OREGON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL (OSF)
AUGUST 4-11, 2012 TRIP
FINANCIAL AID
As much as $500 in financial aid might be available for as many as six PCC students. Speak with Prof. Oventile or Prof. Bonilla soon. The financial aid is about to be distributed.
Cost
is $825 (Double/Shared Bath), $985 (Single/Shared Bath), $1045 (Double/Private Bath), and $1275 (Single/Private Bath.) Cost includes accommodations for seven nights, tickets for seven plays, backstage tour, discussions with actors, lectures by theatre company members, and insurance. Class enrollment fee, transportation, meals and parking not included.
The 2010 and 2011
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
In recent years I co-led the OSF trip with colleagues. They and the PCC student particiapnts were excellent company. I'm glad I made the trip. I hope I can do it again. Here's some of my photographs and notes from recent trips:
Since 1935 the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has offered some of the best productions of Shakespeare and world theatre. (Sorry that I'm starting to sound like a public relations guy, but sometimes we have to do a little marketing.) The festival now puts on nearly 780 performances per year for an audience of 780,000. For more than 35 years PCC has offered its students and members of the community the chance to travel to Ashland, Oregon, and experience such great theatre for one week during the summer.
During the week we ignored signs--actually, just this one, above--as members of the Shakespeare Festival gave us a backstage tour of their three theatres, to see the company's wardrobe and costume shop, stand on the Globe Theatre's center stage, watch the crew miraculously and quickly change sets in the Bowmer Theatre, and take a break in the actors' green room. Sorry, there were no pictures allowed inside.
Actors joined us for discussions about their experiences as actors and members of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Above, from left to right, Michael Kay, Roshni Divate, and Jennifer Rose, listen to actor John Tufts.
John Tufts, above, left, who starred as Prince Hal in Henry IV: Part I, signs Annie Tang's playbill at the end of class. Tufts will be back next summer in Henry IV: Part II. (Sounds like a sequel. Mmmm.)
One evening we saw an incredible performance by Miriam Luabe in Twelfth Night on the Globe stage, and the next morning she engaged us, above, in an enthusiastic conversation about the play and the rehearsal process.
In addition to PCC students and their friends and family members joining the trip, class participants come from a range of backgrounds--from the newspaper and health care fields to former PCC students now enrolled at UCLA and Cal State universities. Some students are new to Shakespeare and the theatre, while others have longtime experience. Jeanne Roach at left, played Viola in
Twelfth Night at a Maine college nearly 60 years ago, and Lucila Dypiangco, a former fellow at the Folger Shakespeare Library, taught English at Bell High School for many years. Miriam Luabe, center, a member of the Oregon Shakespeare Company for six seasons, was thrilled to meet them.
Particpants also eat well on the trip, and there are many good, inexpensive places to eat and convenient markets for groceries. Stanley Chao, Maggie Getova, Annie Tang, and Jimmy Stafford, left to right, enjoy a picnic in Ashland's Lithia Park, 93 acres of tall trees and hiking trails around Ashland Creek. The park's entrance is just a short walk from the theatres.
This year's (2011) participants also hiked Crater Lake and went white water rafting. From left, above, Stanley Chao, Chris McCabe, Maggie Getova, Janet McCabe, Jimmy Stafford, and Annie Tang take on one of the northwest's great rivers--the Rogue.
Class pariticpants are eager to return, and I am now making plans for the summer 2011 trip and will have details later in Fall 2010. We'll probably see four plays by Shakespeare--including Measure for Measure and Julius Caesar--and two new productions and one more classic. I hope you join us! In Ashland! At the theatre! And on one of the great rivers of life!
