Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Elizabethan Stage
Begins	February
Ends	October
Frequency	annual
Location(s)	Ashland, Oregon
Years active	76
Inaugurated	1935
Attendance	375,000 to 400,000
Genre	repertory theatre
Budget	$24 million
Website	osfashland.org

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) is a regional repertory theatre in Ashland, Oregon, United States. The festival annually produces eleven plays on three stages during a season that lasts from February to October. Approximately half of the plays produced each year are by William Shakespeare.

Overview

A typical season at OSF consists of three plays on the outdoor Elizabethan Stage (aka Allen Pavilion), three in the New Theatre, and five in the Angus Bowmer Theatre. OSF provides a broad range of educational programs for secondary and college students and theatre professionals while providing a wide range of classic and contemporary plays. While OSF has produced non-Shakespearean works since 1960, each season continues to include three to five Shakespeare plays. Since 1935, it has staged Shakespeare's complete canon three times, completing the first cycle in 1958 with a production of Troilus and Cressida and completing the second and third cycles through the works in 1978 and 1997. Since 2000, there has also been at least one new work each season from playwrights such as Octavio Solis and Robert Schenkkan.

In addition to the plays, a free outdoor "Green Show" precedes the evening plays from June through October. Originally, it offered Elizabethan music and dancers. From 1966 till 2007, it consisted of three shows in rotation inspired by the plays showing in the Elizabethan Theatre. Live music was supplied by the Terra Nova Consort and other guest musicians and modern dance was performed by Dance Kaleidoscope, a modern dance group. In 2008, the Green Show was revamped. Performers may include a dance group from Mexico or India, clowns doing ballet on stilts, jugglers, or a fire show.^[1] OSF actors might showcase their musical talents. Improv, metal, or rock-n-roll variations on Shakespeare might be seen. Individual performers, groups, choirs, bands, and orchestras may present Afro-Cuban, baroque, blues, classical, contemporary, cowboy, funk, gospel, hip-hop, jazz, mariachi, marimba, poetry, marionette, renaissance, or salsa, sometimes combined in unexpected ways. Performers are drawn from throughout the Northwest and California.^[2]

The festival presents 750-800 performances of eleven plays in three theatres from February through October each year, with a total average audience of 375,000 to 400,000. The company consists of about 325 full-time personnel, including over 100 actors, 175 part-time support personnel, and approximately 600 volunteers.^[3]

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is listed as a Major Festival in the book Shakespeare Festivals Around the World.^[4]

History

The festival traces its roots to the Chautauqua movement of the late 1800s. In 1893, the residents of Ashland built a facility that hosted its first performance on 5 July. The building was expanded in 1905, and in its heyday, accommodated audiences of 1500 for appearances by the likes of John Phillip Sousa and William Jennings Bryan during annual 10-day seasons.^[5]

In 1917, a new domed structure was built at the site, but it fell into disrepair after the Chautauqua movement died out in the 1920s. In 1935, the similarity of the remaining wall of the by now roofless Chautauqua building to Elizabethan theatres inspired Southern Oregon Normal School drama professor Angus L. Bowmer to propose using it to present plays by Shakespeare. Ashland city leaders granted him a sum "not to exceed US$400" (US$5,600 2005 est.) to present two plays as part of the city's Independence Day celebration. However, they pressed Bowmer to add boxing matches to cover the expected deficit. Bowmer agreed, feeling such an event was in perfect keeping with the bawdiness of Elizabethan theatre, and the performances went forward. The Works Progress Administration helped construct a makeshift Elizabethan stage on the Chautauqua site,^[6] and confidently billed as the "First Annual Oregon Shakespearean Festival", Bowmer presented Twelfth Night on July 2 and July 4, 1935 and The Merchant of Venice on July 3, with Bowmer directing and playing the lead roles in both plays.^[6] Reserved seats cost US$1, with general admission of US$.50 for adults and US$.25 for children (US$13.80, US$6.90, and US$3.45 2005 est.). Ironically, it was the profit from the plays that covered the losses the boxing matches incurred.^[7]

The festival has continued ever since, excepting 1941–46, when Bowmer served in World War II, and quickly developed a reputation for quality productions. In 1939, OSF took a production of The Taming of the Shrew to the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco, California that was nationally broadcast on radio.^[5] The lead actress, learning at the last minute the broadcast would be to a national audience, suffered a panic attack, was rushed to the hospital and the stand-in took over. The scripts didn’t arrive on the set until three minutes before air time. The Festival achieved widespread national recognition when, from 1951 to 1973, NBC broadcast abbreviated performances each year that were carried by more than 100 stations and, after 1954 on Armed Forces Radio and Radio Free Europe. The programs won favorable review from critics and for the first time people began to come from around the country. The programs led Life magazine to do a story on the Festival in 1957, bringing even more people to the plays. The NBC programs and the subsequent attention go a long way to explaining the mystery of how a tiny out-of-the-way timber town in the Northwest became a theatrical and tourist Mecca.^[8]

A second playhouse, the indoor Angus Bowmer Theatre, opened in 1970, enabling OSF to expand its season into the spring and fall; within a year, attendance tripled to 150,000. Bowmer retired in 1971, and leadership of the festival passed to Jerry Turner, a respected actor/director and later a translator of Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg. Turner opened OSF's third theatre, the Black Swan, in 1977, and festival attendance soon reached 300,000. In 1983 OSF won a Tony Award for achievement in regional theatre. Five years later, the Oregon Shakespearean Festival was renamed the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. At the invitation of the City of Portland, from 1988–1994, OSF established a resident theatre in the Portland Center for the Performing Arts, which later spun off to independence as Portland Center Stage. Those six seasons ran from November-April, and company members often worked in both cities.

Turner retired in 1991 and actor/director Henry Woronicz took control for five seasons. 1992 saw the opening of the Allen Pavilion, which encircled the open-air seating area within the walls of the Elizabethan Theatre.

When Woronicz left in 1996, OSF recruited Libby Appel from the highly respected Indiana Repertory Theatre, and a guest director at OSF from 1988 to 1991, as artistic director. In 1997, the OSF-commissioned The Magic Fire was presented at the John F. Kennedy Center and named by Time among the year's best plays. In 2001, the ten millionth ticket to an OSF performance was sold. In 2002, the New Theatre replaced the Black Swan as the venue for small, experimental productions in a Black box theatre.^[5] In 2003, Time named OSF as the second best regional theatre in the United States (Chicago's Goodman Theater was first).^[9]

Appel was succeeded in 2008 as Artistic Director by Bill Rauch. Rauch was the artistic director and co-founder of the Cornerstone Theater Company in Los Angeles and had directed plays previously at OSF. He is making direct connections between classic plays and contemporary concerns, exploring beyond the Western canon to incorporate Asian and African epics into the Festival, and reaching out to youth. Inspired by Shakespeare's history plays, he has initiated a series of original plays focusing on American history.^[10] While continuing to work with established playwrights, he has commissioned works by new ones, and has initiated the Black Swan Lab to develop new works for the stage. His work resulted in his receiving the Margo Jones Award recognizing his impact on American theatre in 2009.^[11][12]

A $400,000 grant from the Collins Foundation has enabled OSF to initiate a ten-year plan to create a series of up to thirty-seven original plays in American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle under the supervision of OSF Associate Director Allison Carey. Thirty-seven plays, matching the total number of plays Shakespeare wrote, aims at understanding our national identity. American Night, by Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas, and Herbert Siguenza of Culture Clash, the first play in the series, was presented as part of the 2010 season, and proved so popular that for the first time in OSF history, was expanded to include extra performances. Ghost Light, by Jonathan Moscone of California Shakespeare Theater and Tony Taccone of Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the second in the series, was presented as part of the 2011 series. Five additional plays have been contracted with the following playwrights:

1988 Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang

Guggenheim and 2007 MacArthur Fellow Lynn Nottage

2002 Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Schenkkan

1999 MacArthur Fellow Naomi Wallace

2001 MacArthur Fellow and 2002 Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks.^[13]

OSF campus

A-B-Elizabethan Stage/Allen Pavilion, C-Angus Bowmer Theatre, D-Black Swan Theatre, E-New Theatre, F-Festival Courtyard, G-Administration Building, H-Group Sales Office, I-Welcome Center, J-Tudor Guild Gift Shop, K-Campus Building, L-Pioneer Building, M-Carpenter Hall, N-Bill Patton Garden, O-Brass Rubbing Center, P-Box Office

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival occupies a 4-acre (16,000 m²) campus adjacent to Lithia Park and the Plaza in Ashland, Oregon. The primary buildings are the three theatres, Carpenter Hall, and the Camps, Pioneer, and Administration buildings, all surrounding an open central court, locally known as “The Festival Courtyard." The Festival Courtyard ties the three theatres together into an architectural whole and facilitates movement. It also provides a stage for the nightly Green Shows from June through September. Other facilities include the costume warehouse, costume shop, production and plant shops, classrooms, and rehearsal spaces.^[5]

Elizabethan Stage

Original Elizabethan Theatre

The Elizabethan Stage has evolved since the founding of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The design for the first outdoor OSF Elizabethan Theatre was sketched by Angus L. Bowmer on the back of an envelope based on his recollection of productions at the University of Washington in which he had acted as a student. Ashland, Oregon obtained WPA funds in 1935 to build it in the roofless shell of the abandoned Chautauqua theatre, the 12-foot-high (3.7 m) circular walls which remained after the dome had been removed. Bowmer extended the walls to reduce the stage width to fifty-five feet, and painted the extensions to resemble half-timbered buildings. He designed a thrust stage—one projecting toward the audience—with a balcony. Two columns helped divide the main stage into forestage, middle stage, and inner stage areas. Fifty cent general admission seating was on benches just behind the one dollar reserved seating on folding chairs. This theatre was torn down during World War II.^[14]

Second Elizabethan Theatre

The second outdoor Elizabethan Theatre was built in 1947 from plans drawn up by University of Washington drama professor John Conway. The main stage became trapezoidal, with entries added on either side, and windows added above them flanking the balcony stage. A low railing gave a finished appearance to the forestage. Chairs arranged to improve sight lines replaced bench seating. Backstage areas were added gradually and haphazardly, until the ramshackle result was ordered torn down as a fire hazard in 1958.^[14]

Current Eizabethan Theatre

Stage of the OSF Elizabethan Theatre

The next year saw the opening of the current outdoor Elizabethan Theatre, patterned on London's 1599 Fortune Theatre. Designed by Richard Hay, it incorporated all the stage dimensions mentioned in the Fortune contract. The trapezoidal stage was retained but the façade was extended to three stories, resulting in a forestage, middle stage, inner below, inner above (the old balcony), and a musicians' gallery. The wings were provided with second-story windows. Each provides acting areas, creating many staging possibilities. A pitched, shingled roof enhances the half-timbered façade. A windowed gable was extended from the center of the roof to cover and define the middle stage. Just before each performance, an actor opens the gable window, and in keeping with Elizabethan tradition signaling a play in progress, runs a flag up the pole to the sound of a trumpet and doffs his cap to the audience.

The result is not an exact replica of the Fortune Theatre. The known but incomplete dimensions apply only to the stage. The original specifications sometimes say no more than "to be built like the Globe," for which there are no plans or details. The remotely operated lighting, on scaffolding on either side of the stage, of course did not exist in the original and the current site rather than the original architecture determines the shape of the auditorium. Twelve hundred seats in slightly offset arcs ascend the original hillside, giving an excellent view of the stage from each seat. The old Chautauqua theatre walls, now ivy-covered, remain as the outer perimeter of the theatre.

The US$7.6 million Paul Allen Pavilion was added in 1992. It houses a control room, and audience services including infrared hearing devices, blankets, pillows and food and drink, which are allowed in the auditorium. Several hundred seats were moved to a balcony and two box seats, further improving sightlines and acoustics. Vomitoria, the traditional name for entryways for actors from under the seating area, were added and the lighting scaffolds were eliminated.^[15]

Each year, three plays are offered in rotation Tuesdays through Sundays in the Elizabethan Theatre from late June to early October.

Angus Bowmer Theatre

The 600-or-more-seat indoor Angus Bowmer Theatre of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival opened in 1970. It increased audience capacity by over 100 percent by making it possible to hold matinee performances and to extend the season into spring and fall.

An April 1968 report by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research of the University of Oregon pointed to the evidence of thousands of people who were turned away each year, noted that the Oregon Shakespeare Festival had become an important economic engine for southern Oregon, and recommended addition of an indoor theatre.

The City of Ashland applied to the Economic Development Administration of the Department of Commerce in Fall 1968 for a US$1,792,000 project grant with the Angus Bowmer Theatre as the keystone. The plan also called for a parking building, a remodeled administration building and box office, a scene shop and exhibit hall that later would become the OSF Black Swan Theatre, landscaping, and street realignment. US$896,000 was approved in April 1969, to match an equal amount to be raised through private donations. The fund drive quickly exceeded its goal and ground for the new theatre was broken on December 18, 1969. The building was ready just five months later to open on May 22, 1970 with a production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, selected to recognize the Shakespearean origin of the Festival but to indicate that it also was ready to broaden its horizons by incorporating modern plays into its repertoire. Reinforcing that message, The Fantasticks and You Can’t Take it with You were the other two plays presented during that first six-week season. Fulfilling the original plan, it now offers five plays from mid-February till late October each year.

The design, by Kirk, Wallace and McKinley of Seattle, with theater consulting by Landry & Bogan Theatre Consultants, was basic, functional and innovative. All seats are within 55 feet (17 m) of the stage, arranged with only two side aisles and wide spaces between rows. Dark colors resist reflection and draw the eye to the stage. The forestage is on a hydraulic lift system that can emulate the thrust stage of the OSF Elizabethan Theatre, form a more conventional proscenium front, move below auditorium floor level to form an orchestra pit, or drop two stories for storage of equipment or scenery. The walls of the auditorium can swing in to close down the playing area or open to accommodate larger productions.^[16]

In what the Executive Director called the biggest crisis in the 75-year history of the Festival, a crack was discovered in the seventy-foot long, six and one-half foot high main ceiling support beam of the Bowmer Theatre two hours before the 18 June 2011 matinee. Shows were immediately relocated to other venues as work progressed to repair the beam. A 598 seat tent, "Bowmer in the Park", was erected as a temporary replacement venue. A single set was designed and built to serve four very different shows, and the shows themselves were re-staged while keeping the artistic vision of each as intact as possible. Thirty-one performances were given in the tent and averaged 82% of capacity generating approximately $650,000 in revenue against approximately $800,000 for the tent itself, $1,000,000 in lost revenue from ticket returns, and $330,000 in repair costs to the Bowmer. The Bowmer reopened on 2 August, a month ahead of the initial estimate.^{[17][18][19][20][21]}

Black Swan Theatre

The Black Swan served as the festival's third theatre from 1977 to 2001. The building, originally an automobile dealership, was bought in 1969 as a second-floor scene shop and first-floor rehearsal hall. Company members began using it to stage "midnight" readings for one another. They invited friends who brought other friends. Artistic Director Jerry Turner recognized the opportunity to take risks with unconventional staging and subjects, and called for its development as a third OSF theatre. Fitting a theatre into the existing building was challenging. It could hold only 138 seats, all within five rows of the stage. There had to be, as designer Richard Hay put it, a "certain amount of tucking and squeezing." Each director had to solve the problem of an immovable roof support in the middle of the stage. In one scene, with a horizontal piece added, it became a painting of a crucifixion. The Black Swan is now still part of the festival's property but does not officially host plays. The New Theatre was being built while the Black Swan was in use.

New Theatre

New Theatre stage

In March 2002, the New Theatre replaced the Black Swan, which again became an ancillary building for rehearsals, meetings, and classes. It expands the possibilities for experiment and innovation while maintaining the intimacy of the Black Swan. Thomas Hacker and Associates of Portland designed the building. Richard Hay designed three possible seating and staging modes, working with the theater consulting firm of Landry & Bogan, Inc. of Mountain View, California. In Arena mode, a stage of 663 square feet (61.6 m²) is surrounded on all four sides by 360 seats. In Three-quarter Thrust mode, a 710-square-foot (66 m²) stage is surrounded on three sides by 270 seats, and in Avenue mode, a 1,236-square-foot (114.8 m²) stage provides 228 seats on two sides. There is a trap room under the stage and a fly loft at one end. A computer controls 300 circuits and over 400 lights of various types. The remainder of the building is given over to downstairs and upstairs lobbies, concessions, access distribution, archives, storage, laundry, green room, quiet green room, warm-up room, dressing space for 18 actors, showers/restrooms, costume and wig rooms, stage manager's office, maintenance space, storage for props and set pieces, and trap.

Other buildings

The Box Office (P) is on the same courtyard as the New Theatre. The Festival acquired the Administration Building (G) in April 1967. Forming the northern boundary of the campus, the building houses the Group Sales Office (H), artistic, business, communication, education, human resources, marketing, and volunteer offices, the scenic design studio, and the mailroom. The Festival Welcome Center (I), on the northern side of the building facing Main Street, offers information about OSF and Ashland, houses a small exhibit of costumes from past shows, and adjoins the Margery Bailey Room, otherwise known as the Education Center. The adjacent Camps Building (K) houses the membership lounge, development offices, and a meeting room.

Just off the courtyard, the Pioneer Building (L) houses the Festival's costume and costume props shop. The staff of over 60 creates the costumes in three main studios on the lower floor of the building.^[3] Also on that floor are offices and fitting rooms for the costume designers and costume design assistants, a costume props area and a vented paint room. Upstairs is a dye room, lounge, laundry, storage room, and office. During the height of the costume production each season, another working studio is open in the basement of the Angus Bowmer Theatre. Costumes from past shows are warehoused off-campus in a 7,500-square-foot (700 m²) facility housing some 15,000 costumes and 10-15,000 costume props such as armor, boots, crowns, shoes and wigs. Also off-campus is a purpose-equipped fitness center staffed by two professional trainers who help prepare actors for physically demanding roles that often require acrobatics, fights, and pratfalls.

The Festival acquired Carpenter Hall (M) in October 1973, renovating it to accommodate lectures, concerts, rehearsals, meetings and Festival and community events. The Bill Patton Garden (N) provides the venue for informal summer noon talks by OSF staff. The Tudor Guild, a separate non-profit corporation, operates the Tudor Guild Gift Shop (J) and Brass Rubbing Center (O) where visitors can make rubbings of facsimiles of 55 historic English brasses under expert guidance.

Organization

OSF is a non-profit corporation managed under US and Oregon law by a 32-member Board of Directors nominated and elected for eight-year terms. OSF is supported in part by corporate and individual donors through annual non-voting memberships at various levels, planned giving, or direct support of specific plays. In 2006, the endowment had a net worth in excess of US$30 million that returns about US$1.2 million to support the operating budget of about US$24 million per year. It is managed by seven trustees who are selected for five-year terms by the Board of Directors.^[22]

Professional staff

Apart from approximately 90 actors and 25 musicians and dancers, OSF is organized into administrative, artistic, education, music and dance, and production staffs.

The Executive Director, Paul E. Nicholson, supervises an administrative staff of approximately 125 people. They include human resources (which includes the volunteer and special events coordinator), information technology, marketing and communications (box office, membership, publications, archives, media, members lounge and audience services which itself includes house managers, ushers, concessions, access staff for handicapped patrons), physical plant staff (custodial services, maintenance, security), and receptionists. Associate producers, voice and text director, resident designers and design assistants, designers, guest directors, composers, choreographers.

At any given moment, the artistic staff of approximately 100 permanent and temporary staff. It is under the direction of an artistic director and includes an associate artistic director, composers, choreographers, dramaturges, designers and design assistants, directors and assistant directors, and voice and text director.

The production staff of approximately 125 is responsible for costumes, lighting, properties, scenery, sound, and stage operations. Costumes are produced by a staff of about 70 (artisans, cutters, designers, dyers, first hands, hair and wig specialists, stitchers, technicians, and wardrobe managers). Scenery is built by a staff of technicians, carpenters, a welder, an engineer and a buyer and moved by a crew of 24 stagehands; lighting staff number eight, and sound and properties each are managed by staffs of six each. A production stage manager, eight stage managers and three production managers ensure the smooth operation of the three theatres and a deck manager coordinates the Green Show.

The education staff of nine includes the director and associate director, education coordinators and assistants, curriculum specialists, and resident teaching artists. Twelve actors participate in the annual School Visit Program and about a dozen company members and guests assist in teaching for the programs described above. In addition, the FAIR manager recruits college and university students from across the United States for internships on the administrative, artistic, education, and production staffs.

Access Department

The Access Department offers a full range of programs and services for patrons with disabilities. For blind and visually impaired patrons, the Festival has six trained audio describers on staff who provide live audio description for every performance of every play with two weeks advance notice. Braille and large print playbills are available for all productions. Service animals are always welcome. For deaf and hearing-impaired patrons, six American Sign Language interpreted performances with highly trained interpreters six open captioned performances are offered each season. Complimentary infrared listening devices and telecoil hearing aid loops are available in all three of the Festival’s theatres, and patrons may communicate with the Festival through the Oregon Telecommunications Relay Service. There is accessible seating in all performance venues, nearby accessible parking, and all of the above accommodations can be provided for such ancillary events as backstage tours, prefaces, prologues, and park talks.^[23]

Artistic directors

• Angus L. Bowmer (1935–1971)
• Jerry Turner (1971–1991)
• Henry Woronicz (1991–1996)
• Libby Appel (1996–2007)
• Bill Rauch (2008–present)

Publications

All playgoers receive a Playbill with a synopsis of the plays, cast lists, and directors' statements. All members receive Prologue each season. This magazine contains selected articles on directors, actors, costumes, props, and plays each season. Another publication that is made available at higher donor levels is Illuminations, a comprehensive guide to each year's plays that includes synopses, themes, information on playwrights and historical and other contextual information to better understand the plays themselves.^[24]

Finally, detailed information on the plays and OSF itself are included in the annual Souvenir Program. It includes photographic highlights of each play and special articles along with pictures and biographies of actors, playwrights, and the many people who work behind the scenes. A chart emphasizing the repertory nature of OSF lists all the actors and their parts in the plays.

Professional memberships

OSF is a constituent of Theatre Communications Group, the national service organization for the not-for-profit theatre world, and a member of the Shakespeare Theatre Association of America. It operates under contracts with Actors' Equity Association, The Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States, and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, Inc., an independent national labor union.

Productions

Main article: Production history of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

2011 season Measure for Measure - by William Shakespeare The Imaginary Invalid - by Moliere, adapted by Tracy Young and Oded Gross To Kill a Mockingbird - by Harper Lee, adapted by Christopher Sergel Love's Labor's Lost - by William Shakespeare August: Osage County - by Tracy Letts The African Company Presents Richard III - by Carlyle Brown The Language Archive - by Julia Cho Julius Caesar - by William Shakespeare Ghost Light - by Tony Taccone and Jonathan Moscone Henry IV, Part Two - by William Shakespeare The Pirates of Penzance - by Arthur Sullivan and W.S. Gilbert

2012 season

^[25]

• Romeo and Juliet - by William Shakespeare
• Party People - by Universes, a national/international ensemble of multi-disciplined writers and performers who fuse poetry, theater, jazz, hip-hop and politics.
• All the Way - by Robert Schenkkan
• The White Snake - adapted and directed by Mary Zimmerman
• The Seagull - by Anton Chekhov, adapted and directed by Libby Appel
• Animal Crackers - music and lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind.
• Troilus and Cressida - by William Shakespeare
• Henry V - by William Shakespeare
• As You Like It - by William Shakespeare
• The Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa - by Allison Carey
• Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella - co-adapted and co-directed by Bill Rauch and Tracy Young

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References

1. ^ "OSF Announces New Green Show". Ashland Daily Tidings. 2008-05-31. http://www.dailytidings.com/2008/0531/stories/0531_valley_greenshow.php. Retrieved 2008-06-21. 
2. ^ Varbel Bill. (2008). "Many Colors in Newly Revamped Green Show". Ashland Daily Tidings. http://www.dailytidings.com/2008/0609/stories/0609_greenshow.php. Retrieved 2008-06-21. 
3. ^ ^{a b} "The People of OSF: Our Company Members". Oregon Shakespeare Festival. 2008. http://www.osfashland.org/about/people/index.aspx. Retrieved 2008-05-30. 
4. ^ Gregio, Marcus (2004). Shakespeare Festivals Around the World. Xlibris Corporation. 
5. ^ ^{a b c d} Murphy, M. (2005). The Stage is Set for a Meteoric Success. A Tradition of Shakespeare 1935-2005. Ashland, OR: Ashland Daily Tidings. 
6. ^ ^{a b} angus bowmer (1904–1979), Oregon Shakespeare Festival
7. ^ Oregon Shakespeare Festival Archives. Used with the permission of Amy Richard, Media Relations, OSF: [e-mail]
8. ^ Darling, John (2 August 2010). "This is OSF...on NBC". Ashland, OR: Ashland Daily Tidings. 
9. ^ Zoglin, Richard (27 May 2003). "Bigger than Broadway!". Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,454479-2,00.html. Retrieved 2008-05-30. 
10. ^ Bolsinger, A., editor. (2007). Shakespeare 2007 (Annual Supplement to the Ashland Daily Tidings). Ashland, OR: Ashland Daily Tidings, 2007.
11. ^ Jones, Kenneth. "Bill Rauch Gets Margo Jones Award for Encouraging "Living Theatre"". http://www.playbill.com/news/article/134097-Bill_Rauch_Gets_Margo_Jones_Award_for_Encouraging_Living_Theatre. Retrieved 2009-11-06. 
12. ^ Propst, Andy. "Oregon Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director Bill Rauch to Receive 2009 Margo Jones Award". http://www.theatermania.com/oregon/news/10-2009/oregon-shakespeare-festival-artistic-director-bill_22246.html. Retrieved 2009-11-06. 
13. ^ "OSF’s NEWEST COMMISSIONS UNVEILED FOR US HISTORY CYCLE AND MUSICALS". June 12, 2011. http://www.osfashland.org/news/releases/article.aspx?id=163. Retrieved August 25, 2011. 
14. ^ ^{a b} Bowmer, Angus (1978). Shreds and Patches: The Ashland Elizabethan Stage. Ashland, OR: Oregon Shakespeare Association. OCLC 6040869. 
15. ^ Oregon Shakespearean Festival Association. Shakespeare 1970. Ashland, OR: Oregon Shakespearean Festival Association, 1970.
16. ^ Oregon Shakespearean Festival Association. Stage II. Ashland, OR: Oregon Shakespearean Festival Association, 1970
17. ^ Galvin, R (July 17, 2011). "Bowmer Re-opening for August 2". Medford Mail Tribune. http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110717/NEWS/107170343/-1/rss01. Retrieved August 25, 2011. 
18. ^ Hathaway, Brad (August 2, 2011). "Temporary Nomads with Tent No More". http://livedesignonline.com/news/0802_oreegon_shakespeare. Retrieved August 25, 2011. 
19. ^ Hayden, D. "Bowmer in the Park: Anatomy of a Crisis". Ashland, OR: Sneak Preview 22, 9. 
20. ^ Hugely, Marty (August 2, 2011). "Oregon Shakespeare Festival Re-opens Bowmer Theatre, and Tallies the Losses". http://www.oregonlive.com/performance/index.ssf/2011/08/oregon_shakespeare_festival_re_4.html. Retrieved August 25, 2011. 
21. ^ Wheeler, Sam (July 8, 2011). "'Bowmer in the Park' Begins". Ashland Daily Tidings. http://www.dailytidings.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110708/NEWS02/107080304. Retrieved August 25, 2011. 
22. ^ Oregon Shakespeare Festival 2007 Souvenir Program. Ashland, OR: Oregon Shakespeare Festival (pages 64-107)
23. ^ "Access Information". Oregon Shakespeare Festival. 2008. http://www.osfashland.org/_dwn/plays/Accessibility3.pdf. Retrieved 2009-03-25. 
24. ^ http://www.osfashland.org/membership/about/supporting.aspx Donor Benefits
25. ^ http://www.osfashland.org/news/releases/article.aspx?id=156

External links

• Oregon Shakespeare Festival (official website)
• Oregon Shakespeare Festival at the Internet Broadway Database

Coordinates: 42°11′46″N 122°42′54″W / 42.1962°N 122.7151°W / 42.1962; -122.7151