Shop moves into former Welcome Center space at corner of Pioneer and Main
By Jim Flint for Ashland.news
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is back — and now so is the gift shop.
On Friday, May 17, a 5 p.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrated the opening of the long-awaited new gift shop at the corner of Pioneer and Main Streets, formerly the home of the OSF Welcome Center.
After the large Tudor Guild Gift Shop on The Bricks was closed two years ago, small pop-up OSF gift shops offered a limited selection of items for sale. The new shop will feature a full range of merchandise similar to that offered pre-pandemic.
However, something new and different is in the mix.
Collaborations launched with OSF artisans will expand the shop’s selection by offering items uniquely associated with the festival’s shows.
A piece of the show
“These collaborations will allow patrons to take pieces home with them from our scene and prop shops,” said Javier Dubon, OSF director of marketing, communications and sales. Such pieces will be displayed throughout the store.
“We also are continuing the gift shop tradition of stocking unusual merchandise that can’t be found anywhere else,” he said.
The new shop will be open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday, and will be closed on Monday.
Manager of the shop is Eileen Polk, who managed the Tudor Guild Gift Shop for its last seven years. She has been with the Guild for 22 years.
OSF took over the shop in 2022. Prior to that, the Guild operated the store and donated the proceeds to OSF.
Grateful to Tudor Guild
“We are deeply grateful for the Guild’s support over the years,” Dubon said. “They even donated all their merchandise when the gift store transitioned to OSF.”
The shop will be staffed by paid and volunteer workers.
The city of Ashland owns the building in which the new gift shop is located. It is among several facilities owned by the city and leased by OSF, Dubon said.
The COVID-19 pandemic that shut down OSF also resulted in terminating the Tudor Guild Gift Shop arrangement.
Having taken a big financial hit, OSF took over the shop in the spring of 2022 and closed the store on The Bricks, citing unaffordability of the lease.
When the shop was closed, David Schmitz, OSF executive director at the time, explained the action in a letter to Guild members. He said the change was not undertaken lightly, and should not be construed as a criticism of the Guild’s stewardship.
Brand management
“Rather, it is time for us to have full responsibility for our brand image, our patrons’ on-campus experience, and our trademarks,” he told this reporter in 2022. “This kind of control is exercised by most, if not all, of our peer cultural institutions across the world.”
By taking the store and website operations under its wing, OSF also hoped to achieve an efficiency that becomes available with singular accounting and a merger of activities such as human resources and information technology infrastructure.
Since 2022, OSF has offered a limited selection of gift merchandise in the pop-ups within theaters, and most recently in space next to the Thomas Theatre in another festival building.
The new gift shop is utilizing the space formerly occupied by the Welcome Center as well as the space behind it in the old Ashland bank building.
For more information about the gift shop and OSF, go to osfashland.org.
Reach writer Jim Flint at jimflint.ashland@yahoo.com.
