Oregon Shakespeare Festival Announces its 2010 Season

The Tony Award-winning Oregon Shakespeare Festival will celebrate its 75th anniversary this season, and while patrons will notice celebratory signs and banners as well as opportunities to sit in on historical lectures and talks throughout the season, the primary celebration is onstage. OSF has promised its audiences, to whom it has dedicated this milestone season that it will continue to focus energies on producing great plays this year.

Artistic Director Bill Rauch recently noted, "OSF's founder Angus Bowmer famously said that the Oregon Shakespeare Festival was neither a director's nor a playwright's nor even an actor's theatre; but our theatre belongs to our audience. It's been true for all of our 75 years, and as we embark on creating art for another 75 it will be because of our audience's continued support."

The 2010 season opens at 8:00 p.m. Friday, February 26, in the Angus Bowmer Theatre with William Shakespeare's masterpiece HAMLET, directed by Bill Rauch. On Saturday, February 27 at 1:30 p.m. in the Angus Bowmer Theatre, theatergoers will experience Tennessee Williams' intensely rich drama CAT ON A HOT TINE ROOF, directed by Christopher Liam Moore, who directed last season's hugely popular DEAD MAN'S CELL PHONE. At 8:00 p.m. that evening, audiences will be treated to an adaptation by Joseph Hanreddy and J. R. Sullivan of Jane Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, directed by OSF artistic director emerita Libby Appel. The final opening of the weekend is Lisa Kron's comedy WELL at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, February 28 in the New Theatre, directed by OSF veteran James Edmondson.

In honor of Angus Bowmer's first two productions in 1935, OSF is anchoring the outdoor Elizabethan Stage season (opening June 11-13 and running through October 10) with the plays Bowmer chose for that first season: Shakespeare's ever popular comedy TWELFTH NIGHT, directed by guest artist Darko Tresnjak, and THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, directed by Bill Rauch. Also playing on the outdoor stage is Shakespeare's HENRY IV, PART ONE, directed by another OSF veteran, Penny Metropulos.

Later this season, opening in the Angus Bowmer Theatre, is the musical SHE LOVES ME, directed by Rebecca Taichman (April 24), and the world premiere stage adaptation by Ping Chong of the film by Akira Kurosawa, THRONE OF BLOOD (July 24). Ping Chong also directs. The production will move to Brooklyn Academy Of Music's Next Wave Festival after its run in Ashland. Opening in the New Theatre on March 27 is Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, RUINED, directed by Liesl Tommy, and on July 3 the world premiere of AMERICAN NIGHT will open. The play, written by Richard Montoya and Culture Clash and directed by Jo Bonney, is the inaugural production of OSF's American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle.

OSF's 2010 season runs from February 18 through October 31, offering 766 performances of 11 productions. The season is sponsored by US Bank.

For a complete schedule of performances as well as further production information, visit online at www.osfashland.org. You may also call the box office at (541) 482-4331.

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