Hi, we’re
Bike Play!

We’ve been creating original theater by bike in Portland, Oregon since 2009. Each year we create a show from scratch, incorporating original song and dance, and as many bike-related puns and PNW references we can think of.

The audience bikes along with us between scenes to new locations as we perform in many parks and other found locations.

Our show is one of hundreds of rides that are part of Pedalpalooza, the summer-long bike festival, drawing large audiences of all ages. Bike Play is always family friendly in content and bike route.

Grab your bike and helmet and let’s ride!

Meet the Cast

  • Emilie Weidlich

    Emilie (she/her) has been in Bike Play since 2019. She directed Jurassic Bike and loves collaborative theatre.

  • Haley Hessler

    Haley (she/her) joined Bike Play in 2019 and has been known to choreograph dances for the show. She's a fan of meditation, climbing, dance, and nature.

  • Hans Ellis

    Bio coming soon!

  • Isaac Ellingson

    Isaac (he/him) is gearing up for his Bike Play debut! He also spends his summers performing Shakespeare, scroll in hand, with OPSFest, and his winters behind the masks of the menagerie of animals in Imago Theatre’s ZooZoo.

  • Jenny Bunce

    Jenny (she/her) is excited to be in her 9th Bike Play, her favorite thing about Portland summer. She dreams of the day Bike Play goes international and casts her nephew and niece in France.

  • Kelsey Rankins

    Kelsey (she/her) has choreographed for Bike Play since 2017. She loves dance, trees, and her husband and one-year-old son.

  • Kris Mahoney-Watson

    Kris (he/him) studied theater and improv at Portland State and has been performing around the PNW for over 20 years. He joined Bike Play in 2016 and has been heavily involved in every show since.

  • Lindsay Liden

    Lindsay (she/her) made her Bike Play debut in The Big One in 2019 and has been an eager player since! Lindsay enjoys as many walks and bike rides around Portland and the world as possible and admiring trees from her yoga mat.

  • Lydia Manning

    Lydia (she/her) is stoked and spoked to be in her very first Bike Play. She is half of Slydia, Portland’s Number One Comedy Duo (Girl & Gay Division), and cohost of the Kickstand Comedy variety show Please Come!

  • Noelle Eaton

    Noelle (she/her) is the producer of Bike Play and has been involved in every production. Noelle works as a native plant gardener, volunteers as a Master Gardener, and has two delightful young children that are counting down the years until they can be in Bike Play.

  • Scott Weidlich

    Scott (he/him) joined Bike Play in 2021 as a writer and as an actor in 2022. He loves that the show is an opportunity to try new things and is always excited by the unexpected ideas that come up during collaboration.

Where it all started.

Bike Play was first created by the brilliant Noah Martin and The Working Theatre Collective. Noah pitched the idea to his company members of the (now defunct) Working Theatre Collective. He was excited by the idea of combining their passions for bikes and theater in devising a mobile show on bikes. Bike Play had its first performance during Pedalpalooza in 2009.

The Working Theater Collective created original, devised, and DIY theater in unexpected spaces from 2009 to 2012. The company disbanded after a majority of the members moved away for graduate school programs. Company member Noelle Eaton stayed in Portland and kept the show going, sometimes with the support of founding member Ashley Hollingshead. The show now continues as an ensemble collective known simply as Bike Play.