Category: OSF Archives

As the season draws to a close and the weather is cooler, it is certainly apparent why our outdoor season would not or could not be extended.



The tradition to close the outdoor theatre with the words of Prospero from Act IV actually began in 1952 when H. Paul Kiss had the role in The Tempest which concluded the season. A Medford Mail Tribune story on August 31, 1952 says “Thus the festival ends, and will lie sleeping until another group of actors returns to work to awaken it next June.”

We have had the Spring (Winter?) Company Call in the Angus Bowmer Theatre since January, 1971. That Prologue read: “From Kalamazoo, Michigan to Ashland, Oregon, the Festival’s 1971 Stage II acting company members have traveled many miles to be a part of the Ashland ‘experience.’ Twenty-seven Festival veterans and newcomers from theatre centers throughout the country have been cast in the spring repertory.” Is anyone here from Kalamazoo this year?

We make connections around here, lots of them. This year we reconnect with The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, first done here in 1979. Jerry Turner directed that show and this year it is dedicated to him. Jim Edmondson acted in it and this year he directs it. Richard Hay, Todd Barton and Douglas Faerber worked on that show, as they do again this year...

With the recent production Ellington at the Oregon Cabaret Theatre and news that one Green Show will feature Ellington, it behooves me to mention that the man himself took the stage of our Elizabethan Theatre on June 5, 1966 to raise funds for the Angus Bowmer Theatre. The Revels!! launched our second quarter century and brought luminaries—and 150 reporters—to this fair city.

The Exhibit Center began in the Swedenburg House on the SOU campus with a grant from the American Revolution Bi-Centennial Commission of Oregon in the amount of $3,000. It opened on June 14, 1975. Kay Atwood and Skip Hubbard developed the project there and returned five years later when it arrived “on campus” in the old bank building, now known as the Administration Building. It reopened on February 27, 1981...