AGAINST THE CURRENT. TO THE SOURCE.
Upstream Performance Collaborative is a scrappy, Barrymore Award–winning theatre company dedicated to boundary-breaking new works by emerging and underrepresented artists.
We were founded by award-winning, multidisciplinary artist Rayne in 2019.
We create vital theatre that rejects norms, champions play, and interrogates truth—
Against the current.
To the source.
Pictured: Quinton J. Alexander as "X" in The White Feather Project.
Rowan Quincy Davis Photography
Pictured: Rayne.
Wandering Eye Photography
Pictured: Quinton J. Alexander as "X" in The White Feather Project.
Rowan Quincy Davis Photography
Pictured: Ryan Rebel as "VideoBlobby" and Taylor Cawley as "theelvencat" in WHISPER. Screenshots from performance.
Pictured: Rayne as "Sarah" in COMET.
Gregory Bissell Photography
The inaugural production was The White Feather Project. Funded by the Inclusive Community Grant at Ursinus College, this radical ethnographic devised-play responded to a racially-charged hate crime committed at the institution. Despite administrative efforts to close the show, The White Feather Project sold-out its on-campus performance and successfully remounted at the Shoe Box Short Theatre Festival at Venice Island Performing Arts Center the same year.
WHISPER was Upstream’s second show, co-produced with Shoe Box Theatre Collective. An experiment in improv, scripted text, and technology, WHISPER tackled themes of online community, mental-health, and suicide awareness. It was performed to a live, unsuspecting audience via Twitch and garnered rave reviews during and after its premiere at Director’s Gathering DG Jam 2020.
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Help shape our newest play MASC.— apply to join
our Community Advisory!
We’re assembling a Community Advisory to help develop the next phase of MASC., a Black, Trans solo play built with audience interaction. During a public development week at Theatre Exile, Advisors will take part in playtests, respond to the work, and help refine its interactive elements as part of the creative process.
The development week runs in the evenings from April 20th to April 24th, 2026.
Ten Community Advisors will be selected and paid a $75 stipend to participate in at least one playtest and conversation with the creative team (Playwright/Performer: Rayne, Director: Dane Eissler, & Dramaturg: Dawn McCall).
Alongside the public during Philly Theatre Week, Community Advisors are invited to attend the free work-in-progress showing, talkback, and “Spring Fling” dance party that will close out the week.
MASC. follows "Rayne", a closeted Black trans man searching for connection and self-determination while reconciling an abusive past with his incarcerated father. Along the way, "Rayne" teams up with unlikely lovers, professors, and Gods to survive the truths suffocated by their mask. The play invites "Rayne" and their audience to move through a journey of empowerment, healing, and forgiveness together.
While MASC. centers a Black trans experience, its interactive structure is designed for everyone. We are prioritizing Black Queer and Trans+ applicants, but Upstream Performance Collaborative is excited to gather a cohort of Community Advisors that reflect a wide range of identities, perspectives, and lived experiences. We’re looking for people curious about theatre, social change, and the hope of building community across difference.
Upstream is deeply grateful to the Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant for making this project possible!
For consideration, please fill out this form to the best of your ability. Responses of any length are welcome and encouraged! If you'd like any accommodations, please email upstreamperformanceco@gmail.com
The link to the form is also here: https://forms.gle/Dwu4Xj6FkHiF2jw57