Our Platform

Be it a stage floor, a ship's deck, the piano's keyboard,
desktop, work bench, or paint easel,
we are compelled to make art happen...upon these boards.

Artistic Director Randall Stuart constructed the harbor/platform Upon These Boards in San Francisco in 2001 as a container for a variety of theatrical creations, unique symposia, and literary salons and civic actions. Initially the platform floated (an artistic raft) and the work commenced at The Haas Lilienthal House (a historic Gold Rush-era mansion) with an immersive adaptation of Shakespeare's Pericles entitled Our Vessel Is Of Tyre: actors and audience promenading throughout the enchanting space. More creative projects followed. The producing company was next awarded the 2003 Bay Area Critics Circle Award for the Worldwide Theatrical Peace Event - The Lysistrata Project, in what was the largest rendition of Aristophanes' play offered in more than a thousand concurrent presentations within one day, and around the globe. Upon These Boards' version Lysistrata: Her Threefold Plan performed at Berkeley Repertory Theatre for two sold-out performances featured a cast of one hundred local performers.

Haas Lilienthal House

Berkeley Repertory Theater

Cooper Union

Cerimon House

This was followed by the epic tale The Inkwell Communiqués touring the Bay Area in various permutations with its call for world peace. Next came a series of symposia which included an exploration of T.S. Eliot's The Four Quartets. Oregon audiences were treated to A Lovely Day (an adaptation of Ghelderode's Pantagleize), and in New York City a large-cast presentation of Irwin Shaw's antiwar play Bury The Dead filled the historic auditorium at The Cooper Union Building and featured Kathleen Chalfant, Buck Henry, and Denis O'Hare.

In 2023 activities recommenced on the East Coast with the discourse Finding Orangetown: a public address in Tappan, New York as part of the larger history-based project The Resplendent West. In 2024 the SQUIRE project launched, and the publication of the manuscript Squire: The Life of John Hardyng was presented in a live event in Ashland, Oregon, an acknowledgement of the 90 year arc of history of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. In 2025 be on the look-out for an epic and large-scale audio project, something just as unique as you may have grown to expect.

Authors, Composers, Painters, Designers, Playwrights,
Sculptors, Puppeteers...

...Philosophers, Seers, Activists,
Crafters & Creatives:
of all measures & all turns.

slide show:
Projects & Events
2002-09 & 2022-2025

the reason we gather

We continue to gather because the times call for it. It's as true of the storytellers at an ancient fire who cracked the first joke and got a laugh, as it is to the truth seekers who continue to offer meaningful work in prose, performance, and poems of protest. The human story is being written and requires our attention and artistry. We recognize one another: creatives who feel strongly connected and acknowledge the impulse to bring stories to life that will delight, inform, and educate. Our artistic souls call to one another, and so we convene.