Longtime volunteer group to lead festival tours starting in June

A longtime volunteer group that’s worked closely with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for nearly 75 years will take on a new role in the company, OSF announced this week.

Members of the Tudor Guild, an indispensable part of OSF since 1948, the festival said in a news release, will start leading tours of the institution’s campus starting in June, giving frequent and first-time OSF visitors alike intimate access to one of the world’s leading theatrical destinations and foremost sources of theatrical innovation. 

OSF said it celebrates the Tudor Guild’s vital new role as an exciting next chapter in a cherished, decades-long partnership, over the course of which the Guild has raised more than $5 million for OSF and served the organization’s artists, staff, and audiences in a wide variety of ways.

The Tudor Guild was formed by a group of dedicated local volunteers who were determined to provide material assistance to the then-nascent OSF, itself founded in 1935. Guild members banded together to offer food, furnishings, and housing to actors who came to town in the years before the festival had sustaining financial support to provide these essentials on its own. 

The Tudor Guild found countless ways to help OSF, including by transporting actors and hosting company events. In time, the guild operated the OSF gift shop, which began as a temporary outdoor kiosk and grew to be a permanent part of the downtown theater campus.

“We are thrilled to kick off this new collaboration with the Tudor Guild,” said OSF Executive Director David Schmitz, “whose invaluable service to OSF dates back almost to the Festival’s founding. Tudor Guild members have an unparalleled connection to our theaters and our work. We can’t wait for audiences to get a fresh look behind the scenes of OSF from this group of passionate ambassadors.”

“Tudor Guild’s members are excited to have this new opportunity,” said Tudor Guild President Lola Egan, “to become more closely involved in the life of OSF, and to share our love and commitment to the festival with visitors.”

For more information about 2022 campus tours, and to make reservations, visit osfashland.org/tours.

Source: Oregon Shakespeare Festival news release. Email Ashland.news Executive Editor Bert Etling at [email protected] or call or text him at 541-631-1313.