OSF's Summer Festival Noons Series to Continue Through Labor Day Weekend

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has unveiled its August/early September Summer Festival Noons schedule, which features a wide variety of opportunities to engage on a deeper level with the OSF company and the works on its stages, six days a week.

The Festival Noons series runs through September 3. Free Park Talks in the Bill Patton Garden take place every Tuesday and Sundayfeaturing artists from the OSF company including actors William DeMeritt, Cindy Im, Kate Hurster, Tatiana Lofton, Christopher Salazar, Vilma Silva and Galen Molk, as well as Festival artists Mac Vaughey (lighting and video department manager) Bernardo Mazón (literary resident) and Ann Stephens (wardrobe supervisor).

Wednesdays through Saturdays, Festival Noon events take place in Carpenter Hall, with a stimulating mix of engagement events on tap. On August 2, resident artists Alison Carey (director, American Revolutions) and Amrita Ramanan (director of literary development and dramaturgy) lead a conversation titled "Sustainability in Action: Creating a Green Dramaturgy." OSF's Play on! Shakespeare translation project is the subject on August 5, with director Lue Douthit and assistant director Taylor Bailey leading the discussion. Artistic Director Bill Rauch delivers a "State of the Field" talk on August 23, while OSF's ensemble-in-residence UNIVERSES and actor Kimberly Scott lead a panel discussion called "Wilson's Words: Poet and Playwright" on August 26.

A "Cultural Contexts" doubleheader will be offered August 18-19. The panel on August 18 discussing "Hannah and the Korean American Experience" features actors Cristofer Jean, Heath Hyun Houghton and Hyunmin Rhee, in a discussion facilitated by Amrita Ramanan. On August 19, a discussion titled "Cultural Contexts: Wilson's Words in Black and White" will feature Lou Bellamy (founder and artistic director emeritus, Penumbra Theatre Company) and Joan Herrington (dramaturg, UniSon), facilitated by Russell Zook.

On August 9, a showing of the film We Still Live Here (?s Nutayune?n) by filmmaker Anne Makepeace will be shown at a special start time of 11:45 a.m. The film investigates the loss of the Wampanoag language and how one woman's crusade revived it. A conversation with Anne Makepeace will follow the screening.

On Thursdays, OSF Education continues its popular Preface series with 45-minute in-depth introductions to the world of a play. Preface topics include Hannah and the Dread Gazebo (August 3), UniSon (August 10 and 24) and Henry IV, Parts One and Two (August 17).

Tickets for Festival Noons are $12 for adults, $10 for OSF members, and $8 for youth ages 6-17. Visit osfashland.org, call (800) 219-8161 or stop by the OSF box office at 15 S. Pioneer Street in Ashland to purchase tickets. The August/September Festival Noons schedule may be viewed online at osfashland.org/FestivalNoons.

Founded by Angus Bowmer in 1935, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) has grown from a three-day festival of two plays to a nationally renowned theatre arts organization that presents an eight-month season of up to 11 plays that include works by Shakespeare as well as a mix of classics, musicals, and world-premiere plays and musicals. OSF's play commissioning programs, which include American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle, have generated works that have been produced on Broadway, throughout the American regional theatre, and in high schools and community theatres across the country. The Festival draws attendance of more than 400,000 to approximately 800 performances every year and employs approximately 575 theatre professionals.

OSF invites and welcomes everyone, and believes the inclusion of diverse people, ideas, cultures and traditions enriches both our insights into the work we present on stage and our relationships with each other. OSF is committed to equity and diversity in all areas of our work and in our audiences.

OSF's mission statement: "Inspired by Shakespeare's work and the cultural richness of the United States, we reveal our collective humanity through illuminating interpretations of new and classic plays, deepened by the kaleidoscope of rotating repertory."

Pictured: UniSon ensemble. Photo by Jenny Graham.