Oregon Shakespeare Festival Welcomes New Literary Director

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has announced Amrita Ramanan as their new Director of Literary Development and Dramaturgy. She succeeds Lue Morgan Douthit, who has moved into the directorship of the Festival's Play on! program.

Ramanan comes to the Festival from Double Edge Theatre in Ashfield, Mass., where she served as the company's associate producer and dramaturg. She supported the company's mission of 'living culture' with her work in community engagement, collaborative exchange and cross-sector partnerships that fostered diversity, equity and inclusion.

"I've had a massive artistic crush on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for the past 10 years," enthused Ramanan, "and deeply admire their holistic model of developing and bringing a broad spectrum of classic, contemporary and new performance work reflective of the cultural richness of our world to the stage. OSF's mission, vision and programming is revolutionary in its approach to representation and inclusion, actively and transparently tackling the questions and complexities of how we achieve genuine diversification onstage, backstage and in our audiences."

Ramanan also served as artistic associate and literary manager at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., where her production dramaturgy credits include Mary T. & Lizzy K., My Fair Lady, The Music Man, Trouble in Mind, Ruined, Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies and Crowns. She was a key developer in the Public Arena-an engagement initiative aimed at creating and maintaining a dynamic exchange between artists, audiences and staff about the art onstage. Prior to her position as Artistic Associate/Literary Manager, Amrita was a New Play Producing Fellow and Dramaturgy Fellow with Arena Stage, as well as the education/outreach coordinator and a dramaturg for the Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona, Minn.

"I've known Amrita since we performed Equivocation at Arena Stage in 2011, where I was deeply impressed with her talents, and I recognized a kindred spirit in terms of our shared aspirations for the American theatre," said OSF artistic director Bill Rauch. "I truly believe she is the perfect match for OSF's vision, mission and values."

A West Coast native, Ramanan holds a B.F.A. in dramaturgy and theater history from the University of Arizona.

"There's a rigor towards how OSF connects the relevance of the art to both their local community and the field at large that ultimately makes the art a necessity, not a nicety" said Ramanan. "I'm extremely humbled and grateful to join Bill Rauch and the incredible OSF company members and artists and look forward engaging, listening, and finding ways to contribute to OSF's future dreams and aspirations."

Founded by Angus Bowmer in 1935 and winner of a 1983 Tony Award for outstanding achievement in regional theatre, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has grown from a three-day festival of two plays to a major theatre arts organization that presents an eight-month season consisting of 11 plays that include works by Shakespeare as well as a mix of classics, musicals, and new works. The Festival also draws attendance of more than 400,000 to almost 800 performances every year and employs approximately 575 theatre professionals. In 2008, OSF launched American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle, a 10-year cycle of commissioning new plays that has already resulted in several OSF commissions finding success nationwide.

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