OSF REDUCED-PRICE STUDENT MATINEES SUPPORTED BY WELLS FARGO

Wells Fargo’s $25,000 Grant to OSF Makes Reduced-Price
Play Tickets Available to Students throughout the West

Ashland, Ore.—About 16,000 students from Oregon and six other western states will be able to attend one or more plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this year thanks to a $25,000 grant from Wells Fargo.
     The financial services company donated the funds to OSF to support reduced-price tickets for students at special matinee performances during the current theater season.
     “This is the sixth consecutive year Wells Fargo has sponsored this program for students,” said Chuck Butler, chair of the OSF board. “The $140,000 we have received in grants from Wells Fargo since 1998 has helped 82,000 students experience live theater. As schools struggle with shrinking budgets and shifting priorities, Wells Fargo is helping save the cultural arts for these young people.”
     Wells Fargo has been an OSF supporter since 1981 and a sponsor of the Special Matinee program since 1998. The 2003 season marks the sixth consecutive year of Wells Fargo’s Special Matinee sponsorship.
     The five plays featured in the 2003 Special Matinee series spotlight OSF’s commitment to classic and contemporary theatre. Leading the way is perennial favorite Romeo and Juliet followed by Noël Coward’s sparkling comedy Present Laughter and Henrik Ibsen’s compelling psychological drama Hedda Gabler (in a new translation by Jerry Turner.) In a bold move, OSF included Daughters of the Revolution [Continental Divide] in the 2003 Special Matinee series. OSF and Berkeley Repertory Theatre have collaborated with Tony Award-winning playwright David Edgar to produce the world premiere of Continental Divide, a major theatrical undertaking consisting of two plays: Daughters of the Revolution and Mothers Against.  Although challenging in content, the play’s re-examination of late 20th -century political movements hold appeal for Civics, Government, English and Drama teachers. 
     When the Special Matinee series resumes in October, August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson will join the lineup. This play is one of the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright’s decade-by-decade examination of the African-American experience in the 20th  century. 
      “I had never really been to a real life play and I liked it,” said Steve Johnson, a student at Weed (CA) High School who attended a 2002 Wells Fargo-sponsored matinee.  “I would recommend these plays to anyone. When we read it in class, Julius Caesar was kind of confusing because of all the weird words. After watching it, I saw things that you couldn't read. I understood more of it when I saw it than when I read it.”
     OSF actor and director James Edmondson noted, “I can tell you from having played in hundreds of student matinees that we do reach the students and we do give them new perspectives on the world and our place in it.  At these matinees, I can sense the students' close attention; I can hear, through their vocal gestures and applause, their recognition of themselves within the story; and I can feel their awareness that they are part of a world that is much larger than they are.” 
     The $25,000 grant is part of the more than $12.5 million that Wells Fargo has donated to hundreds of nonprofit agencies and schools in Oregon since 1996.
     “One hundred and fifty years ago, Wells Fargo stagecoaches brought actors, musicians and other performing artists to the West. Today, we’re proud to continue that tradition by helping to bring arts and entertainment to our community,” said Marsha Billeci, manager of Wells Fargo’s store in Ashland.
     For more information about the Special Matinee program, please contact Deborah Small, Director of Institutional Giving at (541) 482-2111, ext. 249. For tickets or information about the season, please call (541) 482-4331 or visit http://www.osfashland.org/.
     Founded in 1852, Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $349 billion in assets, providing banking, insurance, investments, mortgage and consumer finance from more than 5,600 stores and the Internet (wellsfargo.com) across North America and elsewhere internationally.