Oregon Shakespeare Festival

The gem that is the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), located at 15 S. Pioneer Street, is not to be missed. Operating nine months of the year (from February through October, with the outdoor theater open from June), OSF presents both classic and contemporary plays in repertory, using Shakespeare as its standard. Plays are performed most days of the week in three theaters simultaneously: the contemporary Angus Bowmer (named after the drama professor who started the festival in 1935), the intimate Black Swan, and the open-air Elizabethan Theatre, designed to look like England’s fine old Globe Theater. Since the festival is enormously popular, performances sell out months in advance. Don’t let that discourage you from showing up even at the last minute, however. Some of our best success stories occurred when we arrived at the box office on the morning or the evening of a performance, taking advantage of the inevitable cancellations and no-shows. The Festival Box Office is very professionally run—let the folks who work there give you tips on how to increase your chances of getting in at the last minute. (Open Monday from 9:30 am to 5 pm, and Tuesday to Sunday from 9:30 am to 8:30 pm; 541-482-4331, www.osfashland.org.) Many inns are within easy walking distance of the festival grounds and the downtown area, so park your car once, pick up an OSF schedule, and revel in all you can accomplish on foot! A wonderful variety of extra activities are scheduled at OSF every week: backstage tours (this is especially fun at the Elizabethan Theatre), informal chats with the actors, lectures by the directors or “dramaturgs,” and in summer, an always-enchanting pre-performance show in the main courtyard. At the corner of Pioneer and East Main you’ll find the Festival Exhibit Center, showcasing costumes, props, audio and video footage from the earliest performances, and over 60 years of photographs. (Open Tuesday to Sunday from 10:30 am to 1:30 pm, mid-February to October.)