Oregon Shakespeare Festival unfurls the first of 11 productions in its 2001 season with the Feb. 16 first preview of The Tempest.

The Bard's Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, Troilus and Cressida and The Merry Wives of Windsor play in rep with contemporary works through Oct. 28 in the mountain-foothill town of Ashland, OR.

Artistic director Libby Appel's season is seen on the nonprofit festival's three stages — The Angus Bowmer Theatre, The Black Swan and The Elizabethan Theatre.

The Tempest, the musical Enter the Guardsman (based on Molnar's The Guardsman), Pedro Calderon de la Barca's Life is a Dream, Regina Taylor's Oo-Bla-Dee and Chekhov's Three Sisters play the 600-seat Bowmer.

Horton Foote's The Trip to Bountiful, David Lindsay-Abaire's Fuddy Meers, Nilo Cruz's Two Sisters and a Piano play the final season of the 138-seat Black Swan (a new theatre will replace it). The Merchant of Venice, Troilus and Cressida and The Merry Wives of Windsor play the 1,200-seat outdoor Elizabethan Theatre.

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.

The Tempest opens Feb. 23. Artistic director Appel directs Three Sisters and The Trip to Bountiful this season.

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

— By Kenneth Jones