Category: OSF Archives

As the season draws to a close, the school visit program is about to take off. You may wonder how this terrific outreach program came about. It was all related to the opening of the Angus Bowmer Theatre, 35 years ago, and a multi-faceted approach to growing our audience. Here’s what Forbes (Buck) Rogers, education coordinator, had to say about the tour in the Fall/Winter 1971 OSFA Newsletter (now Prologue)...

We seem to have latched on to 1976 recently. In 2004, we produced all the Shakespeare from 1976. Well, only Henry VI, Part Two, not all three parts. Now we are staging Shaw with a dash of Ibsen. The 1976 connection is Ibsen’s Brand and Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple.


In Jerry Turner’s discussion of that season’s playbill in the Fall/Winter issue of Prologue, he quoted something Shaw said in 1906—70 years earlier, yet another connection to this year...

As we enter the 70th anniversary year of our auspicious beginning on the 4th of July weekend in 1935, I reflect on where we have come—from three performances of two plays in three days in one theatre to 773 performances of 11 plays in 219 days in three theatres. For many years we performed on summer evenings only, with company members drawn from far-flung colleges for rehearsals and the build, culminating in August productions.

The thing about history is that it repeats itself. The beauty of theatre is that it interacts with generation after generation and makes connections to current events, over and over. Recently, Lue Douthit and I were talking about this year’s exhibits for the side galleries. One will be about The Diary of Anne Frank.