Shakespeare in the Rogue Valley 2024

Due to the money crunch caused by COVID closings and the free spending of recent Artistic Directors, it was uncertain the Oregon Shakespeare Festival would perform in 2024. The announced nine-play season, later amended to ten, exceeded expectations. Only two plays by Shakespeare were scheduled, but his are expensive to mount – all those actors, props, and costumes. Add two Shakespeare themed performance pieces and two plays related to Shakespeare and there’s life in’t, man.

Tourism and the economy were mediocre in 2024, which was an improvement. Ticket sales were up 20% and ticket revenue up 46% over 2023 due to raising the top ticket prices, but there were still a lot of empty seats. The Festival received a $2.6 million grant from the Oregon legislature and $2.5 million from the Oregon Community Foundation.

Under the leadership of Interim Executive Director Tyler Hokama and new Artistic Director Tim Bond, OSF reversed one of the previous administration’s biggest mistakes by reopening the Festival gift shop. The shop brought in millions in revenue over the years. Closing it was madness.

The old gift shop had a better location, its front door opening on OSF’s two largest theaters, but another store now occupies the space. The new location is in the Margery Baily Room on the ground floor under Festival offices, and is accessed from downtown’s main street, probably the second-best location. Baily was a Stanford professor and in the summers the Festival’s education director from the late 1940s through her death in…