In the dimly lit black box theater nestled in Grant High School’s basement, Trisha Todd, Grant’s theater teacher, instructs her final group of high school students. She’s finally prepared to leave the program she dedicated her life to for 29 years.

Todd is retiring from teaching at the end of the 2025-26 school year, leaving behind a lasting legacy as a director, teacher, actor and friend. Todd has made a powerful impact on Grant students and teachers alike. Beginning a new era of her life, she is leaving the theater program in the hands of her longtime friend and colleague, dance and stagecraft teacher Jessica Murray.

Growing up, acting and teaching were her two primary aspirations. It wasn’t until later in life, she says, that she realized those two passions could “come together.”

Before coming back to Oregon, she traveled the country working as an actor, moving from Portland to New York to Los Angeles. Around that time, Todd starred in a film called “Claire of the Moon,” which tells the story of two female writers falling in love at a writing retreat. Working on the movie helped Todd realize that she didn’t want to continue acting in films. However, she is “really happy I got to do something like that, and that it had such an impact on the queer community at that time.”

After 13 years of working in the theater industry, Todd decided to switch gears and moved back to Portland to do regional theater and obtained her teaching license at the University of Portland.

Todd’s first teaching gig was at Portland Community College, where she taught acting. She then moved to teach both English and theater at Battle Ground High School in Washington. After working there, Todd once again returned to her nomadic lifestyle, this time as a teacher. She traveled all over the country, substitute teaching in five different states.

When a theater position opened up at Grant, Todd’s colleague recommended her to fill the position. She was hesitant at first, so she lied and said that her car broke down, but her colleague’s persistence persuaded her to make the drive to Portland. Once she was hired, she immediately “fell in love with” the school.

When Todd first moved to Northeast Portland, it was before a large wave of gentrification greatly changed its demographics. Todd says that she loved the diversity of the city. She felt like there was a “real pride” in residing in the area. To Todd, the school felt like home — it arrived in her life at a time when she was ready to settle down and build something of her own.

At first, she shared the theater program with Chris Lane, who now teaches English. After 20 years of working together, Lane departed the program, leaving her to handle it alone. In an effort to reach more students, Todd transformed creative writing into a new class called Writing for the Arts. “It was a way for students who wanted to tell stories … to find a medium through which to tell their stories,” she says. Students in the class practiced writing in various forms, including plays, screenplays and children’s books.

Additionally, Todd aimed to minimize the budgetary challenges the theater program faced by becoming the first Career and Technical Education (CTE) certified teacher in the district. This certification, completed while parenting her own school-age children, allowed her to bolster the program with CTE-designated funding. Murray says this additional step helped Todd “save the theater program.”

Then, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, sending the theater program into online school. Todd continued to work from the black box, hoping for her students “at least to feel like they were in the theater.” She calls the experience of being alone in the school “sort of like the apocalypse,” and says that the time made her appreciate the importance of connection and community to the theater program.

Todd’s passion for teaching shines beyond theater. In her last year before retirement, Todd was instructed to teach sophomore English for the first time in years. “She spent the entire summer building her sophomore curriculum,” says Murray. “She put in tons of hours outside of school, unpaid hours.”

Todd looks back fondly on her time teaching theater. She says that it feels similar to how a sports coach would feel watching their players progress over the years. Todd sees the art of theater as much more than just acting; she says that in the class they “study, break it down and deconstruct what it is to be human.”

Todd’s teaching prowess has impacted many Grant alumni. Jinkx Monsoon, a drag queen and actress who recently starred as Mary Todd Lincoln in the Broadway play “Oh, Mary!” was a student of Todd’s at Grant. In her 29 years of teaching, Todd has instructed students who have gone on to pursue various artistic careers. Some of her former students include current teachers. John Eisemann, who teaches choir and a capella at Grant, was in Todd’s 2005-06 senior theater class.

Eisemann praises Todd’s teaching style: “She lets people be who they are, and then helps them mold a better version of themselves, rather than attempting to help them conform to something that she’s already predetermined,” he says. Eisemann finds that Todd teaches students important lessons, saying that she values “grit,” a skill he believes is essential for students to have.

Grant senior Sonja Seidman, the president of Grant’s thespians club and a theater student since freshman year, attests to the impact Todd can have on students. “She’s such a collaborative creative,” says Seidman. “It’s so fun to work with her because I feel like she really values the input from her students and from her cast.”

Teacher-student relationships aren’t the only ones that Todd has fostered at Grant. Murray, now her friend and
colleague of nearly 13 years, is poised to take over the rest of the theater program once Todd leaves.

Over the years, Todd and Murray have formed a strong friendship. Their laughter often fills Todd’s eclectic and homely office, making the small glass room inside the black box a home to innumerable stories and memories. Murray says that it’s “weird” to imagine the black box, filled with posters from past plays Todd directed and photos of her former students, without her.

When Todd retires from teaching, she plans to continue coaching actors and directing. “I’m really looking forward to my own life and my own change,” she says. “I’m not done, so I’m going to keep doing what I do.” Seidman admires her transition: “Trisha is starting a new phase of her life, along with the seniors,” she says. Todd is leaving behind a powerful legacy as a teacher, a friend, a mentor and a power-house of creativity.