Ashland, Ore.--Robin Goodrin Nordli, an actor with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, is among 13 recipients of the Oregon Arts Commissions 2009 Individual Artist Fellowships. This year OAC awarded grants in the amount of $3000 to performers and writers of exceptional talent and demonstrated ability, professional achievement and continuing dedication to an artistic discipline. The Fellowships recognize outstanding work created throughout Oregon, and consider both past achievement and future promise in the arts.
The Fellowship will assist Ms. Nordli in her research and development as she prepares to teach and perform at the newly formed National Shakespeare Festival and Chinese Universities Shakespeare Festival in Beijing in the fall of 2009. "Being chosen as a guest artist to represent not only Oregon, but also the United States is a unique chance to bridge Western and Eastern cultures and foster mutual awareness and understanding through the works of Shakespeare," Ms. Nordli said. "I am grateful that the State of Oregon recognizes the importance of this opportunity and the arts."
Artistic Director Bill Rauch commented, "Robin Goodrin Nordli is the ideal actor in a rotating repertory company: she can be alternately hilarious and heart-breaking; her range is vast; and she brings professional rigor and great sensitivity and humanity to everything she undertakes. I am so proud that she has made OSF her artistic home. She is most deserving of this award."
Ms. Nordli is currently in her 16th season with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She has played 46 roles in 36 productions. Major roles include Hedda Gabler in Hedda Gabler and The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler, Roxane in Cyrano de Bergerac, Margaret in Henry VI, Part One, Parts Two and Three and Richard III, Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing, Portia in The Merchant of Venice, Chorus in Henry V. This season she will play Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, and Marcella, Maritones and Ensemble in Don Quixote.
In addition, Ms. Nordli created a one-woman show Bard Babes, an exploration of the joys and challenges of playing Shakespeare's female characters. She is one of 21 actors chosen for inclusion in North American Players of Shakespeare, A Book of Interviews. She appears on the cover of and her work is discussed in the book Women Direct Shakespeare in America. Her audio recordings of Shakespearean text can be heard in the upcoming Dialogue and Monologue: a Study of Shakespearean Soliloquies with Dramatic Readings to be published in Mandarin as well as English. She has worked at a number of regional theatres including California Shakespeare Company, Arizona Theatre Company, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, American Conservatory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, South Coast Repertory Theatre and Mark Taper Forum.
Last season Ms. Nordli taught at the National Taiwan and I-Lan universities in Taiwan.
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