We are excited to announce that for our third year, we will be visiting one of the most prominent theatre companies across the nation to join the 2020 Jubilee, Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) in Ashland, Oregon.
The festival will officially launch its 85th year and Nataki Garrett’s first full season as artistic director with the matinee opening of Bring Down the House, Part I, the first of a two-part adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy in the Thomas Theatre on Friday, March 6, 2020.
Followed that evening by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (director, Joseph Haj) the Angus Bowmer Theatre. Preview performances of five plays begin on February 28, and the 2020 season will continue through Nov. 1, with six more plays opening in the spring and summer.
We are thrilled to be opening the 2020 season with five stunning productions that each reflect the transformative and uncompromised mastery of this organization’s world-class company and creative teams.” said Nataki Garrett, OSF artistic director.
Opening Saturday, March 7, are Bring Down the House, Part II in the Thomas Theatre and the world premiere of Karen Zacarías’s The Copper Children (director, Shariffa Ali), an American Revolutions commission, in the Angus Bowmer Theatre. On Sunday, March 8, Peter and the Starcatcher (director, Lavina Jadhwani) opens in the Angus Bowmer Theatre. All five productions will run for the entire season.
The Full 2020 Playbill Includes
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- The Copper Children
- Peter and the Starcatcher
- Bring Down the House, Parts I & II
- The Tempest
- Black Odyssey
- Confederates
- Bernhardt/Hamlet
- Poor Yella Rednecks
- Everything That Never Happened
The 2020 Green Show season will run Wednesday to Saturday evenings at 6:45pm from June 5 to September 26. Updates on the exciting engagements and innovations planned for this unique performance experience will be announced throughout the season.
Opening in March
Bring Down the House, Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy
Performed in two parts (March 3 – Nov 1, opens March 6 & 7)
By William Shakespeare, adapted by Rosa Joshi and Kate Wisniewski, produced in association with upstart crow collective, directed by Rosa Joshi.
This epic two-part adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy by Rosa Joshi and Kate Wisniewski is also directed by Joshi, who continues the journey she began in her lavishly praised OSF debut production of Henry V, bringing Shakespeare’s language to visceral life with a diverse all-female and non-binary cast.
Part I: The beloved war hero King Henry V is dead, and his young son is crowned King Henry VI. Without a strong leader, England’s conquest of France immediately falls to ruin. The warrior prophetess Joan la Pucelle rallies the French troops, and political factions set the English lords against each other as they squabble for influence over their young and gullible new monarch. A plot emerges among them to dislodge Henry VI’s uncle and Lord Protector, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. In France, the Duke of Suffolk finds a beautiful but politically disadvantageous bride for the young King Henry—Margaret of Anjou, who has fierce ambitions of her own. Unbeknownst to all of them, the Duke of York has his eye on his family’s claim to the throne.
Check out the plays from the 2019 Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Part II: A populist revolution boils as the common people rise up under the leadership of Jack Cade, and tensions between the House of York and King Henry’s family, the House of Lancaster, are mounting. Crashing from one threatened civil war to another, the Duke of York and his three sons make a play for the throne while Queen Margaret leads the army of the Lancasters in defiance of her mild husband’s efforts to reconcile the two families. From the conflict rises a new generation of leaders who will be forever marked by the bloody cost of their victory. Grab your tickets here.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
(February 28 – November 1, opens March 6)
By William Shakespeare, directed by Joseph Haj.
Shakespeare’s timeless romantic comedy features three worlds colliding as they meet in the woods outside of Athens. As Duke Theseus prepares to wed Amazonian Queen Hippolyta, four Athenian lovers run into the woods in pursuit of each other. Unbeknownst to the lovers, they stumble into the heart of an age-old conflict between the fairy king and queen.
The fairies take an interest, seeing their own fight reflected in the Athenians, and meddle with the lovers’ emotions. Meanwhile, a group of artisans practice a play in secret to win the honor of performing at Duke Theseus’s impending wedding. With a little help from the fairies, utter chaos ensues in the forest.
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Like much of Shakespeare’s work, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play with music. Director Joseph Haj’s production of Midsummer includes even more music than Shakespeare’s text. Haj has entrusted the composition of music to Tony Award-winning Jack Herrick.
Haj and Herrick have worked on six productions together throughout their careers, including Pericles at OSF in 2015. Much of the music in this production of Midsummer uses Shakespeare’s text. Some of the songs are extrapolations from what Shakespeare provides. Grab your tickets here.
The Copper Children
(February 29 – October 31, opens March 7)
By Karen Zacarías, directed by Shariffa Ali, World Premiere and American Revolutions commission.
Playwright Karen Zacarías and director Shariffa Ali take a sharp look at the collision of good intentions and despicable behavior, blending humor, tragedy, joy, and unsentimental social commentary. Inspired by a real incident in American history, The Copper Children is a theatrical investigation of race, motherhood, religion, and American-ness.
Stay at Lithia Springs Resort for the 2020 Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Based on the true history of “orphan trains” that transported immigrant children (mostly Irish) to homes in the West, this world-premiere play explores the events in an Arizona mining town that led to the sensational (and now-forgotten) “Trial of the Century” custody case that stirred the nation into a frenzied debate about children, law, race, and classism.
Zacarías uses her tightly focused and deeply relatable plays (e.g., Native Gardens, Destiny of Desire) to subvert audience expectations over and over again and throws the spotlight to characters not seen enough onstage. Through her works, Zacarías reminds us that no human body is ever entirely apolitical, and no tiny human story exists without its wider context. Grab your tickets here.
Peter and the Starcatcher
(March 1 – November 1, opens March 8)
By Rick Elice, based on the novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, music by Wayne Barker, directed by Lavina Jadhwani.
When, exactly, did I grow up? Am I grown up? Where is home for me? What do I want most in the world? These are some of the foundational questions prompted by the story of Peter Pan, a runaway infant in a 1902 story by the Scottish writer J. M. Barrie, as it has been imagined and reimagined for almost 120 years.
Nearly 100 years after Barrie first imagined Peter, author Ridley Pearson was reading the story to his young daughter, who asked, “How did Peter Pan meet Captain Hook in the first place?” Pearson thought the answer to his daughter’s question would make a good novel, and so he teamed up with humorist Dave Barry to write Peter and the Starcatchers, a prequel to Peter Pan.
Driving from Seattle to the Festival? Here is a fun road trip idea!
In this music-filled production, Molly, a brave young girl, leads a ragtag group of orphans on a quest to save the world from the villainous pirate Black Stache. Lavina Jadhwani directs this hilarious, physical, and imaginative celebration of OSF’s multi-talented acting company. Writers from Charles Dickens to J. K. Rowling have used orphaned characters to tell stories about young people who must make their way in the world alone, battling an uncaring society to forge their own sense of belonging.
Stories like these are appealing to children, certainly, but also connect deeply with adults struggling to create a sense of home or self in a chaotic world. With an appeal that spans generations, Peter and the Starcatcher, which won five Tony Awards during its Broadway debut, embraces the child in each of us with a depth and beauty that is far from childish. Grab your tickets here.
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Ticket for the 2020 Oregon Shakespeare Festival remain available to most previews and opening performances. Please check ticket availability online or call the Box Office at 800-219-8161. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival 2020 season runs from March 6 through November 1.