Alberta Rose Theatre

🌿 Psychedelics for All: We’re committed to accessibility. If cost is a barrier, click here to request a discounted ticket.Come curious. Leave with something to think about. And perhaps a whole new way of looking at getting older.

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Few conservation behaviors have captured the public’s interest as much as recycling. But sorting your trash and placing it at the curb isn’t recycling . . . it’s just the start of a long and somewhat surprising journey for your empty milk cartons and back issues of Cat Fancy.

• Where do those materials go once in the bin?
• How do they get sorted out? And where do they go from there?
• What about those rumors that recycling trucks just deliver materials to the landfill, or dump them in the ocean?
• How can recycling even deliver environmental benefit, given all of the trucks and machinery involved?
• What’s the deal with plastic, anyway?

You have questions, and we have answers!

After pioneering recycling policy in the late 1980s, Oregon is now implementing the first “extended producer responsibility” law for packaging in the U.S. The Plastic Pollution and Recycling Modernization Act, adopted in 2021, was launched July 1, 2025 and is designed to provide residents and businesses a recycling system that can be trusted to deliver the environmental benefits that recycling has long promised. But even a fully modernized recycling system has limited potential to stem the tide of unsustainable levels of production and consumption.

Explore how recycling is simultaneously necessary and insufficient, how recycling needs to be improved, and what else Oregon could be doing to use materials sustainably.

David Allaway and Justin Gast work at the OR Department of Environmental Quality, and between them have over 57 years of experience with recycling systems. In addition to his time at DEQ, Justin has worked at the local and national levels for the likes of Resource Recycling magazine, the Washington County (OR) Solid Waste & Recycling Program and The Recycling Partnership. David has testified before Congress and co-chaired Oregon’s Recycling Steering Committee, and his work has been featured in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the National Law Review, Time, Sierra and PBS Frontline.

Minors ok when accompanied by a parent or guardian

Minors ok when accompanied by a parent or guardian

for an onstage conversation with Rukaiyah Adams, president and CEO of the 1803 Fund. As the leader of this ambitious new foundation, which seeks to rebuild Portland’s Albina neighborhood and advance the wealth and wellbeing of Black Portland, Adams requires a lot of trust: both trust from supporters that she will responsibly oversee a major investment in urban infrastructure, and trust from the community that her efforts to reshape a central part of the city will benefit the public. As former chief investment officer at Meyer Memorial trust, Adams also oversaw a different kind of trust, managing approximately $1 billion in assets for one of the state’s largest charitable foundations.

The conversation will take place at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland (3000 SE Alberta St.) at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 16, 2027. The event is part of our 2026–27 Consider This series, What Do We Trust?

Since January 2023, Rukaiyah Adams has served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the 1803 Fund, an innovative organization dedicated to growing shared prosperity. She brings a powerful blend of experience to her leadership role: the lived perspective of growing up in subsidized housing, the legal clarity gained from immersing herself in housing and urban development, and the sharp acumen of an investor who understands the transformative power of real assets in building community prosperity.

Adams leverages her extensive business expertise for the benefit of everyday people. She is a cofounder of both Albina Vision Trust and the 1803 Fund. Her dedication extends to public service, including her role as a Commissioner for the Port of Portland, investment committee member of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and a board member for Oregon Public Broadcasting. She holds a Bachelor of Arts with academic distinction from Carleton College; a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School, where she was on the Law and Policy Review and copresident of the Law Student Association; and a Master of Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Tickets are $15 and are available at albertarosetheatre.com.

To ensure that everyone who wants to attend is able to, a limited number of tickets are available for free. Use this form to request a free ticket.

Can't make it in person? Tune in from anywhere! The conversation will be streamed live, for free, on our YouTube channel, and will remain available for viewing after the program.

Mobility access: The Alberta Rose Theatre is a wheelchair-accessible venue. Anyone who uses a wheelchair or other mobility device can reserve an accessible seat at the venue by emailing [email protected] in advance of the event. Accessible bathrooms are to the right of the theater entrance.

Parking: Free parking is available in the neighborhood around the theater. Parking spaces often fill up quickly. There is one disabled person parking space less than one block away on NE 30th Ave., in front of Emmanuel Church of God in Christ United, but the space does not have a curb cut or ramp. The closest disabled person parking space with curb cuts is four blocks west, at the southwest corner of Northeast 26th Avenue and Northeast Alberta Street. A map of disabled person parking spaces is available from the Portland Bureau of Transportation.

Public transit: The TriMet Line 72 bus stops in front of the theater. Lines 70 and 17 have stops within four blocks of the venue.

Food and drink: Beverages and limited food are available for purchase and may be consumed anywhere in the theater during the event. Outside food and beverages are not permitted.

Lighting: The venue has appropriate overhead lighting before and after the conversation. During the conversation, lights are dimmed with staged lighting facing the stage. Lights in the lobby/bar remain on during the program. The auditorium does not have floor lighting in the aisles.

Sound: There will be music at a moderate volume before and after the event.

Read more about the Alberta Rose Theatre.

If you need accommodations to participate in this event, please email [email protected] by September 15.

Consider This is made possible by funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Oregon Cultural Trust.

Together, Oregon and Washington reveal over 300 million years of Earth’s history. Our rocks record a tumultuous continent of ever shifting coastlines, rising and falling volcanoes, and dramatic swings in climate. Amid these rocks we see a fragile planet hit by several profound extinction events, including Earth’s largest. However, we also see a resilient planet as witnessed in the Pacific Northwest’s incredible fossil record. Indeed, life finds a way.To write her second guidebook, A Rockhound’s Guide to Oregon & Washington, author Alison Jean Cole drove over 16,000 zig-zagging miles to uncover the the best of our geologies underfoot. She’ll share several of her favorite rock and fossil hunting locations, including:

The opportunities to find unusual and beautiful rocks abound. Join Cole on an exploration of the PNW’s most unusual geologies and rock collecting sites. Alison Jean Cole is an author, artist, advocate, and outfitter guide. Her work all centers around the geological world, whether writing books, guiding rockhounding expeditions, cutting stones, or doing advocacy work to protect our public lands. Follow her on Instagram @alisonjeancole.

Who are the bees living in your garden?

In this lively, photo-filled presentation, we’ll go beyond honey bees and meet 13 types of bees that call the Pacific Northwest home, from gleaming green metallic sweat bees to lovable leafcutters to conniving cuckoos.

Drawing on firsthand observations from her own wildlife-friendly garden, where she’s documented more than 50 bee species, Amy Campion will reveal the secret lives of these remarkable creatures, and she’ll share simple ways to help them thrive.

Whether you’re new to native bees or already a practicing pollinator gardener, you’ll leave with a profound appreciation for the incredible diversity buzzing right outside your door.

Amy Campion became a gardener in the Cincinnati area, where she worked at a wholesale nursery for 16 years. In 2013, she moved to Portland, OR, and in 2017, co-authored Gardening in the Pacific Northwest: The Complete Homeowner’s Guide with Paul Bonine. You can follow her on her blog, on Instagram, and on iNaturalist: @amycampion.

Minors ok when accompanied by a parent or guardian

Join us for a conversation about trust, faith, and beauty with Christian Wiman. In his poems and essays, Wiman explores religious and secular belief, hope and despair, sickness and memory. In all that he writes and does, Wiman asks what we can count on or believe in as we aim to live lives full of meaning and connection.

The conversation will take place at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland (3000 SE Alberta St.) at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 6, 2027. The event is part of our 2026–27 Consider This series, What Do We Trust?

Christian Wiman is the author, editor, or translator of fourteen books, including Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair, Hammer is the Prayer: Selected Poems, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer, and Stolen Air: Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam. Currently a professor at Yale Divinity School, Wiman has taught at Stanford University, Northwestern University, and Lynchburg College. From 2003 until 2013 he was the editor of Poetry magazine, the premiere magazine for poetry in the English-speaking world. For the magazine’s centennial year, Wiman edited, with Don Share, The Open Door: One Hundred Poems, One Hundred Years of Poetry Magazine. He has written for the New Yorker, Harper’s, the New York Times Book Review, the Atlantic, and numerous other publications. He is a former Guggenheim Fellow and holds two honorary doctorates. His particular interests include modern poetry, the language of faith, “accidental” theology (that is, theology conducted by unexpected means), and what it means to be a Christian intellectual in a secular culture. Raised in West Texas, he now lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

Tickets are $15 at albertarosetheatre.com.

To ensure that everyone who wants to attend is able to, a limited number of tickets are available for free. Use this form to request a free ticket.

Can't make it in person? Tune in from anywhere! The conversation will be streamed live, for free, on our YouTube channel, and will remain available for viewing after the program.

Mobility access: The Alberta Rose Theatre is a wheelchair-accessible venue. Anyone who uses a wheelchair or other mobility device can reserve an accessible seat at the venue by emailing [email protected] in advance of the event. Accessible bathrooms are to the right of the theater entrance.

Parking: Free parking is available in the neighborhood around the theater. Parking spaces often fill up quickly. There is one disabled person parking space less than one block away on NE 30th Ave., in front of Emmanuel Church of God in Christ United, but the space does not have a curb cut or ramp. The closest disabled person parking space with curb cuts is four blocks west, at the southwest corner of Northeast 26th Avenue and Northeast Alberta Street. A map of disabled person parking spaces is available from the Portland Bureau of Transportation.

Public transit: The TriMet Line 72 bus stops in front of the theater. Lines 70 and 17 have stops within four blocks of the venue.

Food and drink: Beverages and limited food are available for purchase and may be consumed anywhere in the theater during the event. Outside food and beverages are not permitted.

Lighting: The venue has appropriate overhead lighting before and after the conversation. During the conversation, lights are dimmed with staged lighting facing the stage. Lights in the lobby/bar remain on during the program. The auditorium does not have floor lighting in the aisles.

Sound: There will be music at a moderate volume before and after the event.

Read more about the Alberta Rose Theatre.

If you need accommodations to participate in this event, please email [email protected] by September 15.

Consider This is made possible by funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Oregon Cultural Trust.

Minors ok when accompanied by a parent or guardian

Amoebas have a LOT more to teach us than what we remember from high school science. Come hear surprising stories of how amoebas:

Author Nik Money explains how white blood cells and metastatic cancer cells behave like amoebas, curing and causing a range of illnesses, and how research using artificial amoebas has profound implications for AI, robotics, and bioengineering.

From its graceful movements to its astounding problem-solving skills, the amoeba is the perfect guide to the business of being alive on Earth.

Nicholas Money is a mycologist and professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Get 15% off the book and your ticket when you buy them together!

An entertaining tour of the seemingly simple formula guiding the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

The thrilling possibilities of life in the cosmos through the lens of the Drake equation, a seven-variable mathematical expression that calculates the number of civilizations in our galaxy that humans could potentially contact.First proposed in 1961, the equation begins with simple and well-known numbers such as the rate of star formation in the Milky Way and the fraction of stars with planetary systems. It then wades into thornier topics such as the number of planets with environments suitable for life, the fraction of suitable planets on which life appears, and the likelihood of intelligent life emerging on a planet and becoming technological.Cloudy with a Chance of Starships guides us from the basics of astronomy to the very frontiers of planetary science, along the way covering the Big Bang, the formation of solar systems, the origins and evolution of life, and the fascinating methods used by astrobiologists today. Seven Rasmussen is an astrobiologist, author, and science communicator. They teach at Columbia University and in the CUNY system.