 The theatre, 2005 | |
  Allen Elizabethan Theatre Location within Oregon | |
| Location | Ashland, Oregon, U.S. |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 42°11′46″N122°42′54″W / 42.19618°N 122.71504°W |
The Allen Elizabethan Theatre has evolved since the founding of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival when the first performance of Twelfth Night was presented on July 2, 1935.
The design for the first outdoor OSF Elizabethan Theatre was sketched by Angus L. Bowmer based on his recollection of productions at the University of Washington in which he had acted while a student. Ashland, Oregon obtained WPA funds in 1935 to build it within the 12-foot (3.7 m) circular walls that remained in the roofless shell of the abandoned Chautauqua theatre. Bowmer extended the walls to reduce the stage width to fifty-five feet, and painted the extensions to resemble half-timbered buildings. He designed a thrust stage—one projecting toward the audience—with a balcony. Two columns helped divide the main stage into forestage, middle stage, and inner stage areas. Illustrating the improvised nature of it all, actors doubled as stage hands, stage lighting was housed in coffee cans, and string beans were planted along the walls to improve sound quality. Fifty-cent general admission seating was on benches just behind the one-dollar reserved seating on folding chairs. This theatre was torn down during World War II. [1]
The second outdoor Elizabethan Theatre was built in 1947 from plans drawn up by University of Washington drama professor John Conway. The main stage became trapezoidal, with entries added on either side, and windows added above them flanking the balcony stage. A low railing gave a finished appearance to the forestage. Chairs arranged to improve sight lines replaced bench seating. Backstage areas were added gradually and haphazardly, until the ramshackle result was ordered torn down as a fire hazard in 1958. [1]
The next year saw the opening of the current outdoor theatre, whose name was changed from Elizabethan to Allen Elizabethan Theatre in October 2013. [2] Patterned on London's 1599 Fortune Theatre and designed by Richard L. Hay, it incorporated all the stage dimensions mentioned in the Fortune contract. The trapezoidal stage was retained but the façade was extended to three stories, resulting in a forestage, middle stage, inner below, inner above (the old balcony), and a musicians' gallery. The wings were provided with second-story windows. Each provides acting areas, creating many staging possibilities. A pitched, shingled roof enhances the half-timbered façade. A windowed gable was extended from the center of the roof to cover and define the middle stage. Just before each performance, an actor opens the gable window, and in keeping with Elizabethan tradition signaling a play in progress, runs a flag up the pole to the sound of a trumpet and doffs his cap to the audience.
The result is an approximate replica of the Fortune Theatre. The known but incomplete dimensions apply only to the stage. The original specifications sometimes say no more than "to be built like the Globe," for which there are no plans or details. The remotely operated lighting, on scaffolding on either side of the stage, of course did not exist in the original, and the current site rather than the original architecture largely determined the shape of the auditorium. Twelve hundred seats in slightly offset arcs ascend the original hillside, giving an excellent view of the stage from each seat. The old Chautauqua theatre walls, now ivy-covered, remain as the outer perimeter of the theatre.
The $7.6 million Paul Allen Pavilion was added in 1992. It houses a control room, and audience services including rental of infrared hearing devices, blankets, pillows, and food and drink, both of which are allowed in the auditorium. Several hundred seats were moved to a balcony and two boxes, further improving sightlines and acoustics. Vomitoria (colloquially, "voms"), the traditional name for entryways for actors from under the seating area, were added and the lighting scaffolds were eliminated. [3]
Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States. It lies along Interstate 5 approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of the California border and near the south end of the Rogue Valley. The city's population was 21,360 at the 2020 census.
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) is a regional repertory theatre in Ashland, Oregon, United States, founded in 1935 by Angus L. Bowmer. The Festival now offers matinee and evening performances of a wide range of classic and contemporary plays not limited to Shakespeare. During the Festival, between five and eleven plays are offered in daily rotation six days a week in its three theatres. It welcomed its millionth visitor in 1971, its 10-millionth in 2001, and its 20-millionth visitor in 2015.
Ben Iden Payne, also known as B. Iden Payne, was an English actor, director and teacher. Active in professional theater for seventy years, he helped the first modern Repertory Theatre in the United Kingdom, was an early and effective advocate for Elizabethan staging of Shakespeare plays, and served as an inspiration for Shakespeare Companies and University theater programs throughout North America and the British Isles. His name lives on as the name of a theater at the University of Texas as well as annual theater awards presented in Austin, Texas.
A vomitorium is a passage situated below or behind a tier of seats in an amphitheatre or a stadium, through which big crowds can exit rapidly at the end of an event. They can also be pathways for actors to enter and leave stage. The Latin word vomitorium, plural vomitoria, derives from the verb vomō, vomere, "to spew forth". In ancient Roman architecture, vomitoria were designed to provide rapid egress for large crowds at amphitheatres and stadia, as they do in modern sports stadia and large theatres.
Shakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays, in the London Borough of Southwark, on the south bank of the River Thames. The original theatre was built in 1599, destroyed by a fire in 1613, rebuilt in 1614, and then demolished in 1644. The modern Globe Theatre is an academic approximation based on available evidence of the 1599 and 1614 buildings. It is considered quite realistic, though modern safety requirements mean that it accommodates only 1,400 spectators compared to the original theatre's 3,000.
Eileen DeSandre is an American stage actor and a member of the Actors' Equity Association. Known for much of her career as a character actor in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon, she has more recently taken lead roles in a variety of theaters. She has an M.F.A. in acting from Pennsylvania State University, and a B.A. in French and theater from Seton Hill University.
Production history of plays performed by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, as of September 2021.
Jerry Turner (1927–2004) served as artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival from 1971 to 1991. He transformed the festival from a summer program for semi-professional actors into one of the top regional theaters in the country by leading the Ashland, Oregon-based company beyond its Shakespearean repertoire. He produced plays by Bertold Brecht, Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, and August Strindberg and added the Angus Bowmer Theatre in 1970 and the Black Swan in 1977 to the festival's original theater, the Elizabethan Stage.
Angus L. Bowmer was the founder of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon, United States. During his tenure as artistic director, he produced all 37 of William Shakespeare's plays and performed 32 Shakespearean roles in 43 separate stagings.
Libby Appel served as the fourth artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) from 1995 to June 2007. Appel directed more than 25 productions at OSF, and her artistic vision influenced the 11 plays presented each year during her tenure. Despite the festival's name, she placed increased emphasis on new works. “We have made major connections with world playwrights, artists whose voices we’re particularly interested in.” Appel said. “We commission playwrights, we develop plays here; we have playwrights in residence. We’re a world force now, and I’m really proud of that.”
The Shakespeare Tavern is an Elizabethan playhouse located in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Starting productions at Manuel's Tavern in Atlanta in 1984, the Tavern moved to 499 Peachtree Street in 1990.
The Fortune Playhouse was a historic theatre in London. It was located between Whitecross Street and the modern Golden Lane, just outside the City of London. It was founded about 1600, and suppressed by the Puritan Parliament in 1642.
The Maddermarket Theatre is a British theatre located in St. John's Alley in Norwich, Norfolk, England. It was founded in 1921 by Nugent Monck.
The Shakespeare Center was the home of the Riverside Shakespeare Company, an Equity professional theatre company in New York City, established in 1980 and dedicated in 1982, when the company established its center of theatre production and advanced actor training at the 90-year-old West-Park Presbyterian Church on Amsterdam Avenue at West 86th Street. The Shakespeare Center's facilities consisted of the main offices of the Riverside Shakespeare Company, costume and set construction and storage rooms, a main lobby, and a theatre in the balcony of the church equipped with lighting and sound amplification.
Richard L. Hay is the Principal Theatre and Scenic Director at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Dawn Monique Williams is an American theatre director. She was born in Oakland, California, United States, and is a graduate of California State University, Hayward, San Francisco State University and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2011.
Shakespeare in the Park is a term for outdoor festivals featuring productions of William Shakespeare's plays. The term originated with the New York Shakespeare Festival in New York City's Central Park, originally created by Joseph Papp. This concept has been adapted by many theatre companies, and over time, this name has expanded to encompass outdoor theatre productions of the playwright's works performed all over the world.
The Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre is a Shakespearean theatre in Gdańsk, Poland. It is built on the site of a 17th-century theatre, known as the Fencing School, where English travelling players performed works of English Renaissance theatre. The leading figure in the project to construct the new theatre is Jerzy Limon, a founder of the Gdańsk Shakespeare Festival. It has been built by architect Renato Rizzi in the light of Limon's research which suggests that the Fencing School was modelled on the Fortune Playhouse in London. Though not an attempt at an exact reproduction, the new theatre combines elements from the design of these earlier theatres with modern technology. It opened in September 2014.
A Shakespeare festival is a theatre organization that stages the works of William Shakespeare continually.
Corral de comedias is a type of open-air theatre specific to Spain. In Spanish all secular plays were called comedias, which embraced three genres: tragedy, drama, and comedy itself. During the Spanish Golden Age, corrals became popular sites for theatrical presentations in the early 16th century when the theatre took on a special importance in the country. The performance was held in the afternoon and lasted two to three hours, there being no intermission, and few breaks. The entertainment was continuous, including complete shows with parts sung and danced. All spectators were placed according to their sex and social status.
