Southern Culture in the Spring

Springtime in Southern Oregon is a curtain-raising event. As winter gives way to brilliant green hillsides and flowering orchards, the cultural happenings that make this region famous spring back to life.

Visitors at this time of year enjoy quality events and a variety of historical venues. What they don’t find are crowds, competition for tickets and parking, or high-season prices.

At the heart of it all is Ashland, home of the nation’s oldest and largest theater in rotating reper-tory. Another town landmark is Lithia Park, a 93-acre oasis of green preserved in the 1930s. Designated a national historic site, the park features a meandering creek, duck ponds, Japanese garden, and a drinking fountain dispensing reputedly salutary Lithia Springs mineral water.

Next to the park entrance is Ashland’s main event: the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. A new 350-seat venue opens this year with a season-long run of Macbeth. Backstage tours, concerts and lectures complement the festival’s three-stage offerings.

For a maximum dose of culture, visitors can cap a matinee performance at the festival with a dinner show at Oregon Cabaret Theatre, where tiered rows of tables overlook the stage and its performers.

Offstage, Ashland invites strolling. The pedestrian-friendly streets are lined with a diversity of wares, and the weekly Rogue Valley Growers and Crafters Market — a peripatetic outdoor bazaar that also serves Medford and Jacksonville — offers the unparalleled pleasure of shopping en plein air.

After a morning in Ashland’s shops, it’s time to explore the surrounding towns. Mail-order specialty food company Harry & David makes its headquarters in nearby Medford, where the fruit it ships worldwide is grown. Springtime shows off the alley’s blossoming pear, apple and peach orchards to best advantage — and the show is free.

Medford also affords culture hounds the chance to prolong their arts exposure with an evening at the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater. Opened in 1924 as a vaudeville and silent movie house, the theater is enjoying a comeback, thanks to its namesake’s generous patronage and headliners such as Whoopi Goldberg and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra.
Plan, too, for a day in Jackson-ville, a town so exquisitely preserved that the National

Trust for Historic Preservation named it one of its “Dozen Distinctive Desti-nations” for 2001. Built after the discovery of gold in 1852, the compact boomtown begs to be explored on foot.

History buffs should head for the Jacksonville Museum and the Victorian C.C. Beekman House, a living history display. Jacksonville is also home to the outdoor Britt Festivals, world-class celebrations of music and dance beginning each year in June.

A short walk from the festival grounds is the Jacksonville Cemetery, a wooded hilltop studded with headstones dating back to 1850. Among the illustrious Rogue Valley citizens buried in the picturesque graveyard is Peter Britt (1819-1905), the Jacksonville pioneer for whom the festival is named.

Britt’s spirit lives on in the region’s showcase of music, theater and dance. The arts are alive and well in Southern Oregon.

ITINERARY
• Lithia Park. Guided nature walks. May 2-Sept. 30 at 10 a.m. on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Free. 340 S. Pioneer St., Ashland; 541-488-5340.

• Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Classic and contemporary drama in three theaters. February-October; no plays on Monday. $21-$56. 15 S. Pioneer St., Ashland; 541-482-4331, or visit www.osfashland.org.

• Oregon Cabaret Theater. Dinner theater open February-December; performance nights vary. Closed Tuesday. $16-$22; dinner, dessert extra. First and Hargadine streets, Ashland; 541-488-2902, or visit www.oregoncabaret.com.

• Rogue Valley Growers and Crafters Market. Appearing one day a week in each of three towns. Ashland: Oak and Hersey streets; Tuesday, 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. from April-November. Medford: Stevens Street at Royal Avenue; Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. from April-November. Jacksonville: “C” Street next to the museum; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. from May-October. 888-826-9868.

• Harry & David. Hop the bus at the Country Village store for a tour. Open Monday-Friday. $5, free for kids under 12. 1314 Center Drive, Medford; 877-322-8000, or visit www.harryanddavid.com.

• Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater. Open January-December; call for performance dates. $12-$48. 23 South Central Ave., Medford; 541-779-3000, or visit www.craterian.org.

• Jacksonville Museum of Southern Oregon History. The 1883 Italianate building is historic in itself. January-December; closed Monday-Tuesday. $3 adults, $2 children and seniors. 206 N. Fifth St., Jacksonville; 541-773-6536 or visit www.sohs.org.

• C.C. Beekman’s House. It’s always 1911 here, where costumed interpreters re-enact the daily life of an early Jacksonville family. Memorial Day through Labor Day. Open Wednesday-Sunday, 1 p.m to 5 p.m. $3 adults, $2 children. California and Laurelwood streets, Jacksonville; 541-773-6536 or visit www.sohs.org

• Britt Festivals. Music and dance performed under the stars. June-September. $18-$68. First and Fir streets, Jacksonville; 800-882-7488, or visit www.brittfest.org.