Oregon Shakespeare Festival to Preset DR. G's BINGO EXTRAVAGANZA Immersive Production

OSF has announced Dr. G's Bingo Extravaganza, a new production immersing the local community in a joyous, magical world celebrating Ashland, Oregon's own Dr. Geneva Craig, a civil rights leader, frontline nurse, and action movie lover with a penchant for Vegas glitz. This unique experience is created by the innovative, Creative Capital award-winning artist collective For You (Erika Chong Shuch, Rowena Richie, and Ryan Tacata), which brings diverse groups of strangers together and makes participatory performances as gifts.

A social bingo event that evolves into a fantastical world of performance, Dr. G's Bingo Extravaganza invites attendees to meet new friends, compete for spectacular prizes, and pay tribute to a remarkable local elder. Inspired by the life of Dr. G and the friendship the For You artists built with her, for one week (July 20-24), OSF is converting Carpenter Hall into a temporary bingo hall, with walls adorned with ornaments created by AfroScoutz, a Black youth group in Southern Oregon organized by BASE. Special guests from the community will join as bingo callers and surprise performers.

In tandem with the in-person performance in Carpenter Hall, For You presents an interactive website created in collaboration with playwright and media artist ruth tang: Dr. G's Fan Club. The site takes the form of an infinitely scrolling Christmas tree with ornaments by Afroscoutz members that open up to a webpage containing special Dr. G trivia and special messages from local community members. This online fan club functions as both an actual fan club for Dr. G's fans locally and nationwide, and a new media companion piece to the in-person event, and can be accessed through OSF's ticketing platform.

Dr. G's Bingo Extravaganza is a collaborative endeavor between all three OSF Artistic departments: Artistic Programming, Innovation & Strategy, and New Work, and embodies Artistic Director Nataki Garrett's vision for OSF as a home for multi-hyphenate artists to explore theatrical storytelling through bespoke forms and mediums. The project began as part of OSF's 19 Commissions program, which commissioned artists from across disciplines to create new work between 2019-21, to be presented on OSF's O! Digital Stage.

Dr. Geneva Craig is a registered nurse who holds a Ph.D. in Nursing from the University of Walden. She volunteers with AARP Oregon and for three years chaired its Diversity Advisory Committee. Dr. Craig worked at Johns Hopkins Health Care Center before moving to the Rogue Valley to take a job as Clinical Program Coordinator of the Inpatient Rehabilitation Center at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center. Born in Selma, Alabama, she marched with MLK in the Selma-to-Montogomery marches. She drives a Chevy Nova named GENOVA and loves, Loves, LOVES bingo.

For You is a performance group founded by Erika Chong Shuch, Rowena Richie, and Ryan Tacata. Their productions, ranging from one-to-one performances to large-scale, evening-length theatrical works, are grounded in the lived experiences of participant-collaborators. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and with awareness that elders were at a higher risk for infection and experienced compounding hardships from isolation, For You launched Artists & Elders to connect with older adults and develop new forms of distant socializing. In 2019, For You met Dr. G through an O! 19 Commision and spent one year connecting with her over Zoom. Dr. G's Bingo Extravaganza is an extension of that work.

For You's work has been supported and presented by The Momentary (AK), Court Theater and the Experimental Performance Initiative at the University of Chicago, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. For You is a project of Creative Capital, with additional support from Berkeley Rep's Groundfloor, Rainin Foundation, Center for Cultural Innovation, Dancers' Group, Global Brain Health Institute and Alzheimer's Association, Encore.org, New England Foundation for the Arts(NEFA), and the National Theater Project Grant. Erika's participation in this project is made possible in part by her fellowship at Headlands Center for the Arts. This work is one part of a series of works called The Welcoming, supported by NEFA. www.foryou.productions

The Dr. G's Bingo Extravaganza creative team includes Paul Adolphsen (Dramaturg), Haley Baek (Production Assistant), Victor Cervantes Jr. (Producer), Benajah Cobb (Technical Director), Chava Florendo (Community Liaison), Josh Horvath (Production Manager), Liz Lanier (Producer), WerdPace (Sound Designer), Val Pope (Lighting Designer) Sean Riley (World Builder), and ruth tang (Dr. G Fan Club Web Developer).

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