Resident Artist, Amelia Acosta Powell, shared with me insights into the 2019 Season at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
EH: What’s new and exciting for next season?
AAP: They all are. Octovio Solis’ play “Mother Road” which is inspired by “The Grapes of Wrath” is so beautiful. It is a beautiful play, and he’s a beautiful poet. It’s incredibly timely. It is a journey in the American West from California back to Oklahoma, which I think Oregon audiences will appreciate. I’m thrilled about that play.
I’m super excited about Lauren Yee’s “Cambodian Rock Band.” I don’t know how familiar folks are, especially the younger folks that come to OSF, with the Khmer Rouge or the history of Cambodian genocide. The way that Lauren has found to present that story is so exciting because: You can imagine a lot of people wouldn’t want to come watch a play about such a dark topic, but it is funny. There is fantastic music. She has found a way to welcome you in, break down those barriers of feeling uncomfortable, or feeling guilt, or feeling just overwhelming grief about it. A lot of resiliency, a lot of power and agency, which I think is a beautiful way in.
Ed Dunsavage, artistic director of the Siskiyou Institute, promotes jazz and jazz studies throughout the Rogue Valley. He is also a guitar instructor at Southern Oregon University. We met at Boulevard Coffee to talk about jazz.
Ashland Theatre 