“Waitress,” opening Friday at the Oregon Cabaret Theatre, tells the plight of Jenna, a waitress and expert pie maker, who is stuck in a small town and a loveless marriage — until a baking contest in a nearby county and the town’s handsome new doctor offer her a tempting recipe for happiness.
Review: At a time when so much erasure of Black stories and glory is happening around us, it feels especially fitting and delicious that two of Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s season-opening shows — James Ijames’s “Fat Ham” and August Wilson’s “Jitney” — involve all-Black casts shining in transformative and celebrated plays by Black American playwrights.
Two of the four shows that have opened the 90th season of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival — “Julius Caesar” and “The Importance of Being Earnest” — are classics of the sort OSF audiences count on to anchor the entire run any season, envisioned in a fresh way by two talented women directors. Both appear to be headed into very successful runs.
Sage on Stage: Developing a character is a huge part of the work an actor takes on for any role. Whether a character is a lead role or a supporting personality, the more prepared an actor is to embody a given character, the more easily and more quickly he or she can move in and out of that character’s space. Jessica Sage talks to actor Daniel Molina about his process.
Denis Arndt, a distinguished stage and screen actor whose decades-long career spanned Shakespearean classics, Broadway triumphs, Hollywood roles, and 15 seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, died unexpectedly on March 25, 2025, at his home in Ashland. He was 85.
Rep. Pam Marsh: The legislation “would give Oregonians buying tickets for concerts, sporting events and other entertainment events protections in an industry that has seen increasing unfair and unscrupulous activities that drive up the cost of tickets and/or falsely sell tickets that are unavailable.”
Ashland actor and director Lia Elizabeth Rose Dugal is staging a new production of “The Vagina Monologues” by V (previously Eve Ensler). Produced through Dugal’s company Cafe-Girl Thriving Artists, performances will take place at the Bellview Grange in Ashland on Friday, March 28, and Saturday, March 29. Proceeds will benefit Planned Parenthood of Southwestern Oregon.
A crowdfunding effort to fund a spring play at Ashland Middle School has raised more than $1,000 — 20% of its $5,000 goal — to ensure that the show will go on, but there is still $4,000 to raise by the end of the week if fundraisers are to meet their goal. The play’s GoFundMe page had collected $1,050 as of mid-day Wednesday, March 19.
“Spotlight on Kenny Loggins With Jim Messina,” now playing at the Camelot Theatre in Talent, is an invigorating evening of their celebrated, extraordinarily fine pop-folk tunes. More often than not those tunes are energetically recreated in the spirit of the ’70s and sometimes off the charts.
Brilliantly acted and staged at the intimate Richard L. Hay Center at the Grizzly Peak Winery, Rogue Theater Company’s production of “Doubt,” as director John Sipes writes of the play, “serves as a cautionary tale, reminding us to be wary of the narrowness of moral certainty and encouraging us to embrace the ambiguity and uncertainty we so often face.”
This year’s Ashland Mystery Festival is scheduled to run Oct. 16 through 19, and will be headquartered at the Historic Ashland Armory.
The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office is warning people about a phishing scam involving fake emails that appear to come from the official Jackson Alerts system.
Throughout October, 12 female professionals from across the country and Australia — organized by Ashland-based nonprofit Keeping All Women Safe (KAWS) — will offer “valuable information” to help women and men cultivate safer, healthier and more empowering lives and relationships.
The Oregon Senate on Monday passed the long-awaited transportation bill to update the state’s funding sources for road maintenance and operations. The bill would raise taxes and fees, including a gas tax increase from $0.40 to $0.46, effective Jan. 1, 2026.
Once a vibrant hub for local produce and community gathering, the Ashland Growers Market is now, some say, struggling with shrinking sales and dwindling attendance. Longtime vendors report drops of up to two-thirds in revenue, while people voice frustrations over pricing, location and atmosphere.
A former civil rights attorney said that the Trump administration’s lawsuit demanding that Oregon turn over voter information to investigate unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud is unprecedented.
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