Tag Archives: OSF

Dee Maaske and Paul Roland

January 4, 2012 Evalyn Hansen Leave a comment

Dee Maaske and her husband Paul Roland have both enjoyed long and successful acting careers. Their work in theater has taken them throughout the world. They now make their home in Ashland, where Maaske has performed numerous roles for twenty seasons at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We visited over a scrumptious lunch at Larks.

EH: Is there a favorite role that you would like to play?

DM: I would like to find a really fine new play that explores the feminist movement. We need to remember what that was all about. To my knowledge, nobody’s written about the feminists of the 1970s, and they should. Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug had to fight so hard. These women really took a lot of abuse as they opened doors for young women to become architects, doctors, engineers, and heads of corporations. It wasn’t just about burning your bra. All movements are about something much deeper than that, something that hits the core of a population: hence the Occupy Movement today.

Continue reading Dee Maaske and Paul Roland →

Interview

Deborah Dryden

March 2, 2011 Evalyn Hansen Leave a comment

This season, Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Deb Dryden designed the costumes for “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Pirates of Penzance.”

After graduate school and several years as an OSF Guest Artist, Dryden became an OSF Resident Costume Designer in 1997. The superbly fitted, intricately constructed, richly textured, impeccably detailed, durable and weatherproof costumes (that seem to effortlessly appear on the OSF stages) are the products of the process that Dryden calls “builds.”

I visited the slim, soft-spoken Dryden at her studio, and we strolled through the OSF costume shop, which hosts a team of about seventy accomplished artists.

DD: We’re opening this week; simultaneously we are starting the builds for the outdoor summer shows plus “Julius Cesar.” We have eight shows in process. We are still finishing up some final notes from the first four shows.

Continue reading Deborah Dryden →

Interview

Lisa McCormick

November 24, 2010 Evalyn Hansen Leave a comment

Throughout Oregon Shakespeare’s 2010 Season, actress Lisa McCormick captivated audiences as the loveable Amalia Balash in the musical, “She Love’s Me”. Before Lisa left to pursue her career in New York she took some time to meet with me at Allyson’s Kitchen with her uncle and mentor, Robert McCormick.

EH: What attracts you to a life in the theater?

LM: From a young age, what drew me to theater were the people, the home that I found among a group of people who were similarly minded, artistically minded. But, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that what has been carrying me through is having a perspective that I wanted to share, having a story that demands to be told. And it’s a different story every time. I think that there’s a line through all of these things. I enjoy women who have a great deal of vulnerability, and in that great strength, who are not afraid to be afraid and move forward. The deeper my life experience has become, the more I have traveled, the more I’ve loved and lost, the deeper my experience becomes not only of my life, but also my art. That journey is deepening and continuing to deepen. It’s almost like a Chinese finger trap; the further my finger goes in the harder it is to get out. I’m just stuck, and I’m falling more and more in love with it every day.

Continue reading Lisa McCormick →

Interview

Presila Quinby

August 4, 2010 Evalyn Hansen Leave a comment

Presila Quinby has performed at The Oregon Shakespeare Festival,The Cabaret Theatre,and Oregon Stage Works. At the Camelot Theater, Presila played The Widow in “Zorba”, Mama in “I Remember Mama”, Peggy Lee in ”Spotlight on Peggy Lee” and numerous other roles. A veteran of Broadway musical theatre, the attractive diminutive Presila would be perfect to portray Anna in “The King and I”.

As we sat in the shade at Ashland’s Rogue Valley Roasting Company one summer afternoon, Presila, a former ballerina, told me about her current project: choreography for Ashland Community Theatre’s new musical, “Illyria” based on Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”.

Continue reading Presila Quinby →

Interview

Char Hersh

January 6, 2010 Evalyn Hansen Leave a comment

Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Char Hersh coordinates the volunteers in the Festival’s Welcome Center, the information office on the corner of Main and Pioneer streets. Admittedly a “Shakespeare junky,” Char is a retired nurse who also teaches Tai Chi. We visited one afternoon in her home overlooking Ashland and the hills beyond.

EH: How do you like coordinating volunteers?

CH: It’s allowed me to meet the most marvelous people. It’s very much like nursing. You’re scheduling people, you’re taking care of people, you’re listening to people, you’re trying to make sure people are enjoying what they are doing. It’s teaching. You’re making sure people know what they are doing, because if they don’t, they’re not comfortable. We all want to be engaged and to know what we’re doing is meaningful. I love doing it. And of course it’s supporting the Festival.

Continue reading Char Hersh →

Interview

Orion Bradshaw

November 11, 2009 Evalyn Hansen Leave a comment

“I’m a local and proud of it,” Orion Bradshaw said as he sipped his powerhouse smoothie on the porch of Rogue Valley Roasting Company. A graduate of Ashland High School and a graduate of Southern Oregon University, class of 20O7, Bradshaw, with his bachelor’s of fine arts degree in theatre arts, “did an internship right out of school” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Since then he has been continuously employed.

EH: What does an OSF intern do?

OB: An internship is essentially an unpaid position. It’s a learning experience; you get academic credits through the school. You experience the rehearsal process and then you are in a show or two. It opens your eyes to the repertory theater experience.

The interns take on one or two understudy roles, attend performances,and take notes (so that they learn how to effectively shadow someone else). It’s really important to be keyed-in and keep up with your work, because there is such a great domino effect. When one person goes out, there is a potential for five actors to be switched around.

Continue reading Orion Bradshaw →

Interview

Brad Whitmore

November 4, 2009 Evalyn Hansen Leave a comment

Brad Whitmore has been with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for 11 seasons. I had seen his performances as Schnabel and May in “Paradise Lost.” Neither character resembled the youthful man that I met over coffee at Bloomsbury Books. Brad will be back next season.

EH: What roles are you going to play?

BW: I will be playing several supporting roles in “Hamlet” and Reverend Tooker in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” I’ve played many supporting roles over the last 11 seasons, and perhaps carved out a niche in terms of my ability to play multiple roles very distinctly and unrecognizably in shows.

Continue reading Brad Whitmore →