Just A Peck 0055 // Playwriting, Ashland, OSF

Just A Peck
Welcome to the latest issue of Just A Peck. I'm glad you're here!

JOURNAL

I started my six-week playwriting class with Amy Berryman and six other awesome theatermakers over Zoom. I've been writing a little every day when I can. Travel this week has made that tricky, but I need to turn in 5–7 pages tomorrow.
Handwritten pages from Justin's playwriting class assignment
Jody and I flew to Portland on Thursday and drove down to Ashland for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It's our first time here, so Kelsie put together a really helpful document of her favorite Ashland things to do. Our hotel is a block from the festival grounds, and the density of restaurants, bookstores, parks, and shops all within walking distance has been awesome. The weather has been perfectly warm and dry.
Justin and Jody with ice cream at the entrance to Lithia Park in Ashland
Justin perched on a stool studying the shelves in an Ashland used bookstore
The festival is huge, and all three stages are exceptional. The largest stage — the Allen Elizabethan Theatre — is a partially enclosed open-air theater modeled as closely as possible on one that would have been operating while Shakespeare was alive. They even sound a trumpet and raise a flag when a show is about to start, a practice from Shakespeare's day that would alert potential patrons in London Town across the river.
A trumpeter and the flag above the Allen Elizabethan Theatre at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
We saw Kate Hamill's Emma; You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World; A Midsummer Night's Dream; August Wilson's King Hedley II; and Henry IV, Part One. We took a backstage tour of the three festival stages and attended a lecture. We also got to spend time with Kelsie seeing shows, talking theater, meeting some of her cohort, eating ice cream, and getting a tour of her campus building. It has been a really lovely trip.
The program for Emma in front of the Allen Elizabethan Theatre stage
The program for You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World in the Thomas Theatre
The program for Henry IV, Part One at the Allen Elizabethan Theatre at dusk
The set for A Midsummer Night's Dream, a blue-lit tangle of rings and orbiting spheres
The set for August Wilson's King Hedley II, a brick Pittsburgh backyard
Justin and Kelsie having margaritas on a patio in Ashland
Justin, Kelsie, and Jody on a restaurant patio in Ashland
Today, we'll start the journey home, but we're going to take an extra day on the way back to Portland so we can see the redwoods and enjoy the coastline. It's one of our favorite drives, and it seemed silly to be this close and not go.

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK

In Progress:

BOOKS I PURCHASED

MEMORIES

Twenty Years Ago:
Kaylee and Spencer spent a weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's. They dug a giant hole in the area we called "The Bakery" (a sandy spot behind the house where Kim and I would bake pies and cakes out of mud when we were little). Kaylee also got her hair braided for the first time, and I took one of my all-time favorite pictures of her giving me a skeptical look.
Spencer and Kaylee standing in the giant hole they dug behind Grandma and Grandpa's house
Kaylee with her hair braided for the first time, reflected in a mirror
Kaylee giving the camera a skeptical look

WHAT I'M EXCITED ABOUT

This week, Zeitgeist opens Jen Silverman's Witch. Lots of friends are involved in this production, and I'm looking forward to seeing their work. (Incidentally, this is also the shoulder show at APT this year, so I'll get to see it twice!)
Witch by Jen Silverman at Zeitgeist, July 30 through August 8

MY FAVORITE QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension."

— Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

That's it for this week. Stay safe, friends. Thanks for reading!

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