[Coast Culture] A Long Way Back to the Coast: Livanna Maislen’s triumphant return to local theater for the upcoming production of 4000 Miles

For many performing artists who grow up on the Oregon Coast, the pathway to a successful career on the stage seems to lead away. Bigger cities. Bigger stages. More opportunity. The Oregon Coast becomes something you carry with you, not something you expect to return to in a professional capacity.

But for Livanna Maislen, an actor, dancer, and yogi based in San Francisco after years

of work in New York’s theater ecosystem, returning to the Oregon Coast to appear in the

upcoming production of 4,000 Miles isn’t a step backward. It’s something else entirely.

It’s a return to her roots—but on her own terms. Maislen’s path into the arts didn’t begin here, exactly, but the Oregon Coast was part of her early life. Born on Cape Cod, she moved frequently as a child, including a brief period in Waldport and later time spent in South Beach and Newport before eventually finishing high school in Seattle.

Dance came early—so early, she describes it as a kind of first language. Words didn’t

always come easily, but movement did. A trip to New York City at age seven introduced

Maislen to both the Lincoln Center and The Juilliard School. She knew by the end of that

trip that being a dancer was what she wanted to do in life. That certainty carried her through years of training and into a professional career. After attending NYU, she built a life in New York, eventually landing in an immersive off-Broadway production where she performed six to seven times a week for more than six years.

It was, by any measure, the kind of career many artists leave places like Newport to

pursue. But it came at a cost. She describes that period as relentless—constant work, little rest, pushing through exhaustion. Eventually, she stepped away. She traveled to India, completed a yoga certification course, and, not long after, the pandemic forced a broader pause on her life’s ambitions. What followed wasn’t a retreat from the arts, but a recalibration. She moved to San Francisco to study somatic psychotherapy—work focused on how lived experience is held in the body—and began rebuilding her relationship with performance art.

More importantly, her priorities shifted.

“I am prioritizing community and wanting to make art, not just for myself, but with people

I really love,” she said. That shift is what makes her return to Newport—to appear in 4,000 Miles at the Newport Performing Arts Center—different. This isn’t a case of coming home to figure things out. It’s not a fallback. It’s a deliberate choice made by an artist who has already done the work, built the career, and is now deciding what matters most.

Part of that decision is deeply personal. The production is directed by her father and co-

stars her mother—both longtime figures in the local theater scene. Working with family might sound complicated, but Maislen approaches it with a clarity that defines this stage of her life. She doesn’t frame it as returning to a childhood dynamic. Instead, she describes it as stepping into a professional space where mutual respect has replaced hierarchy.

“I’m treating my parents the way I would in any other professional company,” she said.

“And it’s a gift to feel like that’s getting returned.” That sense of equality didn’t exist when she was younger. Like most children, she admits, she once rolled her eyes at her parents’ experience. Now, after years in the field herself, she sees their experience differently—not just as family member, but as fellow artists. There’s also an awareness of how rare this opportunity is. Many of her peers have lost parents. Few have the chance to collaborate with them, let alone in the same discipline. “I just keep seeing that as a gift,” she said.

That framing shapes everything about how she approaches the work. Even the way the production came together reflects that intentionality. She first read 4,000 Miles three years ago after her father recommended it. The character—an outdoorsy, somewhat nomadic cyclist—felt immediately familiar. She couldn’t shake it. A year later, she suggested they produce it. Another year passed before schedules aligned and dates were set. And then, in that all-of-a-sudden way life has about it, the project suddenly became real and immediate.

Now, she’s back on the coast—not as a tourist or local, but as a working artist. What she

finds here is different from the environments she’s known. In cities like New York, performance is constant—one show among many, competing for attention. Here, she describes something else: a sense of shared investment. A production is not just something to attend, but something the community takes part in, whether directly or indirectly. Actors help build sets. Community members step in where needed. There’s less separation between roles.

That spirit extends to the audience as well. In a place like Newport, people aren’t just

watching strangers perform. They’re watching people they know—neighbors, coworkers,

familiar faces—step into something transformative. That changes the experience.

For Maislen, this production also represents a different kind of artistic challenge. Much of

her past work leaned toward intensity—large physical expression, emotionally charged

roles. This character asks something else of her: restraint, subtlety, the quiet nuances of

grief and anger. She expects to continue to learn more about this character—and

herself—throughout the run of the show.

When asked what one takeaway she hopes that audiences will have from the show,

Maislen says she hopes audience members will realize that “laughing and grieving

doesn’t have to happen alone.” In a way, that idea mirrors her own journey. Leaving, building something, and then returning—not to where she started, but to something more balanced. More collaborative. More human. Not as someone trying to become an artist. But as an artist.

4,000 Miles runs at the Newport Performing Arts Center from March 26 through April 5.

Tickets are available online here.