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 platform Upon These Boards in San Francisco in 2001 as a harbor for a variety of theatrical creations, unique symposia, literary salons and civic actions. 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: with actors and audience promenading throughout the enchanting space. More creative projects followed. ​

Haas Lilienthal House

Berkeley Repertory Theater

Cooper Union

Cerimon House

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 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 100 local performers. This was followed by the heroic tale The Inkwell Communiqués touring the Bay Area in various locales. 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, Denis O'Hare and a large ensemble of actors.

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 September, 2024 the publication of Randall Stuart's manuscript Squire: The Life of John Hardyng was presented in a live choral event in Ashland, Oregon, as an acknowledgement of the 90 year anniversary of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. 

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​Gathering the authors, composers, painters, designers, playwrights,
​sculptors, ​puppeteers...

​...philosophers, seers, activists,
​crafters & creatives:
​of all measures, and of all turns. 

Be on the look-out in 2025 for a large-scale Peace Project,
​something just as unique as you may have grown to expect from Upon These Boards.

​​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. ​