- my iParenting
- quick clicks
- home style today articles
- home style today q&a
- traveling today articles
- traveling today q&a
- message boards
- research baby names
- prepare a birth plan
- content channels
- ip channel rss feeds
- read birth stories
- read parenting stories
- recommended books
- e-newsletters
- safety recalls
- ip diaries
- ip store
- mom of the month
- dad of the month
- editor's letter
- letters to the editor
 |
- e-newsletters
- Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters
- award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Where There's a Will, There's a Play
By Johanthon Allen
"Our family has come to Ashland for a week of play watching every year since 1995," says Dylan Myer, a father of two from Seattle, Wash. "The quality of the acting is always superb and the productions are visually stunning. Going to OSF is one of the few things our whole family gets into doing, even my 15-year-old daughter who is hoping to be an actress, is excited to go."
In addition to staging a consistent selection of Shakespeare's famous and not-so-famous pieces in virtually every imaginable combination of timeframe, setting, and dress, OSF also presents a diverse array of modern-era and newly commissioned plays. This panoply of performances is staged in three distinctly different "state of the art" environments: The Angus Bowmer theatre, a modern indoor stage named for the festival's founder; the Black Swan, a small funky "black box" venue; and the festival's star attraction, an outdoor Elizabethan amphitheater.
Though it has enjoyed numerous improvements over the years, the outdoor theater that Bowmer dubbed "America's First Elizabethan Theatre" is still in use today amid the walls of the old performance house that contribute so much to its distinctive ambiance. The bi-level pavilion seats 1,200 audience members and operates throughout the summer (June through October) presenting exclusively Shakespeare plays as they were meant to be experienced: under a starlit canopy on a warm summer night.
