- 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
The Angus Bowmer theatre is designed to make audiences feel like they are in the same space as the events taking place on stage and every one of the 600 seats really is a good one. Its ultra hi-tech light and sound system give it the ability to smoothly support even the most ambitious of productions. OSF designers use it for all it's worth, staging sensory-rich productions, and bringing to life those plays which are brilliant primarily for their simplicity.
The Festival's youngest venue is the 140-seat Black Swan Theatre, a space that has been "especially well suited to intimate material and plays that are more edgy," says OSF Artistic Director Libby Appel. "Intimate and edgy" as it is, the Swan is scheduled to be replaced by a more efficient modern version. While the new improved Swan will still be designed to accommodate intimate theatre experiences, according to Appel, "it will increase seating capacity to 350, and allow for multiple stage configurations during the same season." The new $10 million Black Swan stage is due to open in March 2002.
Festival actors are some of the hardest working professionals in the business. The standard OSF season sees more than 750 performances and many actors in the company perform in more than one play each season, sometimes with more than one character per play.
"There aren't many theatre companies left in the world that have the budget and staff to stage full scale productions of Hamlet and Henry V in the same season," says Festival actress Melanie Bell. "It's an honor to have this much artistic challenge and freedom all at the same time."
