ASHLAND, Ore. – The Oregon Shakespeare Festival made its 2023 Season announcement.
Next year, OSF is presenting a mix of new plays and musicals, reinvented classics, and immersive technology projects.
“The 2022 season was about recovery and rebuilding,” said OSF Artistic Director Nataki Garrett. “The 2023 season is about reimagining, revitalizing, and reinvigorating. We are reimagining the future of theatre. We are revitalizing the art form by centering artists and their work.”
OSF provided the following lineup for the 2023 Season:
Romeo and Juliet
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Nataki Garrett
April 4–October 29, 2023
Angus Bowmer Theatre
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
April 5–October 29, 2023
Angus Bowmer Theatre
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.
Flex
By Candrice Jones
Directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg
West Coast Premiere
April 4–July 30, 2023
Thomas Theatre
It’s 1997 and the WNBA is changing the game. Every player on Plainnole’s Lady Train basketball team now dreams of going pro—but first, they’ll have to navigate the pressures of being young, Black, and female in rural Arkansas. Will their fouls off the court tear their team apart? Or can they keep their pact to stick together through hell or high water? With all the adrenaline of a four-quarter game, Candrice Jones’s powerful and poetic play celebrates the fierce athleticism of women’s basketball.
Twelfth Night
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Dawn Monique Williams
May 30–October 15, 2023
Allen Elizabethan Theatre
Shakespeare’s hilarious yet heartbreaking 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
May 31–October 15, 2023
Allen Elizabethan Theatre
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.
Yerma
A Tragic Poem in Three Acts
By Federico García Lorca
In an Adaptation by Caridad Svich
Directed by Evren Odcikin
World Premiere
August 29–October 29, 2023
Angus Bowmer Theatre
In Lorca’s achingly powerful masterpiece in a poetic adaptation by Cuban-American playwright Caridad Svich, a young woman stuck in a loveless marriage is driven to the unthinkable by her desperate desire for love and yearning for a child. Inspired by Lorca’s queerness and the stunning dreamscapes of his poetry, Associate Artistic Director and Director of Artistic Programming Evren Odcikin imagines a theatrical production with songs, puppets, and epic storytelling.
Where We Belong
Directed by Mei Ann Teo
Presented by OSF and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
In Association with Folger Shakespeare Library
August 29–October 29, 2023
Thomas Theatre
In 2015, Mohegan theatre-maker Madeline Sayet moves 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!
Mark Bedard, Brent Hinkley, and John Tufts
Directed by Pirronne Yousefzadeh
November–December 2023
Angus Bowmer Theatre
On Christmas Eve, three ghosts take miserly businesswoman Carol Scroogenhouse through time and space to reckon with how she’s abandoned humanity for hollow capitalism. Whisked to a Shakespearean theatre, a prehistoric holiday celebration, and a Zombie future, will Carol find her soul with the help of these apparitions? Featuring hilarious songs from the twisted minds of your favorite OSF clowns, Carol! promises to be a fun, uplifting, and music-filled romp.
Quills Fest 2023
Fall 2023
OSF’s O! Digital Stage
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.
Films for the People
Fall 2023
OSF’s O! Digital Stage
Black Lives Black Words International Project, led by Simeilia Hodge-Dallaway and Reginald Edmund, continues this trailblazing partnership with OSF to produce “Films for the People,” a series of world-premiere one-person short films by groundbreaking Black writers and creatives filmed in beloved Black-owned businesses in San Francisco/Bay Area and Houston. This hybrid project interweaving theatre and film connects Black arts and the communities they serve to celebrate the talent, resilience, and presence of Black artists, leaders and communities across America.
To Feel A Thing – A Ritual for Emergence
By adrienne maree brown
In Collaboration with Troy Anthony
Fall 2023
Allen Elizabethan Theatre
This is the world premiere of To Feel A Thing – A Ritual for Emergence by internationally renowned author and poet adrienne maree brown (Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism) in collaboration with Troy Anthony, composer and Artistic Director of the Fire Ensemble. Featuring a large choir and gospel band, these songs and sacred acts are rooted in the values and lessons found in brown’s book Emergent Strategy and invites listeners to find their own transformation and liberation as we explore the question “How can we get in right relationship with change?” Commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis.
Visual Sovereignty Project
Throughout the Season
Various Public Spaces on the OSF Campus, and on OSF’s O! Digital Stage
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 theatre lobbies and public space on OSF’s campus throughout the year, and also be viewable on the O! Digital Stage.
Theatre on Film
Throughout the Season
OSF’s O! Digital Stage
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.
Green Show
In the summer and fall, OSF’s annual Green Show returns with free live music, dance, and other performances on the Bricks in Ashland, Oregon. Programming will be announced as the series approaches.
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