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.
Applications for our Season 21 Mentorship Program are now closed.
The upcoming Mentorship Program runs from September 2026 – June 2027.
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.
For more information about the program or future opportunities to join the Mentorship Company, please contact Kelsea Ashenbrenner, kelsea@thirdrailrep.org.
Meet the 2026-2027 Mentorship Company
Annie Craven is a Portland based actor, director, and artist. Her acting credits include: Ride the Cyclone, Witch (Oregon Contemporary Theatre) The Wolves, Once, A Christmas Carol (University Theatre); She has also directed After the Revolution, A Girl in School Uniform (Walks Into a Bar) (Pocket Playhouse) and Frank’s First Dance Recital for the Northwest Ten festival of plays; Associate directing credits include Stage Kiss (VLT), Frankenstein (ETP), The Prom (Stumptown Stages) and Lizzie (Marin Summer Theatre). Annie graduated from the University of Oregon’s Theatre Arts program. She holds a BA, and an additional certificate from the Robert D. Clark Honors College where she wrote and defended an undergraduate thesis. When she is not working in the theatre, you can find Annie exploring, doing ceramics, or cuddling with her cat, Meelo.
Quaye Dydasco is thrilled to be a part of this year’s cohort of the Third Rail Repertory Mentorship. Quaye is a PNW-based actor who has most recently been seen as Marianne in Sense & Sensibility at Penguin Productions and in Encounters for the 2026 Fertile Ground Festival! Other roles include Laura in The Glass Menagerie, Nina in The Seagull, and #7 in The Wolves. Quaye also devised a staged reading for Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots presented at the University of Oregon’s Undergraduate Research Symposium for which she and her collaborators won Undergraduate Research awards for performing arts. Quaye graduated in 2024 from the University of Oregon with degrees in Theatre Arts and Economics.
Venus Edlin (they/them) is a creator, storyteller and performer who first came to the Portland area to attend Lewis & Clark College. Since graduating with a degree in rhetoric and media studies with a minor in dance, they have continued journalistic, social media and graphic design work. They also are a drag artist and dancer! Currently, Venus is marketing the 2026 Trans Voices Cabaret. Upcoming, they are a chorus member in Imago’s October Flight Festival. Venus previously marketed for Bag&Baggage Productions and the Fertile Ground Festival of New Works. Venus also curated the community outreach, lobby display and social media for I Think of You, a devised theatre piece at Portland Center Stage created from experiences of a class at a local prison. No matter the format, Venus is committed to creative and clear communication; they believe as artists, outreach is an important part of the storytellin
Aleks Hollis (he/they) is a sound/live foley artist, graphic designer, and video editor based in Portland, OR. Recent credits include: My Dear Dead Drug Lord at Crave Theatre, Ritual Treatment at Roots and All Theatre Ensemble, American Girl at Fuse, Ronad Reagan Murdered My Mentors at Fuse, and The Tempest at Bag&Baggage. He was the video editor for The Bridge Initiative’s RomeroFest production of The Dalai Lama is Not Welcome Here, UCAT’s production of The Last Five Years/ Los Últimos Cinco Años, and as a live foley artist for Space55’s Night of the Chicken. They were also the live video game designer for Space55’s The Hidden Sea. For Third Rail Rep’s production of Sonia Sanchez’s I’m Black When I’m Singing, I’m Blue When I Ain’t, they co-created/co-designed an interactive installation that facilitated a direct dialogue between the audience and legendary playwright.
Mack Mae (they/them) is a long-time singer, performer, director, stage manager, and designer. They hold degrees in Theatre and Psychology, having graduated with honors and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa from Lewis & Clark College. Although they’ve largely been on a break from the Portland theatre scene as a performer for the last couple of years, instead taking on an administrative position with Third Rail and finding their footing as a freshly-minted member of society, they’re super jazzed to be putting their creative pants back on as a part of Third Rail’s Mentorship Program!
Josh Nguyen (he/him) is a Portland-based artist from the Midwest, and he’s unbelievably hyped to be part of the Third Rail Mentorship Program! Josh is a director/writer/performer/musician/miscellaneous theatre artist with a rich inner life who really finds his spark in the rehearsal room. As a recent honors graduate of the Lewis and Clark College Theatre Program, he can’t wait to bring his own flair to the Portland theatre scene! His very first memory is bathing in a warm glow of light, and he hopes that his final memory will be similar.
Riley Olson (he/him) is an actor from Portland. He is simply elated to be joining Third Rail Repertory’s Mentorship Program. A graduate of the University of Oregon, he is so thankful to be able to continue to create, live, and work in his favorite corner of the world. Most recently he was in the Fertile Ground 2026 staged reading of Sudden & Severe Hunger. He eagerly looks forward to collaborating and building with the community forged by this program.
Ashley Pio is an actor, stage manager, and aspiring director with a BS in Theatre from Portland State University. Recent acting credits include Flora in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd at Lakewood Theatre Company, Marshael in The Wake of Jamey Foster at Cornerstone Theatre, and Sandi/Ginger in Freije Electric’s devised piece I’d Like to Think I’m Pretty Unique. Ashley is drawn to areas of uncertainty & ambiguity, and is passionate about creating theatre that examines the complexity of the human experience. Outside the theatre, she enjoys tending to her numerous houseplants, riding motorcycles with her partner, and cuddling with her sassy little cat.
Flinch J. Read (any/all) is a fat, gender-fluid, and neurodiverse artistic jack of trades currently creating in the place known as Portland, OR. They are a producer and consumer; a director and actor; a clown and playwright; a drag performer and visual artist; and above all a community member who sees the potential of art to bridge divides. She believes the creation and consumption of art is not only an inalienable human right, but also a fundamental and universal language with the power to cross divides traditional language cannot. As such, Flinch uses this language to communicate (I) that existence is fundamentally absurd, (II) that humanity has trapped itself within a series of walls we have systematically raised between each other, and (III) it’s time for those walls to come down. He cannot wait to learn all that Third Rail has to offer them!
No “Noli” Reyes (she/he) is a Filipino and Mexican writer, performance artist, community organizer, event producer, cultural worker, budding earth tender and mama to a beautiful baby named Andromeda.
Noli is the Cofounder of the Pacific Northwest based queer and trans Asian led writing and movement project Liminal Bodies. He has written, directed and produced shows for Portland Center Stage, Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, PICA, Headwaters Theatre, and Sou’wester in Seaview, WA. She is a recent graduate of the Institute for Contemporary Performance (ICP) at Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble (PETE), the Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC) Portfolio Program in Prose and the Wapato Table Ancestral Medicine Unschool at Wapato Island Farm on Sauvie Island.