OSF's Play on! Project to Present Reading of JULIUS CAESAR

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Play on! project, which has commissioned 36 playwrights to translate Shakespeare's plays into contemporary modern English, will present a staged reading of Shishir Kurup's translation of Julius Caesar on Sunday, July 9 at 1:30 pm at the Mountain Avenue Theatre at Ashland High School.

Tickets for the reading are $5 and are available online, or by calling the OSF Box Office at (800) 219-8161, or stopping by in person at 15 S. Pioneer Street in Ashland.

Shishir Kurup is an accomplished writer, actor and director. Previously at OSF he directed two plays by Quiara Alegría Hudes-Water by the Spoonful and The Happiest Song Plays Last. His writing credits include On Caring for the Beast (Currican Theatre); Merchant on Venice (Lark Theatre); and Merchant on Venice, The DNA Trail: Bolt from the Blue (Silk Road Rising). He has been the resident composer/lyricist for Cornerstone Theater Company since 1994.

The director for the Julius Caesar reading is OSF's 2017 Phil Killian Directing Fellow Olivia Espinosa. She is a member of Native Voices at the Autry's Artist Ensemble, where she has taken on roles as an actor, director, playwright and stage manager. The dramaturg for the reading is Nancy Keystone.

The cast for Kurup's Julius Caesar features OSF acting company members Jordan Barbour, Benjamin Bonenfant, K. T. Vogt, Catherine Castellanos, Jon Cates, Connor Chaney, Christiana Clark, Ted Deasy, Miriam A. Laube, Tamra Mathias, Armando McClain and Galen Molk. Several of these actors are in the cast of OSF's 2017 production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar as well.

"We are so excited for audiences to hear Shishir's complete first draft of his Julius Caesar translation," said Play on! Director Lue Morgan Douthit. "It's a vital step in the development of any new work to have fresh ears listening to the words and providing helpful feedback."

Audience members will have the opportunity to participate in a talkback with the creative team after the reading.

In the nearly two years since Play on! was announced, Douthit and Assistant Director Taylor Bailey have worked with more than 463 actors, directors, stage managers and producers on readings, workshops, productions and demonstrations in 17 different cities around the world, collaborating with 23 different theaters and academic institutions. For more information on Play on!, visit www.osfashland.org/PlayOn.

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."

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