Oregon Shakespeare Festival Closes 80th Anniversary Year

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival wrapped up its 80th year Sunday night, November 1, with the final performances of Much Ado about Nothing and Pericles. Preparations for the 2016 season are well under way; 2016 member ticket sales start this week and preview performances begin February 19. The 2016 opening weekend is February 26-28.

The season closed with attendance of 390,387 -- 87% of capacity. Ticket revenue was $21 million, about the same as 2014. This season included 11 productions, with a total of 786 performances. Student attendance was close to 60,000, and about 23,000 tickets were processed for educational events, generating approximately $400,000 in revenue.

"Audiences and company members agree that our 2015 season was packed with some of our most memorable productions ever, as well as the launching of vital new programs," OSF Artistic Director Bill Rauch said. "This fall and winter we will be setting yet another record in terms of the number of OSF plays and productions being performed nationwide, further evidence that our Ashland-created art is impacting our entire field. There were challenges this season as well, none more painful than losing our beloved colleague Catherine Coulson. It is my honor to announce that our 2016 season will be dedicated to Catherine's memory."

OSF Season Sponsor U.S. Bank's Gloria Schell, region president of U.S. Bank for Southern Oregon and Northern California said, "We look back over three decades of support for OSF through a lens of admiration and appreciation. Our shared legacy is a source of tremendous satisfaction as we consider the remarkable success of the 2015 season and the promise of another groundbreaking season in 2016."

New Programs, New Projects, New Work

This summer, OSF launched Living Ideas: Art and Community Dialogue Series, a new humanities program that hopes to forge connections between individuals and communities through collaborative programming driven by the works on OSF's stages. This season's series offered dialogues and debates on topics inspired by OSF's world premiere of Sweat by Pultizer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage. Among the events offered were: Conversation Project: Toward One Oregon; Documentary and Dialogue: Mini Documentary Festival Discussion and Community Building Exercises; Art and Community Dialogue, a performance and workshop opportunity; Interactive Debate: "Economic Recovery Benefits Everyone." The Living Ideas series in 2016 will be inspired by Lisa Loomer's world-premiere production, Roe, a look at the two women behind Roe v. Wade and their divergent journeys after the landmark 1973 case.

In late September OSF announced its three-year, 39-play commissioning project Play on! 36 playwrights translate Shakespeare, stirring both conversation and controversy. Play on! pairs 36 playwrights and dramaturgs for each of the 39 plays attributed to Shakespeare, and by commissioning diverse artists (more than 50 percent women and more than 50 percent writers of color) OSF will bring fresh voices and perspectives to the work of translation. The goal of the project, generously supported by a grant from the Hitz Foundation, is to provide translated texts in contemporary modern English as performable companion pieces for Shakespeare's original texts with the hope to increase understanding and connection to Shakespeare's plays, as well as engage and inspire theatergoers, theater professionals, students, teachers and scholars.

This season also marked the first year of OSF's Canon in a Decade project. OSF will complete all 37 plays of Shakespeare's canon in the original texts (not the Play on! translations) from 2015-2024. Next season OSF will stage five plays by Shakespeare, including Timon of Athens, which will mark the fourth time OSF has completed the canon in its history.

OSF's 37-play commissioning program American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle announced three new commissions this year, Idris Goodwin, Dominique Morisseau and Dan O'Brien, bringing the total to 24. Of those plays, nine have had premiere productions-seven at OSF and the other two at Steppenwolf Theater Company and Yale Repertory Theatre. The hugely successful 2015 American Revolutions commission, Sweat, by Lynn Nottage, will tour to Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. from Jan. 15-Feb. 21, 2016. In addition, Robert Schenkkan's Tony Award-winning American Revolutions commission All the Way will play at Arena Stage from April 1-May 8, 2015 and will also be staged at Dallas Theatre Center from March 3-27, 2016.

OSF commissions are also getting staged prior to being produced at OSF. The premiere of Michael John LaChiusa's First Daughter Suite, a commission through The Edgerton Foundation, recently opened at The Public Theatre in New York to critical acclaim. American Revolutions commission Indecent, by Paula Vogel and Rebecca Taichman, was staged at Yale Repertory Theatre from Oct.2-24 and will also play at La Jolla Playhouse from Nov. 13-Dec. 15, 2015.

Other OSF productions on the road are this season's nearly sold-out show Pericles, heading to the Folger Theatre in Washington, D.C. from Nov. 13-Dec. 20, 2015 and then playing at the Guthrie Theatre, director Joseph Haj's artistic home, from Jan. 16-Feb. 21, 2016; and director Mary Zimmerman's beloved production of Guys and Dolls will travel to The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills and play from Dec. 1-20. In addition, The Unfortunates (OSF, 2013) will be staged at American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco, from Feb. 3-April 3, 2016.

Latina/o Play Project

In late-September OSF held its third Latina/o Play Project (LPP), intended to develop and present new plays and provide a forum for artists, producers, scholars and audiences to discuss and advance Latina/o theatre. This year's LLP included play readings of Luis Alfaro's This Golden State, Part One: Delano, a co-commission by OSF and Magic Theatre, and Isaac Gómez's La Ruta, as well as a panel discussion, a variety show and "Cafecito" chats.

OSF Campus

The former production shop on First Street in Ashland has been remodeled to create the Hay-Patton Rehearsal Center and will open for rehearsals in January 2016. OSF will have a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 9:00 a.m. Friday, February 26, 2016 during the opening weekend festivities.

The redesign of OSF's brick courtyard, referred to as "The Bricks," begins immediately. Phase I of the brick courtyard redesign began November 1 and will continue through mid-February to the opening of the 2016 season. Work in this phase includes installation of an elevator in the Angus Bowmer Theatre, a wheelchair lift in the Allen Elizabethan Theatre and a lift in the loading dock. Phase II, the renovation of the main courtyard and Green Show area, is scheduled to begin November 2016 and to conclude no later than June 2017.

2016 Season

The 2016 season will open on Friday night, February 26, in the Angus Bowmer Theatre with Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, directed by Christopher Liam Moore. On Saturday afternoon in the Thomas Theatre, a world-premiere adaptation of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard by Sean Graney, Andra Velis Simon and Matt Kahler and directed by Graney will open. Joining the rep that evening is a world-premiere adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, by Penny Metropulos and Linda Alper and directed by Metropulos. Opening Sunday afternoon in the Angus Bowmer Theatre is a world-premiere production of The River Bride by Marisela Treviño Orta, directed by Laurie Woolery.

On April 3, Qui Nguyen's contemporary new play Vietgone comes to the Thomas Theatre under the direction of May Adrales, and April 24 the world-premiere American Revolutions commission Roe, by Lisa Loomer, will be staged in the Bowmer Theatre and directed by Bill Rauch.

The outdoor Allen Elizabethan Theatre opens the weekend of June 17-19 with Shakespeare's Hamlet (directed by Lisa Peterson)and The Winter's Tale (Desdemona Chiang), and the Tony Award-winning 1970s musical, The Wiz (Robert O'Hara).

Opening Saturday, July 9 in the Thomas Theatre is Shakespeare's Richard II (Bill Rauch), and the final show to join the 2016 rep is Shakespeare's Timon of Athens (Amanda Dehnert)on July 31.

Previews begin on February 19, and the season runs through October 30.

2016 Presale for membership begins November 6, and general ticket sales for the 2016 season begin December 1. For information call (800) 219-8161 or visit www.osfashland.org. The Box Office is closed November 3-6.

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