Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland will stage 11 productions on its three stages in the 1998 season, Feb. 19-Oct. 31, 1999. At the 600-seat Angus Bowmer Theatre, artistic director Libby Appel has programmed Othello (Feb. 19-Oct. 31), August Wilson's Seven Guitars (April 21-Sept. 19), Pericles (July 28-Oct. 30), Bertolt Brecht's The Good Person of Szechuan (Feb. 20-July 11 & Sept. 21 Oct. 31) and Maurine Watkins' Chicago, the original play that inspired the hit Broadway musical (Feb 21.-Oct. 30).

Up first, Anthony Heald (Love! Valour! Compassion!, "Silence of the Lambs") will play Iago in Othello, directed by Tony Taccone.

At the 1,200-seat outdoor mainstage, the Elizabethan Theatre, expect Much Ado About Nothing (June 8-Oct. 8, 1999), a new adaptation of The Three Musketeers (June 10-Oct. 9) and Henry IV, Part Two (June 9-Oct. 8).

The intimate Black Swan, the company's flexible space seating 138-150, will host Henrik Ibsen's Rosmersholm (March 31-Oct. 31, 1999), Octavio Solis' sexually-charged, Latin-American-oriented, comedy tragedy, El Paso Blue (Feb. 25-June 26) and Ellen McLaughlin's Tongue of a Bird (July 6-Oct. 31), a surreal drama about a search and-rescue pilot and a kidnapped girl in the Adirondacks. (The Joseph Papp Public Theater is staging a separate Tongue in spring 1999.)

Following previews, the festival's official opening week is Feb. 26-28, 1999 with summer opening dates June 18-20, 1999. The OSF productions are presented in repertory.

Ashland is in the foothills of the Siskiyou and Cascade mountains, 350 miles north of San Francisco and 285 miles south of Portland.

For information or a brochure, call (541) 482-4331 or try the web site at www.orshakes.org

-- By Kenneth Jones