While most theatre festivals around North America are just starting to welcome their artists in preparation for the summer season, Oregon Shakespeare Festival is off and running in wintertime, opening its first staging of the year, Henry V, Feb. 25.

OSF artistic director Libby Appel directs the Shakespeare history play in the Angus Bowmer Theatre, one of three venues in the Ashland, OR, fest. The 11-play season continues to Oct. 29.

The opening weekend will also see Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's The Man Who Came to Dinner (opening Feb. 26) and Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana (opening Feb. 26), both at the Bowmer. Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Wit, will open in the Black Swan Theatre Feb. 27.

Other plays opening in the 2000 season include the West Coast premiere of Steven Dietz's Force of Nature (April 22) and Euripides' The Trojan Women (July 29), in the Bowmer; Lynn Nottage's Crumbs From the Table of Joy (April 1) and Diana Son's Stop Kiss (July 8) in the Black Swan; and William Shakespeare's Hamlet (June 16), Twelfth Night (June 17) and The Taming of the Shrew (June 18), on the outdoor Elizabethan Stage.

Ashland, a onetime gold-rush and lumber town at the base of the Siskiyou Mountains, is located between San Francisco and Portland, OR, near Medford, OR. The theatre festival is the city's major industry. Ticket prices range from $14.50-$52, depending on the venue, performance and time of year.

For ticket information call, (541) 482-4331 or try the website at www.orshakes.org.

-- By Kenneth Jones