I did not expect to hear iambic pentameter drifting out of a bar in a town of twenty thousand people, but there it was, two actors running lines over pints, and Lia grinned at me across the table like we’d wandered into someone’s lovely dream. Ashland has been staging Shakespeare since the 1930s, and the whole place is quietly organised around the theatre, so that even the coffee shops feel a little like green rooms. We had come almost by accident, breaking a long drive up the I-5, and we ended up rearranging our week to catch a play. Some towns ambush you like that.
Under the stars at the Festival
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival runs several stages in the heart of town, and the outdoor Elizabethan Theatre is the one that undid me. We saw a comedy there as the sky went from blue to indigo to black, bats flickering above the stage lights, the audience laughing in the cool mountain air. Lia held my arm during the quiet scenes. There is something about hearing four-hundred-year-old jokes land in the open dark, the same words that made people laugh across an ocean and centuries, that made me feel very small and very connected all at once. We floated back to our room barely speaking.
Lithia Park and the strange water
Right beside the theatres, Lithia Park unrolls up a wooded canyon along Ashland Creek, a long green ribbon of trails, ponds and enormous old trees, and we spent a whole slow morning wandering it. In the plaza downtown there are public fountains running with Lithia water, the town’s famous mineral spring, and I made the mistake of taking a full mouthful. It tastes of rust and eggs and regret. Lia, who had watched me do it, was already laughing before my face finished changing. She took the smallest polite sip. We agreed the water was better admired than drunk, and went to find proper coffee instead.
Green hills and the valley below
Ashland sits where the Rogue Valley meets the Siskiyou foothills, and the hills come right up to the last streets, so we climbed straight out of town one afternoon on a trail that switchbacked through oak and manzanita. Mount Ashland stood higher and blue to the south. From a bench near the top the whole valley lay below us, orchards and rooftops and the theatre district small in its bowl of green. A local runner stopped to point out Emigrant Lake shining in the distance and to insist we return in autumn for the colour. We told her we might. Sitting there with Lia, wind in the oaks, I half meant it.
Getting There
Ashland lies in southern Oregon, just off Interstate 5 near the California border, about four and a half hours south of Portland and a similar run north from the Bay Area. The nearest airport is Rogue Valley International in Medford, twenty minutes up the road, with a short drive down into town. We were road-tripping the coast and cut inland for it, which I’d recommend. The downtown, the theatres and Lithia Park are all walkable from one another, so once you arrive you can happily leave the car parked. Come between spring and autumn for the festival season, and book your play tickets before you book anything else.