Although it’s 450 miles from Olympia, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, celebrating its
90th season, is a popular destination for local theater lovers and theater makers.
For many, it’s an annual pilgrimage — and some go more than once a year. The
festival’s plays run in repertory, so it’s possible to see several, but not all, in one visit.
Melanie Ransom, Harlequin Productions’ costume department manager, says she and
husband Tim Ransom have been making the six- to seven-hour drive to Ashland for the
past decade.
“We go every year,” she said. “When we’re driving down and we get to the Ashland exit,
my heart starts beating a little bit faster. I am just so excited to be there. It’s always a
slam dunk for me. it’s a really special place.”
Aaron Lamb, Harlequin’s producing artistic director, and wife Helen Harvester, the
company’s marketing director, are festival regulars, too, as is Kathy Dorgan, who has
directed plays for several local companies.
“It’s not far to go to come back really inspired,” Ransom said. “I’m always so delighted at
the risks they take.”
Among those risks: relocating Shakespeare plays and other classics to different times
and places and embracing unexpected casting. This season’s Julius Caesar is one of a
series of Shakespeare plays in which every character is played by a female or non-
binary actor, and the festival’s 2018 Oklahoma switched the genders and/or sexual
preferences of many of the characters.
Yes, the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic and its ilk, along with contemporary shows,
have their place at a festival best known for producing the works of the writer whose
name it bears.
In fact, this season includes three of Shakespeare’s works and six other shows ranging
from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest — set on the Malay Peninsula —
to James Ijames’ 2022 Pulitzer winner Fat Ham, a takeoff on Hamlet that turns the
tragedy into a comedy and the Danish prince into a young queer Black man attending
college online. Ham, unfortunately for those who didn’t get a chance to see it, closed in
June.
It would also be sad to miss August Wilson’s Jitney, which has been receiving
enthusiastic standing ovations and closes July 20.
Jitney, set in 1977, is part of Wilson’s Century Cycle, a set of plays about the Black
American experience in 20th century. The play follows a group of men working at a car
service in Pittsburgh’s “Hill District,” where licensed cab companies refused to go.
In the festival’s open-air Elizabethan Theatre, modeled after the theaters of
Shakespeare’s time, is The Merry Wives of Windsor, set in present-day England and
featuring a Falstaff who leads a motorcycle gang and at one point dons antlers and a
onesie.
The Elizabethan is also home to a grand production of Stephen Sondheim’s beloved
Into the Woods. The action begins with the actors in simple white contemporary clothing
and quickly envelopes the audience in the color and magic of fairy tales. Though reality,
as the show’s many fans know, will be back.
Rounding out the season are As You Like It, which reimagines the Forest of Arden as a
hippie paradise; an update on the 1947 Western novel Shane (opening July 31) and
Quixote Nuevo, an adaptation of Don Quixote in which the protagonist is not a self-
proclaimed knight but rather a professor facing dementia.
Whatever you choose to see, it’s well worth the drive, as Ransom will tell you. But
theatergoers who’ve made the trip have probably benefited from the festival’s impact.
Harlequin’s recent Romeo & Juliet, set in a world that resembled this one yet clearly
wasn’t, drew comparisons to the kind of Shakespeare productions that are a festival
mainstay — the kind that hold true to the bard’s words but switch up the settings to add
new layers of meaning.
Both Romeo & Juliet and Rent, on stage at Harlequin’s State Theater through July 27,
were part of the festival’s 2023 season. The costumes for Rent were designed by Jason
Kramer, who worked with the Ashland festival before moving to Seattle; he’s also doing
the costumes for Harlequin’s POTUS, opening Aug. 22.’
Monique Holt, who has acted with the Shakespeare festival and served as a sign
language translator and coach, starred as Aldonza in Harlequin’s 2019 Man of La
Mancha.
“Bravo for us for attracting some amazing talent,” Ransom said. “I think it says a lot
about our town that we have been able to attract some of these people.”
WHAT:
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
WHEN:
Shows run through Oct. 26, with outdoor productions closing Oct. 12.
WHERE:
Ashland, Oregon
TICKETS:
Prices vary.
LEARN MORE:
https://www.osfashland.org/