Libby Appel

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Libby Appel, the fourth and current artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, plans to retire in 2008. Appel has directed more than 25 productions at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and her artistic vision influences the 11 plays presented each year. Despite the festival’s name, she has placed greater emphasis on new works. “We have made major connections with world playwrights, artists whose voices we’re particularly interested in.” Appel says. “We commission playwrights, we develop plays here; we have playwrights in residence. We’re a world force now, and I’m really proud of that.”

[edit] Biography

Appel holds a BA from The University of Michigan, an MA from Northwestern University, and an honorary doctorate from Southern Oregon University. She began her theatrical career teaching acting at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. She was the head of the acting program at California State University Long Beach for five years and wrote Mask Characterization: An Acting Process; created and produced Inter/Face: The Actor and the Mask (video); co-author with Michael Flachmann of two plays, Shakespeare’s Women and Shakespeare’s Lovers. Appel was named dean of theater at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California and artistic director of the Indiana Repertory Theatre.

[edit] Work at Oregon Shakespeare Festival

In 1995, Appel became the fourth artistic director in the company’s history, but had already directed a production of The Merchant of Venice in 1991. “I was the risky director who did The Merchant of Venice and rocked this theater,” she says. The Christian characters wore Armani-style suits and Shylock was presented as a yarmulke-wearing Orthodox Jew. “I’m an American Jew, and I had stayed away from Merchant all my life because of the anti-Semitism that’s implicit in the character of Shylock.” She decided the play was more about xenophobia than anti-Semitism. As the first woman to run the festival, Appel set out to make it more ethnically diverse and inclusive of women. She not only increased the representation of non-white actors in the company to more than a third, she raised the number of new plays in the festival’s mix. Appel has been intent on attracting an audience that is both younger and less white, while keeping the sophisticated seniors who flock to Ashland. “For me, it’s about the truth of the play in the moment that I’m living,” Appel says. “I think to contemporize the speech, or bastardize it, is dumbing it down.”

In 15 seasons at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Appel has directed : The Cherry Orchard (her own adaptation from an original translation), The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale (2006 and 1989) , Bus Stop, Richard III, Napoli Milionaria!, Henry VI, Parts One, Two and Three (co-director and co-adaptor), Richard II, Macbeth, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, The Trip to Bountiful, Three Sisters, Henry V, Hamlet, Henry IV, Part Two, Measure for Measure, Uncle Vanya, King Lear, The Magic Fire (also at the Kennedy Center), The Merchant of Venice, Breaking the Silence, Enrico IV (the Emperor), The Seagull (Portland). (Chronological order, most recent at the top)

[edit] References

Information from: Oregon Shakespeare Festival (http://www.osfashland.org/) Used with permission of Amy Richard, Media Relations, OSF: media@osfashland.org Article retrieved 12/10/06 from (http://www.viamagazine.com/top_stories/articles/libby_appel)