ASHLAND, ORE.-The Oregon Shakespeare Festival invites the public to its 21st annual Daedalus Project, a benefit for AIDS/HIV organizations, on Sunday, August 17 and Monday, August 18.
This year's event will again feature a Sunday morning 5K Run Walk, a Monday play reading at 1:30 p.m. in the Angus Bowmer Theatre and a 7:30 p.m. variety show on the Elizabethan Stage/Allen Pavilion. Tickets for the play reading are $15; tickets for the evening variety show are $25 and $30. Tickets are available at the Box Office at 15 South Pioneer Street, by calling (541) 482-4331 or online at www.osfashland.org.
The chief organizer of this year's Daedalus events is 18-year acting company veteran David Kelly. Kelly is inspired by the words of former artistic director Jerry Turner, under whose leadership the Daedalus Project first began. "The frustration of our efforts to find a cure need not lead to surrender and despair but to redoubled energy in pursuit of life-giving hope."
Events kick off at 7:30 a.m. Sunday, August 17 with the 12th Annual 5K Run & Walk, sponsored by OSF. Check-in begins at 6:45 a.m. on the OSF bricks. The run winds 3.1 miles up Pioneer Street from the Festival along Granite Street, cutting briefly into Lithia Park and then back to Pioneer Street. Call (541) 482-2111, ext. 422 for registration information. The fee/donation is $20.00 and includes a T-shirt. Registrations will be accepted up until 10 minutes before race time.
A reading of Tony Kushner's Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, directed by Robynn Rodriguez and featuring actors Tony DeBruno, K.T. Vogt, Rex Young, Sarah Rutan, Jonathan Haugen, Christopher Liam Moore, Tyrone Wilson, Kjerstine Anderson and Robert Vincent Frank, will be held at 1:30 p.m. Monday, August 18 in the Angus Bowmer Theatre. Kushner's groundbreaking play won every conceivable award in the 1993 and 1994 theatre seasons, including the Tony Award, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Drama Desk Award. Tickets are $15, and all proceeds benefit the Daedalus Project. Please note: The play contains strong language that may not be suitable for children.
This year's evening variety show begins at 7:30 p.m. Monday on the Elizabethan Stage/Allen Pavilion. The show, emceed by Ray Porter, features guitar solos, original dances, songs, poetry and skits performed by OSF actors, company members, and artists from the community. The finale of Act One is the ever-popular Underwear Parade. Audience members vote with their dollars for their favorite underwear contestants during intermission. The underwear parade has contributed as much as $6,500 to the benefit in past years.
From 6:00-7:00 p.m., local band Hamfist will entertain listeners on the Green Show stage, on the OSF bricks.
Be sure to check out the Daedalus Art & Treasures Sale in the Angus Bowmer Theatre lobby on the afternoon of Monday, August 18. The sale includes items crafted by members of the OSF company such as paintings, sculpture and other hand-crafted works of art, signed photographs, plus other opportunities like sharing coffee or a meal with a company member. The Art & Treasures sale raised over $5,000 in 2007.
A beautiful handmade quilt fashioned by Alice Risser of the OSF Costume Shop will be raffled off in the week leading up to the Daedalus event. Raffle tickets can be purchased for $2 each at the OSF Welcome Center, at the front desk in the Administration building, or on the OSF bricks on the day of the event.
Returning again this year is the 4th Annual New Belgium Brewery Bike Raffle. Raffle tickets, at $2 each, are available at the business office, the t-shirt table and concessions the night of Daedalus. Ticket holders need not be present to win.
A benefit sale of T-shirts, baked goods, lemonade, and other concessions will occur on the bricks Monday during the afternoon and early evening hours.
OSF artistic associate James Edmondson had the original idea for an AIDS/HIV fundraiser 21 years ago. The late OSF Artistic Director Emeritus Jerry Turner named the event The Daedalus Project after the story of Daedalus from Greek mythology. Daedalus and his son, Icarus, were imprisoned in a labyrinth by King Minos, and by crafting wings from wax and feathers, Daedalus created a way out of the maze.
Following each year's benefit, the Festival distributes proceeds to local, regional, national and international organizations HIV and AIDS charitable organizations. In 2007, OSF distributed funds to the following:
OnTrack, Inc. - Alan F. Collins AIDS Project, Medford: $39,000
HIV Resources Center (Josephine, Douglas, Curry, Coos counties): $11,000
Siskiyou County HIV/AIDS Foundation (SCHAF): $6,000
Africare: $3,000
"As the World AIDS Conference approaches, we are reminded that the numbers of people infected with HIV disease both nationally and worldwide are on the rise," says Rita Sullivan, Director of OnTrack, Inc. in Medford, OR. "Although we recognize the severe global impact of the epidemic, we understand that the battle is largely waged upon local fronts. Despite this reality, community-based AIDS organizations continue to receive little or no public funding, a situation our Alan Collins AIDS Project has struggled to overcome for many years. As in the past, the lion's share of the privately raised funds we receive each year reach us through the Daedalus Project, without which our work on behalf of people affected by HIV disease would be - in a word - impossible."
"Just as important," Sullivan continues, "the Daedalus Project benefit functions not only as a sumptuous feast of entertainment but also as a mammoth support group for our friends and neighbors living with AIDS and those who cherish them. Under the August stars, in the embrace of OSF's outdoor theater, we are granted a precious opportunity to grieve for those who have fallen and combat the epidemic on behalf of the living with the most potent weapons in the human arsenal laughter, music and the solidarity of empathetic friends."
HIV/AIDS numbers continue to climb nationally and globally. It is estimated between 30-36 million people worldwide are infected with HIV/AIDS, with more than one million Americans living with HIV or AIDS. Of the 40,000 new HIV infections that occur in the United States each year, half are under the age of 25. Approximately one-fourth of HIV-infected persons are believed to be unaware of their infection, underscoring the need to expand opportunities for HIV testing. To date, 177 AIDS cases have been diagnosed in Jackson County since 1983. It is estimated that there are 120-400 people living with HIV or AIDS in the area.
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