![]() When OSF hired her in 2019, she became one of the first Black women to lead such a large, legacy performing arts institution. Garrett has for several years been a leading voice for change, inclusion and equity in American theater. unfair labor laws for migrants who have come to live there and an active KKK presence well into the 20th if not the 21st century," he said.īut over time, the theater has transformed what was once a small, rural town into an international tourist and arts destination, filled with cafes and shops, and bringing people in from all over. "It's a state founded with a racial exclusion clause in its constitution. ![]() Portland State University Professor Daniel Pollack-Pelzner pointed out that Oregon has a bleak history of racism. It's sort of the bread basket of the industry," Garrett said.Īshland, Ore., home of the festival, is itself about 91% white, according to the 2020 census. "The American theater has relied for decades on that one demographic of people. But like many regional, non-profit American theaters around the country, this theater has been faced with a mostly white subscriber and donor base - which is aging. That kind of sentiment is good news for OSF, because changing demographics mean that theaters must work to expand their audiences to survive. Oregon Shakespeare Festival Bianca Jones (left) and Erica Sullivan perform in Confederates at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Ore. "What I saw instead was a theater company on wings." He's been coming to the theater in Ashland, Ore., for almost 30 years. "I guess I was expecting a theater company on crutches," Shakespeare scholar Daniel Pollack-Pelzner told NPR. It is a story about the way American history haunts the lives of Black women, showing the parallels between two women who live a century apart one in a slave cabin during the Civil War and one on a contemporary college campus. The season also includes a new play by MacArthur Prize-winning playwright Dominique Morisseau called Confederates, commissioned by OSF in collaboration with St. "Recovery season," as Garrett calls it, includes Shakespeare stalwarts like The Tempest, but with a diverse cast, and King John, which in this production is an all-female and nonbinary cast performing a story about male power in imperial Europe. And most importantly, new artistic director Nataki Garrett has programmed her first full season. Throughout this season, several performances on those stages have been canceled due to smoke from Oregon's wildfires and COVID-19 outbreaks. Like most theaters across the country, the audience is diminished less than 50% have returned to OSF's reopened stages. The audience now wears masks even during outdoor performances, and vaccinations are required. Founded in 1935, it is one of the oldest and largest non-profit theaters in the country.īut things aren't the same as they were during the pre-pandemic 2019 season. ![]() After two years of pandemic closures, audiences are back at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
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