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| outside Ashland early a.m. BK photo |
Building on Ashland’s early 20th century success with Chautauqua circuit performances, OSF grew in fits and starts since 1935 to become one of the major regional theatres in North America. In three superbly designed theatres (by Richard L. Hay, who still designs shows in them), OSF produces 11 plays—contemporary as well as Shakespeare and other classics--over its 8-and-a-half month season. It sells some 380,000 tickets for 776 performances, employing about a hundred performers, and 450 others. Its yearly mission, in the words of resident actor-teacher David Eric Thompson, is to “tell 11 stories with as much passion and energy and technical bravura as we can.”
So today the industry of Ashland is theatre, and not just at OSF. On my visit, Wendy Wasserstein’s American Daughter was at the Camelot Theatre Company, Oregon Cabaret Theatre was doing Tick, Tick, Boom! (a musical by Rent author Jonathan Larsen) and Southern Oregon University was mounting Ibsen’s Ghosts, to be followed by A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Ashland Children’s Theatre was preparing its annual Incredible Theatre Camp.
Shops, restaurants, white-water rafting—there’s plenty more to do, but it all revolves around OSF. The Festival offers theatre tours (many in our group had taken one before), talks, related concerts and other events. A visitor’s center has vintage costumes on display, and a gift store features theatrical masks and Oscar Wilde action figures. OSF proves that in the TV and movie age, people are still fascinated with live theatre.
Theatre in Ashland fulfills many hopes, and demolishes many excuses. It’s not New York or any large city, or even near one. Yet people travel hundreds of miles to see Shakespeare done with high artistry, clarity and style. Other classics and contemporary plays are likewise performed to fully engaged and responsive audiences of young and old, who typically see two plays a day, with actors as well as audiences as fully committed in matinees as in evening performances. It can be done, and the proof is living.
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