2018 End-of-Year Holiday Fundraiser
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Photo by Tiffany Gilly
Friends, this past season has been an extraordinary one for OPS Fest! 2018 saw some wonderful changes to our company: a second artistic director, two new plays, and new company members bringing their skills and passion to the company with joy and drive.
In Season 10, we introduced Othello and The Two Gentlemen of Verona to our audiences bringing the number of plays on our roster to 17.
WIL Fest this summer was the best yet! We performed our full roster of plays in 4 (rather hot!) weekends at Willamette Park, Irving Park, and Laurelhurst Park to the largest audiences ever seen by OPS Fest. We brought OPS Fest into several schools during the off season including Romeo & Juliet using techniques of Theatre of the Oppressed for some transformative workshops led by our Education Director, Lauren Saville Allard. It’s always exciting to discover the timeliness of the Bard with another group of young folks. We partnered with FUSE Ensemble and OUTwright in June to bring a very LGBTQ Romeo & Juliet with gentlemen playing both roles as gentlemen. And Artistic Director Jen Lanier’s lesbian Othello helped bring that tragedy into a poignant new light.
In Season 10, we introduced Othello and The Two Gentlemen of Verona to our audiences bringing the number of plays on our roster to 17.
WIL Fest this summer was the best yet! We performed our full roster of plays in 4 (rather hot!) weekends at Willamette Park, Irving Park, and Laurelhurst Park to the largest audiences ever seen by OPS Fest. We brought OPS Fest into several schools during the off season including Romeo & Juliet using techniques of Theatre of the Oppressed for some transformative workshops led by our Education Director, Lauren Saville Allard. It’s always exciting to discover the timeliness of the Bard with another group of young folks. We partnered with FUSE Ensemble and OUTwright in June to bring a very LGBTQ Romeo & Juliet with gentlemen playing both roles as gentlemen. And Artistic Director Jen Lanier’s lesbian Othello helped bring that tragedy into a poignant new light.
Photo by Tiffany Gilly
OPS Fest is a leader in Portland in our work to upgrade backstage theatre culture to be safer for everyone and to be more inclusive of all the genders and sexualities of our company. We work consciously as a company to incorporate practices that reflect this including our in-depth intimacy check-ins prior to every performance, our policy to allow actors to either play roles as written or as their own gender, and our policy to celebrate the different ethnicities, colors, and creeds of our company as reflected in their chosen portrayals of characters. Nearly 70% of all roles are played by actors who are not men and the leadership of the company is very unique with a lesbian of color as one of the artistic directors and four female board members out of seven.
The 2019 season is coming up quickly. According to the Hot Stove spies, Loves Labour’s Lost and Henry V are coming up from the minors and going into the OPS Fest line up. And, dear friends, the 2019 season will be the best one yet because of donors like you. We don’t charge admission so that we are accessible to everyone. We depend on your donations to pay actors and staff, buy and maintain tents and props, keep the trailer roof patched, and gas in the truck.
And so we ask you now to continue that support. We have a $5,000 goal to reach between now and the end of 2018 and we need a little more assistance from you. To help us out, just pick a step or two from this handy dandy list:
And so we ask you now to continue that support. We have a $5,000 goal to reach between now and the end of 2018 and we need a little more assistance from you. To help us out, just pick a step or two from this handy dandy list:
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1) Make a donation during this holiday season. As a non-profit 501(c)3 company your donation is completely tax deductible. (And the Dec 31 deadline is fast approaching.) This is the single most important thing you can do
2) Join us in the holiday spirit for our 5th Annual Midwinter Midsommer on December 15th! There will be pre-show activities for kids and families and a holiday-themed one-hour Midsommer! 3) Use Amazon Smile for your holiday shopping and designating Original Practice Shakespeare Festival as your donation recipient. You can get there at http://tinyurl.com/OpsAmazon 4) Find us in GuideStar and make a donation there. Share it with other friends! 5) Click the DONATION BUTTON on our website. And give $5-$500! Share it! 6) Contact our Co-Artistic Director & Fundraising Chair, Jennifer Lanier, at jen@opsfest.org She loves to chat with OPS Fest friends! 7) If you prefer, you can mail a check to us! Just email info@opsfest.org for the address 8) Pass on this on to a few friends. Remind them of their need for tax deductions this year! 9) Share a Facebook post of ours. 10) Create a Facebook fundraiser for OPS on your page. 11) Share a wacky story from an OPS performance with family, friends, lovers. Word of mouth is the greatest advertising tool and one we appreciate dearly. |
Photo by Tiffany Gilly
Photo by Tiffany Gilly
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Photo by Tiffany Gilly
Every little bit helps, friends! We thank you right now for being an OPS Superhero and helping bring our 10th Anniversary season to a park near you!
Sincerely,
The artists, staff, and board of
Original Practice Shakespeare
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See the original practice FOR FREE!
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In Shakespeare's Era, the audience knew the actors had not rehearsed and that the only context each had of the play was their own role on a scroll. The play was as fresh to the actors as the audience.
In our company, you'll NEVER see the same cast do the same play in the same way. We're dangerous like that. Original Practice Shakespeare players have a great talent for improv, making the Bard’s words not just relevant, but also bringing out the best lighter qualities of the script... this allows the audience and cast to work together, and the words to stand, as they can, on their own." |
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