A Shakespeare festival is a theatre organization that stages the works of William Shakespeare continually.
In 1830, the Mulberry Club (a scholarly group formed in Stratford-upon-Avon, named after the destroyed New Place mulberry tree) began organising annual festivities on Shakespeare's birthday, which they referred to as the "Shakespeare Festival". These continued until at least 1836.[1] From 1886 to 1919, Frank Benson directed 28 spring and six summer "Shakespeare festivals" at the original Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford.[2]
In 1935 the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, or OSF, was founded in Ashland, Oregon, USA. Originally named the "Oregon Shakespearean Festival"; the name was changed in 1988. Angus L. Bowmer, founder of OSF, wrote in 1954 that Shakespeare Festivals have in common the following attributes: 1) established firmly in one place; 2) repertoire (staging a variety of Shakespeare plays) and 3) a physical stage similar to that used in Shakespeare's lifetime.[3] According to Bowmer, the inspiration for Elizabethan staging of contemporary Shakespeare productions came from William Poel, an English director who organized the Elizabethan Stage Society in London in the early 20th century. His concepts of Elizabethan staging were brought to North America by Ben Iden Payne.
Other early Shakespeare festivals in North America staged on replicas of the Globe Theatre include the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego (1937)[4] and the Hofstra Shakespeare Festival,[5] launched at Hofstra University in 1950. The American Shakespeare Theatre operated on a festival stage in Stratford, Connecticut, United States from 1955 to the 1980s.
Arthur Lithgow, father of actor John Lithgow, founded the "Antioch Shakespeare Festival" (also known as Shakespeare Under the Stars") at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio in 1952. In its five years of existence, the Festival performed the entire Shakespeare canon.[6][7] In 1953, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival was founded in the Canadian city of Stratford, Ontario, with Tyrone Guthrie as the festival's first Artistic Director. The New York Shakespeare Festival in New York City (now known as The Public Theater) has produced Free Shakespeare shows since 1955.[8]