HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Oregon Shakespeare Festival's outdoor stage, built in 1935 inside the ruins of Ashland's old Chautauqua dome
15 S Pioneer St, Ashland, OR 97520
Research updated August 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Ticket prices vary by production and performance date as part of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's professional repertory season; the 2026 season runs a full ten-production slate.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Open-air amphitheater enclosed and expanded in 1991-92 with a balcony and vomitoria; seating reached via aisles and stairs typical of a large outdoor theater.
Equipment
No Photos
Est. 1935 · Oregon Shakespeare Festival Founding Site (1935) · Built Inside Ashland's Chautauqua Dome Ruins · Richard L. Hay Elizabethan Stage Design (1959) · Allen Pavilion Expansion (1991-92)
Ashland hosted an annual regional Chautauqua from the 1890s inside a beehive-shaped domed building. By 1935 the building stood roofless and abandoned. The city secured WPA funds, and Angus L. Bowmer built the Festival's first Elizabethan stage inside the domed building's 12-foot circular walls. Those Chautauqua-era walls, now covered in ivy, still form part of the theater's outer perimeter. Oregon Shakespeare Festival's first performance, Bowmer's staging of Twelfth Night, opened there on July 2, 1935, as part of Ashland's Independence Day celebration, with The Merchant of Venice following the next night.
Three Elizabethan stages have occupied that site since. Bowmer's 1935 stage, built to a design by John Ashby Conway, was destroyed by fire in 1940. A rebuilt and enlarged version from Conway's plans followed after Bowmer restarted the Festival following World War II, and stood until the Fire Marshal condemned it as a hazard; it was demolished on September 1, 1958. The current stage opened July 28, 1959, designed by Richard L. Hay with architect Jack A. Edson of Medford and contractor Frank Fairweather, and patterned on the dimensions specified in the 1599 building contract for London's Fortune Theatre. It seated 1,143 patrons, later expanded to 1,173 by 1970.
A 1991-92 addition, designed by Ian Macleod of Treffinger, Walz & MacLeod working with Hay, enclosed the stage to control ambient noise, added a balcony, extended the stage itself, and added vomitoria for cast entrances. The addition brought seating to 1,198 and was named the Allen Pavilion for the Allen Foundation for the Arts. A further $3 million grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation in 2013 led the Festival to rename the whole structure the Allen Elizabethan Theatre.
The theater remains OSF's flagship outdoor stage. The 2026 season is on sale with a full ten-production slate, and a 2027 season has already been announced.
Sources
1859 Oregon Magazine's guide to Ashland's paranormal reputation includes one line about a 1930s-era actor said to linger at the festival grounds. The magazine gives no name, no year, and no account of an incident, folding the mention into a short list of area hauntings alongside a separate downtown hotel a few blocks away.
The claim does not turn up anywhere else. It is absent even from ghost-lore listing sites that typically catalog every scrap of local haunting reputation, and Peter Finkle's Haunted Ashland walking tour, which ends at the theater's brick plaza, does not publish the specifics of what its guide tells visitors there. The theater anchors Ashland's identity closely enough that its place in the magazine's roundup and on the tour route reads as a reflection of the town's general reputation for haunting activity rather than a documented incident at the site itself.
Notable Entities
Watch a professional repertory production on OSF's outdoor stage, built inside the enclosed ruins of Ashland's old Chautauqua dome. The 2026 season runs a full ten-production slate, from A Midsummer Night's Dream to August Wilson's King Hedley II.
A backstage tour covering set construction, costume design, and staging logistics, offered each summer as a benefit of OSF membership rather than a general walk-up ticket. The tour has reportedly sold out in past seasons.
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