Stew, Heidi Rodewald, Kristoffer Diaz, Michael Friedman, et al. Receive OSF Commissions

Stew and Heidi Rodewald have received a commission from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for a new musical. The artists have previously collaborated on numerous other projects, including the Broadway musical Passing Strange, which received seven Tony nominations and won Stew the award for Best Book of a Musical.

OSF has also announced a new slate of artists who have been commissioned to pen new works for its decade-long commissioning, production, and public dialogue initiative American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle. Newly commissioned artists include Kristoffer Diaz (co-commission with the Guthrie Theater), Michael Friedman, Frank Galati (co-commission with Steppenwolf Theatre), and Quiara Alegría Hudes.

Previously announced commissions in this Cycle include works from Culture Clash (Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza), David Henry Hwang, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Robert Schenkkan, Naomi Wallace, the team of Jonathan Moscone and Tony Taccone, Young Jean Lee, Universes (includes core performers Steven Sapp, Mildred Ruiz, Gamal A. Chasten, and William Ruiz), and Rhiana Yazzie.

OSF has several other projects that are also under commission, including original plays by Chay Yew and Melanie Marnich (a co-commission with The Playwrights’ Center), an adaptation of Three Sisters by Libby Appel and Alison Horsley, an adaptation of The Imaginary Invalid by Oded Gross and Tracy Young, and an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor by Alison Carey, and Michael Rohd and Shannon Scrofano for the site-specific, company-devised piece, WillFul that will be produced in the 2011 season.

For more information, visit www.osfashland.org.