Earlier this year Nataki Garrett was appointed the First Woman Director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. A bit of history about the Festival will put the significance of this accomplishment in perspective.
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival began presenting plays in 1935, beginning with Twelfth Nightand The Merchant of Venice. Angus Bowmer, the Southern Oregon University drama professor who founded the festival, directed and starred in both productions. His wife Lois created costumes and scenery.
The city of Ashland helped fund the first productions as part of their Fourth of July celebrations but was fearful the festival would not be profitable, so they convinced Bowmer to include a boxing match. The rowdiness of the match suited Bowmer’s Shakespearean mindset, so both events were held. Charging $1 for reserved seats, and $.50 for adults the theatre festival made money—and covered the losses of the boxing match.
The Festival has been in continuous production since (except for a few years during World War II). During the 1950’s performances were abridged and presented on radio as well as on stage in Ashland. By 1971 the festival had entertained one million visitors. All 37 of Shakespeare’s plays have been presented multiple times. Several decades ago other classic plays were introduced and now at least one original play is presented each season. In its 85 years of performances, it has had only five directors, and Nataki Garrett is the First Woman.
Garrett is a director, producer, playwright, educator, activist, and arts administrator, all skills that will be required to run this extensive theatre empire. She is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts with an MFA in directing, a skill that has taken her to theatres throughout this country and to other countries as well.
In the past she served as associate dean at the California Institute of the Arts School of Theatre, and acting artistic director of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. She is a champion of new works and has collaborated with Seattle Repertory Theatre and the Old Globe. Her passion is presenting new works and she continues to include those in the Festival’s programming. She believes it is important to consider the needs of the traditional audience, usually older patrons with time to travel to Ashland and the means to sustain an organization, but also to attract young audiences. She likes to “create spaces where both can rub elbows with each other.”
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has blossomed during its history. Founded to present the works of a male playwright who used only men as actors, it has grown to include traditional and new plays, with casts of all genders, even women portraying “male” roles. Today more than 20 million people have attended performances in Ashland. Each year there are 750 to 850 matinee and evening performances in three theatres. Between five and eleven plays rotate six days a week. The festival has 675 paid staff, about 700 volunteers, and budget of $44 million. Garrett’s responsibilities will be significant, but she says it best, “As a little girl from Oakland raised by a single parent who was a teacher, growing up under Reaganomics, this is something beyond my wildest dreams.”
Margaret Bourke-White went where few women, and not too many men, had been. She was the First Woman war correspondent, the First Woman allowed in combat arenas. She was also the First Westerner to photograph Soviet industry and the First Woman to have a photo on the cover of Life magazine.
Captain Dianna Wolfson, of the U.S. Navy, is the First Woman to head a naval shipyard. She was appointed as the 50thperson to command the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and began her duties last week. The shipyard has 15,000 sailors and employees. Capt. Wolfson has an engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has served aboard aircraft carriers and at naval shipyards, including as operations officer at Norfolk Naval Shipyard.
Brigadier General Laura Yeager is the First Woman to command an Army infantry division. This appointment is effective June 29 in the California Army National Guard. General Yeager’s career trajectory will feel familiar to many women. She is a former Black Hawk helicopter pilot who served in Iraq, but left active duty when her son was born. She balanced four children and a career in the National Guard holding leadership positions in both Texas and California.
Rear Admiral Shoshana Chatfield is assuming the presidency of the U.S. Naval College, the First Woman president since it was founded 135 years ago. Admiral Chatfield was also a helicopter pilot, serving in Afghanistan. She has been a political science professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy, then served in Guam and the Arabian Gulf. She replaces a president who is accused of abusing his position so, like many women, she will be left with cleaning up the mess.
As the first woman ever elected to Congress, how were you greeted by your male colleagues when you arrived on the house floor in 1916?
Lori Lightfoot’s parents worked multiple jobs to make ends meet, but her mother pushed her to attend college and not let her background stand in her way. She graduated from the University of Michigan with honors and worked as a legislative aide for two years in Washington, D.C. She returned to her hometown to attend the University of Chicago Law School. While there, she led a movement to have a law firm banned from campus recruitment because their representative had made racist and sexist remarks directed toward a student.
Toni Preckwinkle got her first taste of politics while in high school, volunteering for Katie McWatt, the first African American woman to run for Chicago City Council. She obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Chicago then taught history for ten years, losing one of her students to gun violence. She has campaigned for handgun legislation and has taken strong stances against police brutality.