Original Practice Shakespeare Festival (OPS Fest) is back in the parks for an 18th season. Come celebrate the eighteenth year of free Shakespeare, wild audience interaction, and onstage moments that are too good to be rehearsed with OPS Fest’s company of dynamic actors out in the Portland metro area’s beautiful parks (and beyond).
Hermia loves Lysander (requitedly). Helena loves Demetrius (unrequitedly). Pucke (a fairy) accidentally makes Lysander and Demetrius love Helena. Chaos ensues. King Oberon bespells Queen Titania to love an actor transformed into an ass. The fairies reconcile. Pucke fixes the spells (except Demetrius). Everyone gets married and watches a terrible play.
OPS Fest brings no-cost repertory Shakespeare to parks and venues throughout the Portland Metro area. The company uses the original practice techniques of Elizabethan England: limited rehearsal, scrolls in hand, audience interaction, and an onstage prompter. In Shakespeare’s Era, the audience knew the actors had not rehearsed and that each had only the context of their own role on a scroll. The play was as fresh to the actors as to the audience.
The audience gets to choose the cast for the opening June 20th performance. The opening event is not family-friendly, but all of the other performances are.