Angus L. Bowmer was the guiding spirit of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival from its first season in 1935 until his death in 1979. His tremendous legacy continues to infuse the work of OSF to this day.
Angus Bowmer was born in Bellingham, Washington in 1904, and attended school in Bellingham and then the University of Washington in Seattle. It was there he met B. Iden Payne, the Englishman whose ideas for staging Shakespeare’s plays provided inspiration for the Festival and its Elizabethan Stage.
After several years of teaching in the schools of Washington and continuing his studies at the University of Washington, Bowmer was invited in 1931 to become an instructor in English at Southern Oregon Normal in Ashland, which today is known as Southern Oregon University. He organized theatre activities on campus and continued to teach there until 1970.
The presence in Ashland’s Lithia Park of a Chautauqua building, or the remains of one, sparked the idea of an Elizabethan outdoor stage which would allow the kinds of productions that Bowmer wanted to stage. In 1935, he persuaded the Ashland city fathers to revive a tradition of July 4th celebrations with an important addition: a Shakespearean Festival.
The Works Progress Administration (WPA) helped construct a makeshift stage on the Chautauqua site and Bowmer, college students, teachers and Ashland citizens mounted two plays, “The Merchant of Venice” and “Twelfth Night” for three performances July 2, 3 and 4. Angus Bowmer directed the two plays and played the roles of Shylock and Sir Toby Belch. He remembered that several hundred people attended that “First Annual Shakespeare Festival”.
Over the ensuing years, Bowmer directed thirty productions and performed 32 Shakespearean roles in 43 separate stagings, in addition to producing all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays. He was a member of the National Council on the Arts and received awards and honors from universities, specialists and the federal and state governments. Among his favorites was a commendation from the U.S. Institute for Theatre Technology, which stated “His dreams have brought high standards to many performers, designers and technicians. His life has enlightened his community, his profession and, indeed, all of American theatre.”
In 1970, OSF opened a 600-seat indoor facility named the Angus Bowmer Theatre. When asked by a visitor if he had dreamed that his creation would grow to this size, Bowmer replied, “All my dreams are open-ended.”
In the later days of his life, Bowmer enjoyed strolling on the bricks before showtime and chatting with the Festival’s growing family. He admired the new theatre and gardens, and noted the ticket buyers queuing up at the box office while others walked the area with ticket-searching signs on display. He would shake his head with a smile, “Isn’t it amazing? Just incredible. You know, we never expected this, but we were ready for it!”