Today, we began with the first of four “Theatre Reflections” with Tyrone Wilson. Tyrone has led the Theatre Reflections sessions most of the times we’ve come to OSF with Road Scholar, and I always enjoy his sessions.

Today’s session took us through the history of OSF with special emphasis on how costumes have changed over the years, with the goal of looking at different ways to deal with Shakespeare today (does Shakespeare have to be adapted, whether in setting, language, or costuming, or should you always use the setting in the play, the “original” text and Elizabethan costumes?). Tyrone’s used the same slides before, but his presentation is always different, and today was no exception.

Our next speaker was Donya Washington, a Festival Producer at OSF. She took us through her artistic journey and talked about what a producer does (basically, a producer fixes problems!). It was an informative and interesting session.

It was cool and windy, so instead of taking us all out to the Bricks Courtyard to have our lunch (sandwiches from Greenleaf), they got the sandwiches delivered to the hotel and we ate inside.

After lunch, we had our first performance of the session – OSF is dark on Tuesdays this year, so we had a private performance of Chappati instead. Robin Goodrin Nordli and Michael Elich were the performers; they’re both OSF veterans and are married in real life. The play was produced by Rogue Theatre Company, which was founded by Jessica Sage, who had been our leader at our last pre-pandemic OSF Road Scholar program.

I really enjoyed the play; Robin and Michael did a great job of connecting with me (and the rest of the group) and making the play come to life. There was even a talkback!

We were free for the rest of the day, so we took advantage of the nice weather to walk through Lithia Park. We weren’t the only ones enjoying the weather.

We walked along Ashland Creek for most of the length of the park.

On our way back to the hotel, I saw a poster for what might be an interesting show – but we’ll be elsewhere, so I guess I’ll just have to imagine it.

We had dinner at Skout Taproom on the plaza; the beer was good, the food was decent, but the service was slow. I’d consider going back, but it wouldn’t be my first choice.

This year’s edition of the Road Scholar Feast for the Senses began today with a tour of the OSF theaters. We had two guides today, Jonathan Luke Stevens (we’ll see him on stage later this week) and Kirsten Giroux, OSF’s Associate Director of Education & Engagement – they worked well together and gave us two different views of OSF’s operations.

Jonathan took us backstage at the Thomas Theatre; he even took us into the understory of the theatre, an area we hadn’t seen on previous tours, and showed us the machinery which raises and lowers parts of the stage to allow for prop movement and interesting actor entrances and exits.

We’d been able to visit the costume department in previous years; this time, we visited an exhibit OSF had set up in New Place showing costumes, props, stage management tools, and more (it’s really for school classes).

Lunch was at the Brickroom on the Ashland Plaza; we hadn’t been there before. It was OK, but suffered from time constraints – they probably should have had us pre-order.

After lunch, we went to a new winery, Hummingbird Estate, for a tasting. We left with a GSM, a Malbec, and a white Pinot Noir (it’s quite bright but definitely tastes like Pinot).

We returned to the hotel for “Stage Management 101” from Emily Robinson, who’d been our tour guide the last two times we’d come to this program. She explained what a stage manager does and why she loves being one.

Dinner was back on the Ashland Plaza at Oberon’s, where Diane and I both had Shepherd’s Pie. It was pretty good but would have been better with a beer.

And then it was back to the hotel for one more lecture, this one on “Costumes and Quick Changes” by Andrew Beyer. He took us through the role of the wardrobe department throughout the run of a show, and then showed us some of the tricks that make quick changes possible.