Have you noticed?
It’s a golden age for theatre in Ashland – and many other places where artists are creating authentic, unforgettable experiences for the audience. If you can do the real thing, the audience is falling over themselves to get to your door and be a part of it. If you can’t, it’s a struggle to get people to spend even the price of a Higgins burger on your ticket.
In the theatre, we don’t want last week’s fish, no matter how spritzed up it is with lemon spray and garnish. There are loads of places where you can get that.
What we want are real experiences that define, transform and unveil the world. The actual world we’re in.
While having a large budget helps put the platform in place on which these unique experiences can stand, it certainly is not a requirement. Artists with vision and no money have always and will always create theatre as good as anything you’ll find anywhere.
The converse is also true. No matter how big your building and budget, if you don’t have the art and vision, the good stuff simply won’t happen.
The best of all worlds is the confluence of artistry and size – when the big guns are also the leaders and innovators. You get that at Lincoln Center, National Theatre, Steppenwolf, National Theatre of Scotland, The Abbey.
And Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
The golden age is now. In some ways, theatre in a place like Ashland is better now than it has ever been anywhere. Where else, across the ages, could you have had the experience you can have right now in Ashland on any given long weekend? Almost nowhere. Ashland’s combination of small town remoteness, staggering natural beauty and big city culture is what sets it apart. Where else can you ski around Crater Lake in the morning and watch RUINED by Lynn Nottage later that night? Where else can you raft the Rogue in the AM and catch ALL THE WAY in the PM? If you’re not the outdoors type, the theatre offerings alone put Ashland on the top shelf. But if you also enjoy the full experience of what one can do on any given day in southern Oregon – there is no place like it.
The secret is out. And that’s why opening weekend for 2015 is moments away from selling out.
