In 1935, Angus Bowmer, an instructor at Southern Oregon Normal School in Ashland, began with a dream and a small coterie of devoted friends who believed, as he did, in the value of Shakespeare performed on an Elizabethan stage. Though the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's early platforms were rudimentary and the backstage areas primitive, the art drew enthusiastic audiences. The urgency of World War II closed the festival's doors, but in 1947 it reopened with larger theater facilities and an expanded repertory, winning the support and respect of state, regional, and national artists and dignitaries. In a setting of extraordinary beauty and a community dedicated to culture and the arts, the 75-year-old Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) is among the largest and most influential professional regional theaters in North America.