The Inner Workings of a Diva's Heart: Shakespeare in Love

Song of the day: She is Love by Parachute

Highlights: basically everything that has to do with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

So where you last met me I had had a wonderful day in San Francisco. Well a lot has happened since then. But instead of writing a long post describing my trip to Ashland I will sum it up in a few bullet points.
~Went to the Maybeck church in Berkley.
~Drove on the coast of California. Saw the ocean, which was beautiful. It took forever because we were on windy roads.
~Stayed in a hotel that promised ocean views. Guess what? They didnt exist.
~Drove on some more windy roads in the woods on the way to the Redwoods.
~Drove THROUGH a Redwood.
~Explored a river in the forest.
~Almost DIED driving down the mountain
~Met some cousins I never knew I had and they were super awesome.
~Arrived in Ashland, OR.

Now onto the super good stuff. So we woke up early in the morning and got ready to go on our backstage tour of OSF. They told us the history of the festival and just how many plays they did in a season. Theatre friends, listen up. In the height of their season they are doing 12 plays at a time. Their season runs for 8 1/2 months. Not only are they doing 12 shows at a time they are doing about 3 to 4 shows in ONE THEATRE. You know what that means. They have to change out the sets before every performance. That means that all the sets have to move easily and be stored, so you can imagine the type of space that these theatres have. It was absolutely amazing and I was about to come out of my pants. So after our tour we ate lunch at Grilla Bites which was a all organic place and it was very tasty. Then we went to a store called the Renaissance Rose. It was amazing and I got a beautiful blue masquerade mask that I am going to wear for Halloween. It was just too cool to pass up.

Fast forward to the evening where we saw Henry IV, Part 2 in the outdoor Shakespeare stage. The stage was beautiful and the show was pretty good. It was Shakespeare and I enjoyed seeing it and the actor that played Prince Hal was very convincing and very cute! So after 3 hours and a coronation later we drove back to our hotel. Earlier that day during the tour we had heard that most people who come see more than one show and we were thinking that maybe we should alter our plans and see another show. I was hoping that we could see The Imaginary Invalid by Moliere, but it wasn't playing for the matinee time slot. So we decided to go see an original play called Ghost Lights. Now let me tell you that I have not seen a more amazing play in a long time. It was absolutely believable and I cried along with the actors. It was about Jonathon Masccone who was the son of Mayor Masccone who was assassinated in San Francisco. In the play the main character was battling with the loss of his dad which happened when he was a teenager and directing Hamlet. This play opened many floodgates for him and it was amazing to watch it unfold. It is kinda hard to explain but you will have to trust me that it was absolutely breathtaking. At the end the cast got a standing ovation and the lead actress was crying. I could tell because I was in the second row. I loved it and I am so glad that we stayed an extra day.

So then we made our long drive up to Portland which is where we are now ready to begin our new adventure! Below are some pictures from my trip so far. Enjoy! Diva.