VIDEO: Oregon Shakespeare Festival Creatives Discuss the Company's Spark and Diverse Casting

Oregon Shakespeare Festival is making a splash recently with their same-sex production of Oklahoma! OSF is acclaimed for provocative show content, community engagement and unusually diverse casting.

PBS recently did a feature on the company, where they sat down with some of the creatives to discuss what makes them unique.

Watch the full feature here!

Watch the trailer for OSF's production of Oklahoma! here!

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival opened Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma!, directed by OSF Artistic Director Bill Rauch, on April 22 in the Angus Bowmer Theatre. Preview performances were April 18, 20 and 21, and the musical runs through Oct. 27.

This production, which Rauch first envisioned 25 years ago, celebrates the groundbreaking musical's 75th anniversary by offering a uniquely 21st-century interpretation featuring same-sex couples and other LGBTQ+ casting, while retaining the original 1906 Oklahoma territory setting.

OSF's full 2018 playbill includes Othello, Sense and Sensibility, Destiny of Desire, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! and Snow in Midsummer in the Angus Bowmer Theatre; Henry V, Manahatta and The Way the Mountain Moved in the intimate Thomas Theatre; and Romeo and Juliet, The Book of Will and Love's Labor's Lost in the outdoor Allen Elizabethan Theatre.

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. 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.