TICKETS NOW AVAILABLE FOR OSF’S 2023 SEASON:
THE SEASON OF LOVE

Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) announces that tickets to its powerful, upcoming 2023 Season are now available. On the heels of completing its first full season back since the closures, OSF already has an eye toward its exciting 2023 lineup.

OSF’s signature mix of new plays and musicals, reinvented classics, and immersive technology projects embodies Artistic Director Nataki Garrett’s future-facing vision for the 87-year-old company. The 2023 programming features an expansive spectrum of stylistic approaches and creative voices including award-winning playwrights Kirsten Childs and Madeline Sayet; iconoclastic directors Kent Gash, Tiffany Nichole Greene, and Dawn Monique Williams; and multi-hyphenate artists and cultural luminaries including Troy Anthony, adrienne maree brown, Chava Florendo, as well as members of OSF’s dynamically talented Artistic Leadership Team.

“Our 2023 Season is what I am calling the Season of Love,” says Garrett. “Starting with one of the most famous love stories of all from our namesake playwright, Romeo and Juliet kicks off this year’s exciting lineup. This love story aptly sets the stage for the productions that follow throughout the season— from the deeply moving Rent to To Feel a Thing, a transformative, musical journey that invites us all to embrace evolution and our love of life and liberation.”

The season offers two incisive looks at contemporary America with an eye towards possibility and healing. Director Tiffany Nichole Greene takes audiences to the jagged heart of Jonathan Larson’s vision of poverty, artistry, marginality, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic in 1980s New York in Rent (April 19–October 14). Mohegan theatre-maker Madeline Sayet’s Where We Belong (August 24–October 15, presented by OSF and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in association with Folger Shakespeare Library) marks the OSF directing debut of Associate Artistic Director and Director of New Work Mei Ann Teo. This intrepid solo work stems from Sayet’s journey to pursue a PhD in Shakespeare in England, and considers how it parallels the journeys of her Mohegan ancestors crossing the ocean across time.

“We all need a little bit of love and a whole lot of joy these days,” says Associate Artistic Director and Director of Artistic Programming Evren Odcikin, who leads the producing of the repertory season. “The 2023 Season brings leading voices of theater and beyond to OSF to engage in just that — joyful creation that reckons with our past, reflects our present, and imagines a better future. I am deeply moved and inspired by the brilliant visions of these brilliant artists, and I know that our audiences will be, too — both in Ashland and around the country via our Theatre on Film initiative.”

Throughout the season, artists take on classic works in unprecedented ways. Garrett opens the season with her first Shakespeare production for OSF: Romeo and Juliet (April 18–October 15). Garrett considers the play’s seething divisions through the lens of class in America. Dawn Monique Williams (The Merry Wives of Windsor) directs a jazz and blues-inspired version of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night that accentuates the comedy’s moodier, melancholy edges (June 1–October 13). Presented in association with The Acting Company, Kirsten Childs’ raucous The Three Musketeers (May 31–October 14) draws on Alexandre Dumas’ seldom-cited French-Haitian heritage and the fact that, as director Kent Gash (The Comedy of Errors) describes, “it springs from a Black imagination.”

OSF’s O! Digital Stage continues to serve as a public agora for ongoing commissioning projects and strategic partnerships. Artist, curator and creative producer Chava Florendo leads Visual Sovereignty Project, a digital commissioning initiative that centers the artistic, personal, and tribal sovereignty of Indigenous artists, transcending normative expectations about “what is indigenous work.” With the Theatre on Film initiative, whose inaugural 2022 edition launched last summer, OSF welcomes global audiences into the organization’s celebrated artistry through live-hosted screenings, on the O! Digital Stage, of cinematic captures of select in-person repertory productions. The series will continue throughout 2023.

In the summer and fall, OSF will bring back its annual Green Show, featuring free live music, dance, and other performances on the Bricks in Ashland, OR. Programming will be announced as the series approaches.

Closing the in-person season It’s Christmas, Carol!, returns to OSF for a third time. This hilarious play features songs by Mark Bedard, Brent Hinkley, and John Tufts, and is directed by Pirronne Yousefzadeh. The celebration takes over the Bowmer stage November 23 2022-January 1 2023.

Multimodal, mixed-discipline projects and the development of new work are central to Nataki Garrett’s vision for the future of OSF, the theatre field, and the cultural landscape at large. OSF’s O! Digital Stage celebrates innovation and intersectionality through immersive technology projects that elasticize the definition of theatre and radically broaden access to its transformational power. OSF presents the third annual edition of Quills Fest, a festival exploring the intersection of live performance and Extended Reality (Fall 2023), featuring world-premiere commissions created by interdisciplinary teams of theatremakers and creative technologists.


OSF 2023 Season Schedule and Descriptions

Romeo and Juliet
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Nataki Garrett
Angus Bowmer Theatre
April 18 – October 15, 2023

One of the most famous stories of young love explodes with intense passion in this contemporary production — as two star-crossed lovers from two different families and backgrounds sacrifice all to be together. Artistic Director Nataki Garrett sets her first Shakespeare production at OSF on the West Coast and explores the financial and class divisions of our current time through this beloved tale.

Rent
Book, music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson
Directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene
Angus Bowmer Theatre
April 19 – October 14, 2023

In this Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, a group of young artists fights for justice and visibility during the AIDS crisis, drawing strength from the beautiful bonds of friendship and chosen family. With its profound message of joy and hope in the face of uncertainty, this iconic musical reminds us to measure our lives with what truly matters — love.

Twelfth Night
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Dawn Monique Williams
Allen Elizabethan Theatre
June 1 – October 13, 2023

Shakespeare’s hilarious yet heart-breaking tale of unrequited love takes over the Allen Elizabethan stage! A ship is wrecked on the rocks: Viola is washed ashore but her twin brother Sebastian is lost. Determined to survive on her own, she steps out to explore a new land. In a production by Dawn Monique Williams (The Merry Wives of Windsor) inspired by early Blues and Jazz greats like Bessie Smith, music is the food of love and nobody is quite what they seem.

The Three Musketeers
Written by Kirsten Childs
Inspired by Alexandre Dumas
Directed by Kent Gash
Presented in Association with The Acting Company
Allen Elizabethan Theatre
May 31 – October 14, 2023

An inspiring tale filled with laughter and adventure, The Three Musketeers is a reminder to all that courage, honesty, and valor can change the world. Kirsten Childs’s adaptation finds its inspiration in the oft-ignored fact that writer Alexandre Dumas was of French-Haitian heritage, and award-winning director Kent Gash (The Comedy of Errors) playfully mixes swagger and swashbuckle with his all-Black cast.

Where We Belong
Written and Performed by Madeline Sayet
Directed by Mei Ann Teo
Presented by OSF and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
In Association with Folger Shakespeare Library
Thomas Theatre
August 24 – October 15, 2023

In 2015, Mohegan theatre-maker Madeline Sayet moved to England to pursue a PhD in Shakespeare, grappling with the question of what it means to remain or leave, as the Brexit vote threatens to further disengage the UK from the wider world. Moving between nations that have failed to reckon with their ongoing roles in colonialism, she finds comfort in the journeys of her Native ancestors who had to cross the ocean in the 1700s to help her people. In this intimate and exhilarating solo piece, Madeline asks us what it means to belong in an increasingly globalized world. This production marks the OSF directing debut of Associate Artistic Director and Director of New Work Mei Ann Teo.

It’s Christmas, Carol!
Directed by Pirronne Yousefzadeh
Written by Mark Bedard, Brent Hinkley, and John Tufts
Angus Bowmer Theatre
November 23, 2022 – January 1, 2023
Featuring several new cast members and an ever-evolving (read: NEW!) script, It’s Christmas, Carol! follows affluent society woman Carol Scroogenhouse on Christmas Eve as three ghosts take her through time and space to reckon with her views on love, wealth and holiday cheer. But don’t be fooled by the familiarity of the plot—this performance takes audience members on a rail-less ride where anything goes. To help Carol find her soul, the ghosts whisk her to a Shakespearean theatre, a prehistoric holiday celebration and a Zombie future. The music-filled comedy features songs by Mark Bedard, Brent Hinkley and John Tufts.

Green Show
The Bricks
Summer and Fall
Dates to be announced
OSG’s beloved Green Show series of free performances on the Bricks features musicians, dancers, and other artists spanning a vast range of genres and styles. Performances take place at 6:45pm, Wednesdays through Saturdays. As it has been since its inception in 1960, the Green Show is performed outdoors, weather permitting.

Theatre on Film
OSF’s O! Digital Stage
Throughout the Season

OSF’s new Theatre on Film initiative invites global audiences to experience OSF’s celebrated artistry in their homes. As a central part of OSF’s commitment to expanding access to the transformational power of theatre, select in-person productions in the repertory season will be cinematically captured and made available online on the O! Digital Stage, through an interactive portal that reimagines and expands the definition of live theatre. This season’s shows include: Romeo & Juliet and Twelfth Night.

Quills Fest 2023
OSF’s O! Digital Stage
Fall 2023
OSF’s Quills Fest returns for a third year, featuring a bespoke Virtual Reality exhibition space built by OSF’s Creative Technologists in Residence and a slate of world-premiere XR projects that boldly explores the future of storytelling. Quills Fest is OSF’s annual festival at the intersection of Live Theatre and Extended Reality, engaging artists and audiences around the world on the web, in virtual reality and in person—in pop-up VR hubs across cities. Exhibitions, performances, and discussions feature the most adventurous voices in performance and immersive technology.

Visual Sovereignty Project
Various Public Spaces on the OSF Campus, and on OSF’s O! Digital Stage
Throughout the Season

Visual Sovereignty Project is a digital commissioning project that recognizes Indigenous people have a story to tell, “for us, by us, now us.” Curated and produced in partnership with Chava Florendo, Visual Sovereignty Project decolonizes O! by transcending normative expectations about “what is native work?” through artistic, personal and tribal sovereignty. Interdisciplinary teams of Indigenous artists from across Turtle Island will create digital interpretations of traditional stories. Visual Sovereignty Project will claim spaces across theater lobbies and public space on OSF’s campus throughout the year, and also be viewable on the O! Digital Stage.

About OSF
Led by Artistic Director Nataki Garrett and Executive Director David Schmitz, OSF expands access to the transformational power of art and art-making. A global entity and an ever-evolving container for the future that responds to changing tides, the organization is committed to co-liberation through radically inclusive, accessible, and collaborative practices. OSF centers and nurtures artists and multimodal, multidisciplinary work.

OSF was founded in 1935 and has grown from a three-day festival of two plays to a nationally renowned theatre arts organization that presents a rotating repertory season of up to eight plays and musicals, including both classics and new work. OSF productions have been presented on Broadway, internationally, and at regional, community, and high school theatres across the country. In 2020, the organization launched O!, its new digital stage featuring performances of groundbreaking art and mind-expanding discussions that can be accessed from anywhere in the world. O! attracts more than 10,000 views per month from audience members in over 50 countries.

Credits
OSF's 2023 Season is possible thanks to the extraordinary generosity of its supporters. For a complete list of donors, visit osfashland.org.

Media contact: Navalta Media at [email protected] or 415.728.1299.