Today we’d like to introduce you to Astra Davalos.
Hi Astra, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Fool House started in 2021, when a group of immigrants from Eastern Europe simply wanted to make theater and didn’t want to wait for the perfect conditions to do it. Our first production, The Dogs, was performed in a dog park in Beaverton. Later, we staged work in an abandoned gas station in Multnomah Village. In a way, that became our philosophy: use what you have, stay curious, and make the space into a theater.
What began as a small experimental collective kept growing. We produced performances, festivals, workshops, and community events, built a community around the work, and eventually, after years of making theater wherever we could find room, we opened The House Studio and transformed an empty commercial space into our own black-box theater.
Fool House grew much more organically than strategically. We followed the work, took risks, welcomed people who wanted to create with us, and somewhere along the way realized that we hadn’t just built a theater company, we had built a community.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has definitely not been a smooth road. Independent theater requires an almost unreasonable combination of money, time, space, people, and persistence. We rarely had all of them at once.
For years, Fool House was built largely through volunteer labor and improvisation. We learned to turn limitations into part of the creative process. If we didn’t have a theater, we found another space. If we didn’t have a large budget, we asked what was actually essential.
The harder challenge has been growing without losing that freedom. There is a strange transition from being a group of people making things together to becoming an organization with budgets, schedules, grants, and responsibilities. We are still learning how to build enough structure to sustain the work without letting the structure take over.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Fool House creates experimental theater rooted in physical performance, visual storytelling, and curiosity. Our work draws from devising, clowning, Butoh, improvisation, text, immersive theater, and other traditions. We’re less interested in following a particular method than in discovering what each project wants to become.
We are especially interested in what happens before words and between words: movement, rhythm, breath, gaze, distance, presence. Sometimes the body can say something that language cannot.
At the same time, community has become just as important as the performances themselves. Fool House has grown into a place where immigrants, artists, experienced performers, and people stepping onstage for the first time can make something together.
That is probably what we are most proud of. We have made shows and won awards, but we have also created a place where people find collaborators, friendships, courage, and a sense of belonging. To us, that is as important as anything that happens onstage.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
People might be surprised to know that we don’t always start with a script or even a story. Sometimes we start with a movement, an image, an object, a sound, or a strange question and let the work reveal what it wants to become. We believe that some of the most interesting theatre happens when we don’t know the answer yet. Sometimes the most serious discoveries come from allowing ourselves to be fools first.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.foolhouse.online
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/housefoolofart/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/foolhouseartcollective
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAOrZ4b_HI4iThNGY-Ovi-A
- Other: https://maps.app.goo.gl/3fpDbwtQykh9ZoDC7
