Visitation of My Friends

Elizabethan stage at OSF

A play's better with good friends

Two weeks ago I traveled out to beautiful Ashland, OR, to benchmark two productions at  Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the oldest Shakespeare festival in America. They've been doing 2-4 Shakespearean plays per year since 1935 with a brief hiatus during World War II. Always ready to combine pleasure with business, my sweet wife, Kim, went along for the 4-day trip.

On Day 1 we took an amazing tour of the OSF facilities—3 theatres, a greenspace, rehearsal spaces, workshops, a bookstore, and a welcome center. Quite a complex. The Elizabethan stage is an open-air theatre. They run the shows rain or shine—sometimes performing in ponchos or street clothes. The audience just endures the rain. There are some plays I would sit through; some I would not.

The company is about 125 members who each perform in 1-3 plays per 10-month season. They are primarily an equity house. Each member must re-audition every year, and the casts are chosen based on the types they need—no loyalties there!

Most interesting take-away for me—the makeup and hair folks give each actor an individual time to show up for wig/makeup. This avoids everyone's coming at one time and sitting around for ages. I'm hoping we can implement something like that.

Our good friends Rick and Suzanne Altizer surprised me (Kim was a cohort in their crime) by arriving on Day 2 of our trip. The four of us saw As You Like It (After 17 runs of that show this summer! See stuff about that one from The Greenville Shakespeare company here.) and Henry V. Wow. I love that play. (I would sit through this one in the rain.)  Here's a line that stood out to me: "When lenity and cruelty vie for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner." Richard III never really got that concept.