Theater News

Bill Rauch Named as New Artistic Director of Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Bill Rauch
(© David Cooper)
Bill Rauch
(© David Cooper)

Bill Rauch has been named as the new artistic director of The Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He will succeed Libby Appel, who will retire at the end of the 2007 season. Rauch will start working part-time in November of this year to begin planning the Festival’s 2008 season and will fill the position full-time as of June 2007.

“I am overjoyed by this appointment,” stated Rauch. “From the moment I first worked in Ashland over five years ago, I fell in love with the Festival’s three-theater campus, the ever-surprising rotating rep of plays, and the brilliant company of artists and administrators. Building on the Festival’s distinguished history and Libby Appel’s inspiring legacy in particular, I look forward to partnering with Paul Nicholson to lead OSF to achieve its full potential as both a regional resource and a truly national theater company.”

Rauch was the co-founder of Cornerstone Theater in Los Angeles, a community-based arts organization for which he served as artistic director for 20 years. At OSF, he has directed productions of such classics as Hedda Gabler, The Comedy of Errors, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. He has also directed shows at South Coast Repertory, the Mark Taper Forum, Yale Repertory Theatre, Guthrie Theatre, Lincoln Center Theater, Arena Stage, and more.

Currently, Rauch is co-directing the world premiere production of Jeffrey Hatcher’s The Falls at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. His next project is the New York premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s The Clean House, set to open on October 30 at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. He has taught at UCLA, USC, California State University – Los Angeles, and is presently the Claire Trevor Professor of Drama at the University of California – Irvine.

For more information, visit www.osfashland.org.