Gather Repertory, Broadway Rose Theatre Company, and Bridgetown Conservatory. Recently, she co-founded Tapestry Theater Collective, and co-produced, costume designed, and performed in its debut production, Fly By Night (Miriam). Stage managing credits include Bonnie and Clyd (Bridgetown Conservatory), Stupid Fucking Bird (directed by Audrey O’Farrell), The Chimes (Wild Goose), The Play That Goes Wrong (GFU, KCACTF R7 Honorable Mention for Excellence), and Parables (GFU, KCACTF R7 1st Place for Excellence and National Fellowship Recipient). Her performance credits include The Pirates of Penzance (Edith), Oliver! (Oliver), and Godspell (Sang Day by Day, Irene Ryan Nomination). She also is a local teaching artist and party princess. Unending gratitude to her beautiful people!
Originally an actor, Tovah has been active in Portland and Vancouver theater since 2019, performing in Pacific Stageworks production of Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School for Magic and Magic. You may have also spotted Tovah in Varsity Cheerleader Werewolves from Outer Space LIVE! at Chapel Theater. Tovah’s first stage management venture is Imago Theatre’s production of Design for Living by Noël Coward. It is the hope and intention that through Third Rail’s mentorship Tovah will learn new skills needed to embark on the adventure of founding a theatre as well as sharpen acting skills.
LeeAnn Ducker is a new artist to the Portland metro. She has a BA in theatre with an emphasis in acting/directing from Texas Woman’s University. This past spring she also completed her MA in theatre at her alma mater where she adapted and directed The Affected Young Ladies by Moliere. She looks forward to settling into her new artistic home at Third Rail Repertory.
Ruby Elizabeth Keyes is from the San Fernando Valley in Southern California. She moved to Portland for school during the pandemic and studied performance and mathematics at Lewis & Clark College. Years of experience in the theatre led to Ruby’s thesis role as co-lead artist and designer for a retelling of Stephen King’s Misery. It was through this lens that she investigated the politics of Anne Wilkes being performed by a Black actor, and ultimately study the possibilities offered through Black horror. She’s worked with Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble before as a documentarian for Cardiac Organ and participated in the 2024-2025 ICP cohort.
Sarah Magen (They/She) is a graduate of Emerson College BFA Theater & Performance. They just moved to Portland, and are thrilled to join Third Rail’s Mentorship Program.
Yolie Porter is a Portland-based producer, actress, and voice-over artist with a passion for storytelling across film, theatre, and audio performance. She has worked on international documentary projects, performed on stage and screen, and voiced commercial and narrative content in both English and Spanish. Yolie is committed to championing diverse voices in the arts and is honored to continue her artistic growth as part of the Third Rail mentorship cohort.
Ava Violet Schmidt (she/her) is an experimental theatre-maker who delights in repetition, the queering of temporality, and making classics new. She is both an actor and stage manager, and focuses always on theatre’s capacity for connection and communication in all its rituals. Ava has recently returned to Portland, two years after attending Lewis & Clark College, where she received BAs with Honors in both Theatre and Rhetoric & Media. The study of the dynamic between “liveness” and the archive is one of her passions. For her final thesis she conceptualized, produced, designed, dreamed-up and performed in a multi-media version of Our Town in order to honor the making-and-letting-go process that haunts all of her work as an artist and performer.
Originally a performer from San Jose, CA, Teague moved to Portland, OR to study the Anthropology of Media at Reed College, culminating in a thesis exploring the political impact of pregnant trans men in film and social media. While at Reed, Teague received the competitive national scholarship for LGBTQ+ advocates, The Point Foundation Scholarship, and gained experience in creative writing, directing, and dramaturgy. Since graduating, Teague has performed professionally with Lakewood Theatre Co., Bridgetown Conservatory, Fuse Theatre Ensemble, the Broadway-bound musical The Rosetta Project, and more. He founded the Portland chapter of the Trans Voices Cabaret, and recently composed, produced, and performed in the rock opera Wager All with an all trans cast. Teague is the bookwriter of the original dark-comedy musical, Everybody’s Eyes are on The First!, which he directed for the Fertile Ground Festival ‘24 and The Hatchery ‘25 music and movement residency with Many Hats Collaboration.
Cole Songster recently graduated from Knox College with a B.A. in Theatre and Creative Writing, where he worked as a production manager, sound designer, and actor. He is now looking to expand his experience into a professional field, and believes that Third Rail’s Mentorship Program is a great bridge into that new world! Having been a long-time Portland resident he is so excited to be living here again full time post-grad and forming new connections within the community. He is also an avid writer—having tried his hand at poetry, plays, prose, and nonfiction—and has sung with a choir for the last six years.
Abigail Torres is honored to participate in the mentorship program. She graduated from George Fox University with her Bachelor’s in Theatre with a concentration in Acting and Directing. She was the KCACTF Region 7 winner and recipient of the WildWind Performance Lab Directing Fellowship in 2023. Her most recent directing credits include Fly by Night with Tapestry Theater Collective, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Assistant Director) with Gather Repertory Theatre, The Act of Living (Director), and 80 Percent (Director) with George Fox University. Her most recent Performing credits include The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, White Christmas, and The Play that Goes Wrong. She is also a co-founder and co-artistic director of Tapestry Theater Collective. She is so grateful to Sándor and her family for their endless love and support.
Alannah Walker is an actor from Iowa who recently moved to Portland. She has a BA in Musical Theatre from Clarke University, and completed a year of training at The Actors Conservatory. She has recently been seen onstage as Salarino in Merchant of Venice for Portland Shakespeare Project, Little Red in Into The Woods for Platteville Summer Arts Festival, Mary in Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 for Platteville Summer Arts Festival, and Catherine in Proof for Fly-By-Night Theatre. In her free time you can find her drawing, spending quality time with her cats, playing video games with her partner Logan, yapping with her friends, enjoying the PNW nature, and reading.