Oregon Shakespeare Festival Offering $10 Rush Tickets to Benefit Food Drive

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is offering discounted $10 rush tickets for 18 performances to benefit ACCESS and the Ashland Emergency Food Bank. Those wishing to participate are asked to bring at least one non-perishable food item for each $10 ticket purchased. Patrons may also make a cash donation to receive this special rush price.

"Seeing our patrons line up at the Box Office with cans of food in hand is always inspiring, and I can think of no better way to celebrate these final weeks of our 2017 season," said Paula Muncaster Walker, OSF associate director of marketing and member sales. "We hope many community members, including those who are not regular OSF attendees, will take part in this opportunity to support non-profit art as well as the vital services ACCESS and the Ashland Emergency Food Bank provide in the Rogue Valley."

Tickets will be available starting two hours prior to curtain time on the day of the show only for these Community Rush tickets. That means 11:30 a.m. for matinees and 6:00 p.m. for evening performances. Tickets will be sold at the OSF Box Office windows only, on a first-come, first-served basis. Bins will be provided for food and/or cash donations in the Box Office lobby. In addition, through OSF Connects, the Festival always offers $5 Rush tickets to any rushing performance for holders of Oregon Trail cards.

The select rush performances to benefit the Ashland Emergency Food Bank and ACCESS are:

Wednesday, October 4
8:00 p.m. Unison

Tuesday, October 5
8:00 p.m. Julius Caesar

Friday, October 6
8:00 p.m. The Odyssey

Saturday, October 7
8:00 p.m. Unison

Tuesday, October 10
1:30 p.m. Shakespeare in Love
8:00 p.m. The Merry Wives of Windsor

Wednesday, October 11
8:00 p.m. Shakespeare in Love

Sunday, October 15
8:00 p.m. Unison

Tuesday, October 17
1:30 p.m. Henry IV, Part One

Wednesday, October 18
8:00 p.m. Unison

Thursday, October 19
8:00 p.m. Julius Caesar

Friday, October 20
8:00 p.m. Unison

Sunday, October 22
1:30 p.m. Unison
8:00 p.m. Shakespeare in Love

Tuesday, October 24
8:00 p.m. Shakespeare in Love

Wednesday, October 25
8:00 p.m. Unison

Thursday, October 26
1:30 p.m. Henry IV, Part One

Friday, October 27
1:30 p.m. Unison

ACCESS provides food, housing, warmth and other essential services to Jackson County's low income children, families, seniors and people with disabilities. As the Community Action Agency of Jackson County, ACCESS has been helping Jackson County residents break the cycle of poverty since 1976. With a focus on education, ACCESS helps people through economic crisis by guiding them through changes in habits to help them become self-sustaining. ACCESS currently serves local residents through 15 programs designed to address problems from one-time emergencies to longer-term issues.

Ashland Emergency Food Bank provides food, free of charge, to residents of Ashland, Talent and surrounding rural communities who would otherwise go hungry. AEFB customers include the unemployed, under-employed, disabled, working poor, students, seniors and homeless. Twenty-five percent of those served are children under the age of 18. AEFB also distributes nonperishable food items to several organizations that offer prepared meals, or that serve a specific niche of people in need. These groups include Uncle Foods Diner, St. Vincent De Paul, and the Catalyst and Maslow Programs at Ashland High School. In 2015, Ashland Emergency Food Bank served an average of 600 households (approximately 1,500 children and adults) every month. Each family received enough food to provide breakfast, lunch and dinner for 2-3 days.

Founded by Angus Bowmer in 1935, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) has grown from a three-day festival of two plays to a nationally renowned theatre arts organization that presents an eight-month season of up to 11 plays that include works by Shakespeare as well as a mix of classics, musicals, and world-premiere plays and musicals. OSF's play commissioning programs, which include American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle, have generated works that have been produced on Broadway, throughout the American regional theatre, and in high schools and community theatres across the country. The Festival draws attendance of more than 400,000 to approximately 800 performances every year and employs approximately 575 theatre professionals.

OSF invites and welcomes everyone, and believes the inclusion of diverse people, ideas, cultures and traditions enriches both our insights into the work we present on stage and our relationships with each other. OSF is committed to equity and diversity in all areas of our work and in our audiences. OSF's mission statement: "Inspired by Shakespeare's work and the cultural richness of the United States, we reveal our collective humanity through illuminating interpretations of new and classic plays, deepened by the kaleidoscope of rotating repertory.

Pictured: The Merry Wives of Windsor (2017): Ensemble. Photo by Jenny Graham, Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

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