Audiences are rediscovering the magic of live performance and a shared communal experience at Southern Oregon’s landmark Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Revenue has grown 150% since 2023, increasing from $7 million to $17.5 million. That represents more than 262,000 tickets sold or reserved in 2026.

“We sold out opening weekend,” said Artistic Director Tim Bond. “It was a phenomenal experience. The energy was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced truly in all my years.”

After serving as OSF’s associate artistic director from 1996 through 2007, Bond returned to an organization in 2023 that had been decimated by the pandemic. Oregon Art Beat profiled previous Artistic Director Nataki Garrett during that tumultuous period in OSF’s history. “We had almost two years of absolute stoppage,” said Bond, “and then people got out of the habit.”

The secret to OSF’s comeback, Bond said, is a return to its roots in rotating repertory theater, a hallmark of the festival since 1935. “You can see seven plays in four days,” said Bond. “So if you come for a long weekend, you can get a really amazing diet of all sorts of different genres of plays, see the same actor in several different shows and leave with the magical experience that OSF is about.”

One of the standouts in the 2026 season was the musical “Come From Away,” a little-known and deeply moving story about how a Canadian village welcomed stranded travelers in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Other highlights included August Wilson’s “King Hedley II,” directed by Bond, and a high-energy production of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“We do three Shakespeares every year, minimum, and that’s out of nine shows a season,” said Bond. “There’s probably three or so that are American classics or other world classics and then three other plays that are very contemporary.”

Thriving artistically, Oregon Shakespeare Festival is still catching up financially to where it was before the pandemic. Ticket revenue pre-pandemic was $21 million. And memberships in Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which are a critical way of supporting the nonprofit theater directly, fell from 17,000 members pre-pandemic to around 7,000 members today. This year, OSF launched a campaign to get membership numbers back to pre-pandemic levels.

“The good news is our audiences are happy,” said Bond. “Our artists are feeling really supported and robust. And the community here in the Rogue Valley has really stepped up.” Last year, the Ashland Chamber of Commerce made Bond the grand marshal of its Fourth of July parade to celebrate OSF’s 90^th anniversary.

“And so the relationships here in the community are really strong,” said Bond.

From Regency gowns to cowboy chaps, Oregon Shakespeare Festival does brisk business in costume rentals

But even as OSF rebounds, it faces a new challenge: the growing wildfire season in the West. The 2026 season was spared, but in previous seasons, wildfire smoke has disrupted outdoor performances at OSF’s signature Allen Elizabethan Theatre.

In the short term, by having a repertory program, Bond said, “if we have to close a show for a night or so because of smoke, we can have people see shows in the indoor theaters.”

“The big solution down the line,” Bond said, “is a really big fan.”

Oregon Shakespeare Festival wraps its 2026 season on Sunday, Oct. 25 with a matinee performance of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” And it has released its 2027 season program, including performances of “Hamlet,” “Frida…A Self Portrait" and “Shrek the Musical.” The full schedule of performances and tickets are available at osfashland.org.

Geneva Chin contributed to this article.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/21/oregon-shakespeare-festival-rebound/