Play descriptions provide content information and suggestions for student viewing; study guides enhance appreciation and understanding of the plays.
PLAY SUITABILITY SUGGESTIONS
Each school and community is unique, so read carefully to determine what is appropriate for your students. Please be aware that these suggestions are made before the plays go into rehearsal. Occasionally, decisions are made during the rehearsal process or preview performances that change the suitability of a production. When changes occur, the Education Department posts updated suitability suggestions on our website and makes every effort to contact group leaders.
STUDY GUIDES
Gain a deeper understanding of one or more of the plays. Created every season, the suggestions for teaching contain discussion questions, research topics, related websites and additional resources.
Teachers who bring a student group to OSF are mailed copies of these teaching suggestions, as well as information on preparing students for their live theatre experience and the
Illuminations guide to the season's plays, including a who's who of characters and synopses of many of the stories.
All downloads are in PDF format and require
Adobe Reader to view and print.
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
by William Shakespeare, February 15 - November 3
Baptista Minola’s youngest daughter Bianca is being wooed by several different suitors. She can have her pick of them, but not until her sensible father has found a husband for her older sister Katherine. Baptista’s goal is to have the acid-tongued Katherine “tamed” and married to anyone who is willing to do the job. Enter Petruchio, a visitor from Verona who has run through his inheritance and is in need of a wife with a healthy dowry. Sight-unseen, Petruchio agrees to a business arrangement to tame and marry Katherine. But when these two adversaries actually meet, they discover in each other a match of intelligence, verbal agility and audacity. This early comedy by Shakespeare is a surprising love story that explores the roles we play. Set on a boardwalk at the beach, the production will move to a rock-a-billy beat. Parents and teachers should be aware that Shakespeare’s play is a bawdy romp with sexual innuendo that may be physicalized on stage. The play may be best suited for teenagers who are able to handle the sexuality inherent in Shakespeare’s text. Prologue recommended.
Study guide.
MY FAIR LADY
book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner; music by Frederick Loewe, February 17 - November 3
Why can’t the English learn how to speak? That question bedevils Professor Henry Higgins, particularly when he meets the indomitable Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle. Eliza’s appalling accent and determination to rise above her station inspires Higgins to engage in an unusual experiment. He proposes to teach her to speak like a lady and makes a wager with fellow linguist Colonel Pickering, that within six months he can pass Eliza off to English society as an aristocrat. But who instructs whom? Higgins’s protégée challenges all his assumptions about class, language—and love. Based on George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, My Fair Lady is an exuberant musical and a beloved classic. OSF’s production will make use of a score specifically prepared at the request of composer Frederic Loewe to be played by two pianos, instead of the traditional full orchestra. The play is literate and language-driven, and has a shimmering, playful tone that will delight well prepared middle and high school students.
Study guide.
TWO TRAINS RUNNING
by August Wilson, February 16 - July 7
“Well there’s two trains runnin’, but there’s not one that’s goin’ my way. You know there’s one train running at midnight, the other one leave just for day” (Jimi Hendrix, "Catfish Blues"). It’s 1969 and revolution is in the air. But for Memphis, the owner of a threadbare diner in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, the civil rights movement may just be an impractical dream. After years of planning to tear down all the old buildings in the District, urban renewal is now moving forward. Memphis knows what his building should be worth and is determined to get his fair price from the city. Meanwhile Sterling, a young man just out of prison, is on a quest to find his way and place in the world as is Risa, the waitress at the diner. This smart, searing portrait of African-American life in the ’60s tells a complex story of ordinary people during a turning point in American history. August Wilson’s 10 play cycle chronicling the African-American experience is one of the most important theatrical achievements of our time. While the play has great educational, historical and artistic value, Two Trains Running may be best suited for high school students who can handle the poetic language, some sexuality and repeated use of a racial epithet. Prologue recommended.
Study guide.
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
by Tennessee Williams, April 17 - November 2
Circumstances have forced Blanche Dubois, a beautiful but fading Southern belle, to abandon the family plantation in Laurel, Mississippi and move to New Orleans to live with her sister Stella and Stella’s husband, Stanley. Blanche claims she is on a leave of absence from her teaching position due to her nerves; in reality she has been fired for seducing a 17-year-old student. Her delicate sensibilities and pretensions to refinement enrage the brutish, working-class Stanley. Before long the tensions between them rise to the breaking point. Tennessee Williams’ classic American melodrama portrays an epic clash between illusion and reality, desire and death, the old and new South. A Streetcar Named Desire is an emotionally violent play, dealing with mental instability, domestic abuse, rape, alcoholism and suicide. It contains references to the tragic consequences of Blanche’s marriage to a gay man, as well as ethnic slurs and stereotypical attitudes towards class and ethnicity. Stanley and Stella have a steamy, sexually charged relationship and at one point, as they prepare to make love, there is brief partial rear nudity before the lights go down. It may be best suited for mature high school students. Prologue recommended.
Study guide.
THE TENTH MUSE
by Tanya Saracho, July 24 - November 2
Juana Inés de la Cruz was born in Mexico in 1651. By the age of 13 she had mastered the fundamentals of classical Greek logic, and was teaching Latin to young children. Always religious, Juana entered the Convent of the Order of St. Jerome in Mexico City at the age of 18, becoming Sor Juana. While a sister at the convent, she wrote plays, poems and stories, on both sacred and secular themes, until her death in 1695. Tanya Saracho’s play is a work of historical fiction that takes place twenty years after Sor Juana’s death. It begins with three young women of different classes arriving at the convent. Two are arriving to be servants, but the upper class girl, Manuela, is unmarried and pregnant, and has been sent there for her confinement. The three young women spend much of their time in a room with a locked cupboard, with strict instructions from the Mother Superior to never open it – but, of course, they do. Inside they find the collected manuscripts of Sor Juana. What will they discover through her writing about themselves, about the nature of race, culture, politics, religion and art? What will be the consequences? The Tenth Muse is still in development. There is the possibility of sexuality both inherent in Sor Juana’s work and in the girls' reaction to it as well as the potential for violence in the Mother Superior’s punishments for the girls' misbehavior. For students mature enough to handle these elements, the play is a great opportunity to explore a piece of history most of us know little about. Parents and teachers should check back closer to opening for more specifics. Prologue recommended.
Study guide available soon.
This production is an original work commissioned by and developed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The script may be revised right up to opening day. We will post a study guide as soon as possible, but it might not be available until the play opens.
KING LEAR
by William Shakespeare, February 21 - November 3
King Lear has decided to retire, and proposes to divide his kingdom among his three adult daughters. First, however, he wants each daughter to declare her love and affection for him in a public ceremony before the entire court. His two oldest daughters, Regan and Goneril, comply, but the youngest daughter, Cordelia, will not play her father’s game, and wonders how her sisters can swear all their love away to their father when they also have husbands. Lear banishes Cordelia, and his foolishness and blindness to the truth sets off a series of events leading to betrayal, madness and murder. King Lear is a towering, emotional tragedy, with some violent scenes, including the onstage gouging out of eyes, references to illegitimacy and some sexuality. The violence and sensuality inherent in the play will be more immediate and compelling in the intimate confines of the Thomas Theatre. That said, King Lear is one of the great literary masterpieces of the English language, and is considered by many to be Shakespeare’s greatest play. It may be best suited to teenagers who are well prepared for the play’s intricate language and mature themes. Prologue recommended.
Study guide.
THE UNFORTUNATES
by 3 Blind Mice (Jon Beavers, Ian Merrigan, and Ramiz Monsef) and singer-songwriter Casey Hurt; additional material by Kristoffer Diaz, March 27 - November 2
King Jesse owned the bar, rigged the gambling games, and sold his daughter, Rae, by the hour to customers in the back room. His barman and keeper of the cash, Joe, is a man possessed of remarkable strength, and a heart his boss never had. Now that Jesse is dead, Joe is running things and Rae is solely a singer in the front instead of a girl-for-hire in the back. This arrangement can only last as long as Joe keeps a firm hand on the money… and the plague that’s ravaging the countryside doesn't destroy them all. This groundbreaking new musical takes its title from “The Unfortunate Rake,” an old English folk song that morphed into the standard of the genre, “St. James Infirmary Blues.” The Unfortunates is a unique, vaudeville-influenced blend of play and concert that draws on the evolution of American musical styles, including gospel, blues, Americana, jazz and hip hop. The play is a gritty, poetic and slightly surreal tale of how we maintain our humanity despite inhuman conditions. It is uplifting and life-affirming even while dealing with situations that involve prostitution. There is one number focusing on the girls-for-hire which will be bawdy in nature. Well-prepared teenagers who can handle the mature themes will love the music and the fable-like quality of the story. Prologue recommended.
Study guide.
THE LIQUID PLAIN
by Naomi Wallace, July 2 - November 3
Acclaimed playwright Naomi Wallace’s newest work brings to life a group of people whose stories have been lost in history. On the docks of late 18th Century Rhode Island, Adjua and Dembi are runaway slaves making a dangerous living as best they can. Their fates become entwined with two white sailors, a U.S. Senator, and the memory of a dead sister that links all their lives together. As mysteries come to light, painful truths about the past collide with the present and, in the play’s second half, flow into the next generation. The Liquid Plain tells an emotionally and physically violent story about the cost of slavery on a young country. The play contains strong profanity, explicit sexuality and vivid descriptions of the violence of the slave trade. That said, it also has great educational and historical value. Told with lyricism and power, The Liquid Plain was commissioned through OSF’s American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle. It may be best suited for very mature teenagers who are well-prepared for the possibility of partial nudity and the brutal nature of the story. Prologue recommended.
Study guide available soon.
This production is an original work commissioned by and developed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The script may be revised right up to opening day. We will post a study guide as soon as possible, but it might not be available until the play opens.
CYMBELINE
by William Shakespeare, June 4 - October 11
King Cymbeline’s mind has been poisoned by his beautiful and ambitious second wife. She has convinced him that her son Cloten should marry his daughter, Princess Imogen. However, the princess has secretly married the noble Posthumus. When the king discovers the marriage, he banishes Posthumus. While in exile, Posthumus is tricked into believing that Imogen has been unfaithful, and renounces her. Wronged both by her evil stepmother and the men in her life, Imogen dresses as a man and runs away into the wilds of ancient Britain, where she finds shelter with a shepherd and his sons. Part folk story, part action adventure, Cymbeline is a romance, one of the fantastical plays written near the end of Shakespeare’s career. It has all the right stuff: true love, poisonous potions, supernatural beings, diabolical villains and hairbreadth escapes, propelled by improbable fairy-tale logic, which allows impossibly tragic situations to blossom into glorious happily-ever-afters. The play contains some violence, including the head of a villain who has been killed offstage and later, the decapitated body. In addition, another villain’s false report of his seduction of Imogen is described in sensual detail. The language is dense and the plot complex, but the recognizable fairy-tale elements will make it accessible to well prepared students. Prologue Recommended.
Study guide.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
by William Shakespeare, June 6 - October 13
Theseus and Hyppolyta are in love and impatiently await their wedding. Hermia loves Lysander, but Demetrius loves Hermia, but Helena loves Demetrius. Hermia’s father, Egeus, wants her to marry Demetrius, and he invokes a law that will condemn her to death or a convent if she does not obey him. Hermia and Lysander run away into the forest, followed by Demetrius, followed by Helena. The forest is the realm of the fairies, ruled by Oberon and Titania, who are in love but out of love because of an argument about a changeling boy. Oberon’s lieutenant, Puck, is in love with mischief. Bottom, a would-be actor, is in love with himself. The fairies possess a flower that can change who is in love with whom. It gets used and misused until all is sorted out, love conquers all, and peaceful harmony reigns. Shakespeare’s exquisite, perfectly balanced comedy is suitable for the entire family. This magical production will be an excellent way to introduce new viewers to Shakespeare. Prologue recommended.
Study guide.
THE HEART OF ROBIN HOOD
by David Farr, June 5 - October 12
David Farr’s new play offers us a vibrant, romantic and swashbuckling take on the Robin Hood legend. Robin begins the play as Robin the Hood, a thug and thief with no intention of giving back to the poor what he has stolen from the rich. Robin has to find his heart. To the rescue comes an unlikely hero: a sword-wielding, sharp-witted Maid Marion, who sets out to show Robin and his hoods that there can be honor among thieves. Also in the mix are two orphan children, Jethro and Sarah, whose father is executed for not supporting the dastardly Prince John’s exorbitant taxes. As in many Shakespeare plays, the town is corrupt and the forest is where people transform and discover their true selves. The play had its world premiere last year at the Royal Shakespeare Company, where it was an extremely popular, family friendly show. Funny and full of action, The Heart of Robin Hood does contain some violence. Jethro and Sarah see their father’s corpse and there are other instances of brutality including a beheading and a tongue cut out. However, these events will be stylized and not shown in a graphic way. Children who are prepared for and can handle the occasional elements of stage violence will find the play thrilling and accessible. Prologue recommended.
Study guide.
Questions? Please contact us:
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Phone: (541) 482-2111 ext. 496
Email: education@osfashland.org
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