ASHLAND APPEAL: Why do so many local folks relocate to Ashland, Oregon? Bill Baine, former owner of Yankee Clipper travel agency here in town, for one. Maybe it's because of the similarities to the Bay Area. Culture abounds.
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, reputedly one of the five best in the land, is but one of half a dozen theater groups in Ashland. There are a like number of music groups: a Bach festival is held nearby; and Southern Oregon University is chockablock with offerings.
The biggest draw, the Shakespeare Festival, has three separate theaters with afternoon and evening performances, so even in the space of a weekend one could see six plays. Out of 11 offerings through the nine-month season, five of them are Shakespeare's. The others are from different playwrights, different times.
Today, the festival even commissions new work by well-tested, but not necessarily well-known, playwrights. Blockbusters like King Lear, Hamlet and Macbeth are repeated every few years, but the company covers the entire canon in 20 years. To me, the new plays are the most fascinating.
This year I saw Top Dog, Under Dog by Suzan-Lori Parks, which is a gritty, two-person play about brothers whose dreams are unraveling. And the other standout was A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, written in 1959. Both plays are by African American women. Both are about family relationships, and both are about all of us.
Above all, this is an American Shakespeare company, stresses artistic director Libby Appel. And to that end, the company reflects the nation's cultural diversity, even though the town and the audiences don't—yet.
Ashland itself is lovely, but its citizenry is appallingly homogenous. The audience looks as though it had answered a casting call for retired English professors and their wives. It's an old crowd, a white crowd. The company, however, is dotted with people of color.
If the company reflects the entire country, Ashland will eventually follow suit, is the reasoning. Play casting is done as though color blind, unless it's a play where racism is a key ingredient, as is the case in Raisin.
CLOSER-TO-HOME SHAKESPEARE: Playing in the Los Gatos Shakespeare Festival running July 16 to Aug. 1 in Oak Meadow Park is LGHS sophomore Jane Goldsmith, who plays a gentlewoman in Twelfth Night, Oatcake in Much Ado About Nothing and a servant in Legends of Arthur and Merlin.
Jane is a veteran of Festival Theatre Ensemble's Summer Conservatory. Saratogan Rebecca Stroth-Pickens, a founding member of FTE, portrays Viola in Twelfth Night and Tryamour in Legends. These locals join Mayor Steve Glickman, who plays King Mark in Legends.
The three plays run in repertory the next three weekends. Contact is 408.996.0635.
HEALTH TASK FORCE: William Piché, CEO of Good Sam Hospital for the past seven years, has been appointed to the California Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention Task Force. The group is charged with developing a master plan to improve prevention and treatment of those ailments.
A healthcare professional for 34 years, Piche has a career-long interest in cardiac and vascular disease. He is a past chairman of the California Healthcare Association and served on two health commissions to which he was appointed in 1985. The master plan deadline is Nov. 1, 2005.
EL SALVADOR RUN: Carol Lange's son, Jeff Schrager, an American Airlines pilot, has the El Salvador run for July and is collecting clothing for destitute children in that country. Youngsters climb on garbage heaps, hoping to find food, he reports.
He can take up to 70 pounds of clothing in one trip and he'll fly there several times this month. Lange is helping collect clothes, up to size 10. To donate, call her at 408.354.1190. For more information visit www.airlineamb.org. That's the website for airline personnel helping the less fortunate.
Incidentally, if you don't recognize the Lange name, it's because the former Mrs. S. changed her name back to Lange, her maiden name, this year.
ON STAGE: Los Gatan Marina Field and Saratogan Clint Hamilton have roles in the Peninsula Youth Theatre's production of Stuart Little, playing at Cubberley Theatre in Palo Alto until July 18. A musical adaptation of the E.B. White classic, the show offers weekday matinees at 1 p.m. on July 15 and 16 for $6.
All the roles are filled by youngsters ages 711. Cost is $14 adults; $12 for children and seniors. The box office is 650.988.8798; the website www.pytnet.org.
HIM TALKS: Los Gatan Ric Giardina is termed a "sage" in the annual Human Issues in Management Conference now going on at Lake George in upstate New York. Giardina, whose business is called Spirit Employed, was keynote speaker last year.
The conference began in 1918, founded by Cornelius Vanderbilt and J.P. Morgan, among others. It addressed such subjects as class struggle and the abolition of child labor. Today's issues focus on maintaining a balanced life.
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By Mary Ann Cook