David Newbatt's Illustration for Goethe's The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily
Rudolf Steiner’s first mystery drama The Portal of Initiation will be performed in Rose Hall at the Green Meadow Waldorf School on Saturday, October 4, 2025 (click here for more information and to register). This play hasn’t been fully mounted on this continent since 2014, and it is now offered by a new young cast under the direction of Barbara Renold. The Portal of Initiation was first performed in 1910, and it remains today a journey of unusual scope, lifting the veil between the spheres of existence as it follows souls of spiritually striving human beings wrestling with their pasts and their relationships with each other.
Though the performance is open to anyone regardless of prior exposure to its themes, some audience members find it fruitful to engage with the characters and familiarize themselves with the story ahead of time.
To that end, several preparatory events are on offer this month:
The Story of Portal
Wednesday, September 17, 2025, at 7 pm
Goethe Room, Fellowship Community
241 Hungry Hollow Road, Chestnut Ridge, NY 10977
Free Admission
Contact laurieportostories@gmail.com for more information.
Storyteller Laurie Portocarrero will condense the plot of the six-hour-long play and present it in story form, creating an engaging overview and introduction.
Portal of Initiation Workshop
Friday, September 19, 2025, at 7 pm
through
Sunday, September 21, 2025, at 1 pm
Red Barn Studio
185A Hungry Hollow Road, Chestnut Ridge, NY 10977
Workshop Fee: $175 ($50 per student)
Register ASAP at laurieportostories@gmail.com
A new creative way of experiencing Rudolf Steiner's mystery dramas, these workshops have been developing and growing in popularity since 2014. Through Laurie's facilitation, participants move and speak their way together through an entire play, taking turns, experiencing all the parts, all the lines, utilizing the many tools of the dramatic arts, including speech chorus, play, and ensemble-building. This is an enlivening, inspiring, experiential journey through the great gift of this mighty play.
Laurie Portocarrero is an actor, storyteller, teacher, and director, living in upstate New York. As a young person, Laurie fell in love with dramatic arts permeated with meaning and spirit. She went on to study anthroposophy, Waldorf education, and Goethean studies, Spacial Dynamics, the Chekhov acting technique, eurythmy, singing, speech formation, storytelling, and non-violent communication. Her hope in all art-creating is to help facilitate harmonious encounters with each other out of the longing we all carry deep in our beings to develop the social art of the future: How do we meet one another? How may we do what Rudolf Steiner urged, and carry our warm hearts into the world to do powerful healing work?
The Refugees’ Tale (Goethe’s The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily)
Sunday, September 28, 2025, at 4 pm
Threefold Auditorium
260 Hungry Hollow Road, Chestnut Ridge, NY 10977
Suggested Donation: $20 ($12 per student)
Contact laurieportostories@gmail.com for more information.
The Portal of Initiation shares parallels, and is even a transformation of Goethe’s famous fairy tale. The tale will be acted out in vivid pictures by actors Glen Williamson and Laurie Portocarrero. Don't miss this program, carried in these master actors' repertoire for decades and performe worldwide!
Performance of Rudolf Steiner’s Mystery Drama The Portal of Initiation
Saturday, October 4, 2025, from 10 am through 9 pm
Rose Hall at Green Meadow Waldorf School
307 Hungry Hollow Road, Chestnut Ridge, NY 10977
Contact Ezra Sullivan at ezra@threefold.org for more information.
The performance of The Portal of Initiation on Saturday, October 4, 2025, from 10 am running until 9 pm, is embedded within a conference Encountering the Portal of Initiation: A Conference and Performance of Rudolf Steiner’s Mystery Drama. See threefold.org/mystery for more information and to register.