OSF TEAMS UP WITH BARNES & NOBLE TO PRESENT FOURTH “CONVERSATIONS”

Fourth “Conversation” Features Discussion About Wild Oats with OSF Actor Mark Murphey

ASHLAND, ORE.—The Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Medford will host the fourth of five “Conversations” for the 2003 season from 7:00-8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, July 23 with OSF actor Mark Murphey. The evening’s conversation will focus on Wild Oats, an 18th-century play written by John O’Keeffe and playing this season on OSF’s outdoor Elizabethan Stage.
     The one-hour long events are hosted at Barnes & Noble and are free to the public. A drawing for a gift certificate to any 2003 non-sold-out performance will wrap up the evening.
      Mr. Murphey has been with the Festival for 22 seasons and has played dozens of leading roles. This season he plays Ephraim Smooth in Wild Oats and Michael Bern in Daughters of the Revolution [Continental Divide]. Mr. Murphey’s past roles at OSF have included Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, William Butler Yeats in Sailing to Byzantium, Leontes in The Winter’s Tale, Caius in Julius Caesar, Iago in Othello, the title role in Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, Kit Carson in The Time of Your Life and numerous others.  He has also worked at the Utah Shakespearean Festival, Geva Theatre, American Conservatory Theater, Alley Theatre, A Contemporary Theatre and South Coast Repertory.
     Wild Oats was first performed in 1789 and is something of an 18th century version of today’s Forbidden Broadway, the spoof of Broadway shows. Wild Oats has its own spoofing aspects and references to just about every famous play since the Restoration, and is liberally sprinkled with quotations from Shakespeare. As James Edmondson, director of the production, explains, “The tale is a love story held together by the love of language and specifically the love of Shakespeare.”
     The next “Conversations” will be held in August. Participants will be announced.
     Barnes & Noble Booksellers is located at 1400 Biddle Road, Medford.