Dorothy Velasco

Now playing at Oregon Contemporary Theatre, this tender-hearted two-person drama by E.M. Lewis can juggle our emotions from laughter to tears in a matter of seconds.

The Last Yiddish Speaker, now playing at Oregon Contemporary Theatre, offers a chilling version of the near future. This thoughtful new play by Deborah Zoe Laufer is reminiscent of dystopian works by Sinclair Lewis, George Orwell and Philip Roth.

Coriolanus, now playing at the Shakespeare Festival’s Thomas Theatre, offers the chance to see a lesser known play by Shakespeare adapted to contemporary language that is easier to understand.

As directed by Miriam Laube, the production is bursting with highly original stage business performed to perfection by a stellar cast.

Dorothy Velasco reviews the theatrical adaptation of the famous gothic novel by Charlotte Bronte in production at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.

Born with Teeth, Liz Duffy Adams witty two-person comedy briskly directed by Rob Melrose, pits Will and Kit, the nickname for Christopher, against each other as extremely competitive playwrights vying for patronage. Don’t take this play as history. The facts aren’t well known, and Adams uses her imagination, just as Shakespeare did with his history plays.

To offset the costs of large productions like Macbeth, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has scheduled several one-person shows written by actors. These engaging writer/performers are all dedicated to interpreting Shakespeare’s characters.

The managers of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, in the midst of financial problems, wisely chose a sure-fire musical for this season, the 1993 Pulitzer and Tony award winner by Jonathan Larson, Rent.