A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Angus Bowmer Theatre through October 25

The OSF produces this Shakespeare comedy frequently, and it’s always fun. This year’s production, directed by Marcela Lorca, is an absolute delight: colorful, campy, and full of hijinks. The cast’s superb ensemble work made it difficult to single out individual actors, but I must mention that the usually serious and restrained Al Espinosa hammed it up gloriously as Bottom. Justin Huertas, who composed the songs and incidental music, was a charming Puck. Sheila Tousey managed to make the single word “Wall!” hilarious. The set by Luciana Stecconi and costumes by Sonya Berlovitz (including a great donkey head for Bottom) are simply fabulous. 

A Raisin in the Sun
Angus Bowmer Theatre through July 19

Directed by OSF Artistic Director Tim Bond, this is a perfect production of Hansberry’s perfectly constructed play. The excellent cast made this story of a Black family’s determination to take part in the American dream gripping and moving, with moments of comic relief. Even when the characters had profound disagreements, the audience could understand and sympathize with each one’s point of view. As the family’s matriarch and moral center, Greta Oglesby gave one of the most memorable performances I’ve ever witnessed. Scenic designer Scott Bradley created an evocative, realistic set for the apartment the family wants to escape.

You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World
Thomas Theatre through August 21

Playwright Green and director Zi Alikhan fully capture the funny, annoying, and petty aspects of anticipatory grief in this intimate drama/comedy. Tim Getman plays a man diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. Accompanied by his wife (Amy Kim Waschke) and Nonbinary young-adult child M (Winter Olamina), he goes for the wild ride of dealing with death and wanting to do something to combat climate change before his demise. His drug-induced dreams and fantasies bring Greta Thunberg  (Kat Peña, who also plays a well-meaning but infuriating relative) into the action. 
Projection designer Nicholas Hussong makes judicious use of TV screens and expanded projections, and Lux Haac’s costumes for M are inventive and cute. Be sure to bring a handkerchief; most audience members were in a puddle at the end.

Henry IV, Part One
Allen Elizabethan Theatre through October 10

This is a first-rate production of one of Shakespeare’s most popular history plays. The acting in both comic and dramatic scenes was terrific, with all actors’ excellent diction putting across the gorgeous text. As Prince Hal and Falstaff, respectively, William Thomas Hodgson and MJ Sieber delivered the goods, as did Daniel José Molina as Hotspur and Waschke as Lady Percy. 
I’m not usually a fan of fight scenes, but the battle in the final act was spectacular. (Kudos to fight director U. Jonathan Toppo.) Melissa Torchia’s beautiful, appropriate costumes occasioned the funniest ad-lib of the season, when Falstaff, approaching Hotspur’s corpse, exclaimed, “Leather, a bold choice!” My only complaint: Palmer Hefferan’s music before the play and during intermission was so loud and repetitive that it made me want to run for the exit.

Come From Away
Angus Bowmer Theatre through October 24

This lovely musical has already played at Seattle Rep and the 5th Avenue Theatre, but even so, you might want to attend the marvelous OSF production directed by Laurie Woolery. This year marks the 25th anniversary of 9/11, when 38 planes from all over the world were grounded in Gander, Newfoundland, and the townspeople welcomed and cared for the people and animals onboard. 

As usual, the OSF ensemble cast did a fantastic job; each actor mastered the accents and personalities of several characters. The musicians, who were onstage throughout, played with spirit and skill under the direction of Angie Benson. At the performance I attended, sound imbalances at the beginning of the show made it difficult to hear the human voices over the instrumental music, but that problem was soon corrected.

The Taming of the Shrew
Allen Elizabethan Theatre through October 11

Directed by Shana Cooper, this production provided good entertainment — singing, dancing, joking — and made efforts to dilute the sexism of the original by mixing up gendered costumes and roles and by tampering a bit with the text. Because these valiant efforts failed, I left the theater convinced that Shakespeare’s story is irredeemable. I found it painful to watch the obstreperous Kate (Erica Sullivan) succumb to what felt like Stockholm syndrome, when her new husband Petruchio (Molina) deprives her of food, sleep, and clothing until she becomes loyal to him and reprimands the other wives for disobeying their husbands. Up until now, I’ve considered the gory revenge tragedy Titus Andronicus and the antisemitic The Merchant of Venice the only Shakespeare plays I never want to see again, but I might have to add The Taming of the Shrew to the list.

Emma
Allen Elizabethan Theatre through October 9

Most stage adaptations of classic novels fall flat, but Hamill’s brilliant adaptation of Emma, directed by Meredith McDonough, manages to shine. This boisterous, big-hearted show serves as a fine antidote to the misogyny of The Taming of the Shrew and demonstrates how a well-known story can be updated successfully. Hamill’s script gives the title character (nicely portrayed by Alejandra Escalante) opportunities to speak directly to the audience, adds a couple of rousing monologues about the plight of the well-educated woman who has no purpose in society, and ends with a satisfying feminist reinterpretation of the marriage plot. 

All members of the cast gave splendid performances; particularly funny were Kate Hurster (whose ear-splitting “Mother!” was unforgettable) as a schoolteacher, Kevin Kenerly as a randy cleric, and Royer Bockus as Emma’s clueless protégée. Composer and sound designer Hefferan used songs of Madonna, Gloria Estefan, Whitney Houston, the Beach Boys, Boyz II Men, and others to convey a playful atmosphere; choreographer Emily Michaels King, having set up the audience to expect a minuet, regaled us with disco dances instead. Lex Liang’s liberal use of shocking pink in the sets and costumes added to the fun.

Coming up next: King Hedley II, Yellow Face, and Smote This

Last year the OSF mounted an excellent production of Jitney, the 1970s play in August Wilson’s American Century Cycle. This year the cycle continues with King Hedley II, set in the1980s in the same Hill District neighborhood of Pittsburgh. This ninth play in the cycle, which has elements of Greek and Shakespearean tragedy, opens on July 16 in the Thomas Theatre, under Bond’s direction.

David Henry Hwang’s semiautobiographical play Yellow Face was inspired by the 1991 controversy over the original casting of Miss Saigon, in which a white actor played a Eurasian character. Directed at the OSF by May Adrales, Yellow Face addresses issues of Asian representation in American theater and film. It opens in the Angus Bowmer Theatre on August 5.

Rodney Gardiner’s one-man show Smote This: A Comedy about God and Other Serious $H*T had an OSF run in 2024 and returns this year under the direction of Raz Golden. Gardiner, who has been an OSF favorite for more than a decade, opens in the Thomas Theatre on August 27.

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.osfashland.org.

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