Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Ashland, Oregon

Founded in 1935, Oregon Shakespeare Festival presents its entire season in rotating repertory. In 2010, a resident company of 75 actors and 450 other artists and artisans will present 760 performances of 11 productions in three theaters over a 37-week season, with as many as nine plays in production at any one time. Four plays by Shakespeare and seven plays by other classic and contemporary playwrights will be performed on the outdoor Elizabethan Stage, which seats 1,200 and is the oldest existing full-scale Elizabethan stage in the Western Hemisphere; in the Angus Bowmer Theatre (seats 601); and at the intimate New Theatre (seats 270-360). Annual attendance exceeds 380,000 and students make up 20% of the audience.

As part of Shakespeare for a New Generation, Oregon Shakespeare Festival will present 212 performances of four Shakespeare plays (Hamlet, Henry VIII, Much Ado About Nothing, and All's Well That Ends Well)—plus related classroom curricula and actor workshops, post-show discussions, tours, prologues, and teacher training—for underserved schools in Oregon and California. The festival will work with low-income elementary-, middle- and high-school students who participate in its School Visit Partnerships, Bowmer Project for Student Playgoers, and Ashland Schools project.

Visit them at: www.osfashland.org