Ashland!

This last week, the entire high school had the privilege of visiting Ashland, in southern Oregon, for three nights and four days.  Ashland is home to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which is famous throughout the country as an amazing company.  OSF produces eleven plays a season, and we were lucky enough to get to see three or four of them, depending on our itinerary for the trip.  All of the students on the Ashland trip saw Animal Crackers, Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella, and Romeo and Juliet; while some also got to see Seagull.

A group of students on "the Bricks," the brick area that connects the theaters of OSF (the Angus Bowmer, the Elizabethan, and the New Theater). It's a common meeting place for school groups before and after shows, and a great place to hang out!

Students were put into three large groups: Theater, Outdoor Adventure, and Wild West. The Theater group focused on workshops and backstage tours, and got to see Seagull. The Outdoor Adventure group got to go on some amazing hikes and visit Table Rock. The Wild West group focused mainly upon history, and spent half a day in Jacksonville seeing the historic sites there.

From these groups, students were also split into ten strands, making things even more complicated with timing and chaperones. On Thursday afternoon, students embarked on many different adventures, everything from visiting a creamery, to a hike in Lithia Park, to meeting Matt Damon (not THE Matt Damon) and his class of third graders. This was a ton of fun as well, and provided a great opportunity to experience something beyond the normal "Ashland-Theater" experience.


Students and Lewis taking a quick rest on the Lithia Park Hiking Adventure, one of the many amazing activities we did!

All in all, the Ashland trip was a huge success, and everyone had a fantastic time adventuring through Ashland!

Make sure to thank the high school teachers if you see them, they put a LOT of work into this trip!