About the Festival
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is a not-for-profit professional theatre founded in 1935. The season runs from February through early November, and has three theatres: our two indoor stages, the Angus Bowmer Theatre and the Thomas Theatre, and a flagship outdoor Allen Elizabethan Theatre, which opens in early June and runs through mid-October. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival offers 11 different plays that include three or four by Shakespeare and seven by other classic writers, as well as modern and contemporary work and world premieres.

Julius Cesar
War hero Julius Caesar is a marked man. Adoring commoners want to make him king, but those higher up the Roman political ladder worry and scheme. On a stormy night full of alarming sights and ominous portents, Brutus and Cassius reach an unthinkable conclusion: Caesar must die so the Republic can live. Yet death doesn’t stop Caesar, whose influence and ghost live on, tormenting his assassins and threatening the republican ideal they murdered him for. Shakespeare’s political thriller shows what happens to powerbrokers—honorable and not—when their motives and means lead to unexpected consequences they cannot control.

This production of Julius Caesar is part of Shakespeare in American Communities, a national program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.

Henry IV - Part 1
Prince Hal is biding his time. His father, Henry IV, wants to tutor him in the cruel art of ruling the realm, but Hal would rather study the bottom of a beer stein in a seedy tavern, surrounded by his carousing friends. His gang’s charismatic leader, Falstaff—larger than life, debauched and allergic to all authority—has been more of a teacher than Hal’s father ever was. Then, when a young rival threatens the kingdom, it’s time for Hal to step up and take on the family troubles. But how does a reckless son become a true prince?

UniSon
This high-energy, multimedia, music-filled theatrical experience explores the poetry of August Wilson (Fences, Two Trains Running) in a one-of-a-kind production by one of the nation’s leading ensembles of color, UNIVERSES (Party People, Ameriville). Granted access to Wilson’s poetry catalogue, UNIVERSES bring their signature aesthetic fusing poetry, theatre, dance and music in this world premiere that explores the reconstruction of collective memory, interweaving an American master’s words with their own poetry and storytelling for a new century, a new generation.

Henry IV - Part 2
King Henry IV is not long for this world. And neither is his kingdom, swirling with conspiracies and threatened by armies advancing on two borders. Henry’s son, Prince Hal, still doesn’t seem up to the task of becoming king. And Hal’s friend, the notorious Falstaff, looks forward to unleashing his own brand of anarchy when the old king dies and Hal assumes the throne. Shakespeare’s tale of damaged friendships and hard choices, bridging the gap between the youthful abandon of Henry IV, Part One and the war-tempered Henry V, illuminates the making of a most unlikely monarch.

This production of Henry IV, Part Two is part of Shakespeare in American Communities, a national program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.