Oregon Shakespeare Festival to Reopen With FANNIE in July

Oregon Shakespeare Festival today announced that it will welcome back in-person audiences earlier than planned, on July 1, with Cheryl L. West's Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer, staged in OSF's outdoor Allen Elizabethan Theatre by director Henry Godinez and music director Felton Offard. Tickets go on sale to the general public on June 18. Pre-sale for OSF members and donors starts on June 15. As a gesture of appreciation for its community, OSF will announce special ticketing offers for wildfire first responders and COVID-19 essential workers soon.

OSF Artistic Director Nataki Garrett said, "Fannie is a perfect show with which to reconvene in-person at OSF after a year of theater shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic and of urgent social uprisings. This music-filled play about a towering figure in the fight for civil rights is an inspiring call to action to continue Hamer's work. With virtuosic singer-actresses and a rousing live score, Fannie will provide audiences with so much of what we have been missing in the absence of live theatre. We are tremendously moved to have artists back on stage in the Elizabethan, performing work that speaks to the moment, and for our local communities and travelers to Ashland join us in this joy."

Fannie tells the story of the Mississippi-born civil and voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977), painting a portrait of courage, humor, and grit. The play provides a first-person account of Hamer's remarkable life, alternating between autobiography and song, just as Hamer herself incorporated art into her activism.

Hamer's pioneering accomplishments include organizing the Freedom Summer, which in 1964 recruited racially diverse college students to assist with African-American voter registration in the segregated South. At the Democratic National Convention later that year, Hamer's Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) challenged the all-white control of her state's delegation. A steadfast champion of economic equality, she also established the Freedom Farm Cooperative (FFC), which purchased land for Blacks to own, farm and benefit from collectively in Mississippi. One way Hamer lifted spirits was through song, as was captured on the 1963 recording Songs My Mother Taught Me, a collection of spirituals that she helped transform into civil rights anthems.

Fannie will be performed at OSF by the "utterly unstoppable" (Chicago Tribune) E. Faye Butler from July 1 through August 28, and by Greta Oglesby, an actress and singer of "earth-shaking vocal prowess" (Minneapolis Star-Tribune), from September 1 through October 9. Backing them will be a band including Chic Street Man (guitar) and Morgan Stevenson (keyboard).

In addition to playwright Cheryl L. West, director Henry Godinez, and music director Felton Offard, the Fannie creative team includes costume designer Michael Allen Stein, lighting designer Xavier Pierce, sound designer Josh Horvath, and wig designer Bernard Johnson. Gwen Turos and Quy Ton are the stage management team.

Fannie is a co-commission of The Goodman Theatre and Seattle Repertory Theatre. After the creative team hones the production at OSF, it will premiere at the Goodman in October and at Seattle Rep in early 2022.

On the heels of Fannie, OSF will move indoors for its first-ever holiday-season special, It's Christmas, Carol!, written by beloved OSF performers Mark Bedard, Brent Hinkley, and John Tufts and directed by Geva Theatre Associate Artistic Director Pirronne Yousefzadeh, November 28, 2021 - January 2, 2022. In It's Christmas, Carol!, three ghosts take the miserly Carol Scroogenhouse through time and space to reckon with how she's abandoned love and artistry for hollow capitalism. From the twisted minds of your favorite OSF clowns, this show promises to be a silly and uplifting way to mark the holidays and celebrate the Festival's return to live performance.

August Wilson's How I Learned What I Learned, directed by Tim Bond; Mona Mansour's unseen, helmed by OSF Associate Artistic Director Evren Odcikin; and Dominique Morisseau's Confederates, directed by OSF Artistic Director Nataki Garrett, previously anticipated for Fall 2021, will now take place in future seasons.

Throughout the run of Fannie, OSF will present outdoor concerts weekly on Wednesdays, July 21 - October 6.

July 21 & 22: Urban Jazz Dance Company

July 28: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

August 4: Phoenix and Four Directions

August 11: Hollis Peach

August 18: Brother Angus

August 25: Ballet Folklórico Ritmo Alegre

September 1: N/A

September 8: Chic Street Man

September 15: The Singer and The Songwriter

September 22: Dancing Spirit Drum

September 29: TBA

October 6: Flamenco Pacifico

David Schmitz, Executive Director of Oregon Shakespeare Festival, said, "We couldn't be more excited to open our beautiful Allen Elizabethan Theatre this summer. Our theatres closed on March 12th of 2020, and we have all been yearning for live theatre since then. As the vaccine circumstances in our country, state, and county have improved, we feel now is the time to welcome our audiences back to OSF."

Tickets

Tickets are $35 for Fannie and $15 for the summer concerts and can be purchased by visiting osfashland.org or calling the OSF box office at 800.219.8161.

Tickets for It's Christmas, Carol! will go on sale at a date TBA.

OSF's Commitment to Health and Safety at the Allen Elizabethan Theatre

OSF is grateful for the continued support of its generous donors, which has made possible the more than $1M investment required to reopen the Allen Elizabethan Theatre for this summer, including significant upgrades to HVAC systems for indoor portions of the venue funded in part by a grant from Travel Oregon.

While the State of Oregon has loosened its requirements for outdoor performances, audiences must wear masks and seating is planned to allow for physical distancing, as required by OSF's union partners. These requirements will likely shift throughout the run as circumstances continue to develop.

Audience members must present proof of full vaccination completed at least 14 days prior to performance date; a negative PCR COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of the performance time; or a negative rapid antigen test taken within 6 hours.

Each patron's exact seating location will be determined by the Box Office, and the patron will be notified of that location prior to the performance. Tickets will include a specific section that will correspond to a designated seating area.

Masks will be required for the audience and provided if a patron does not have one. Face shields will also be available for patrons unable to use masks.

Tickets will be digital only, and will be scanned with noa??contact scanners.

No concessions will be served.

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