The Oberlin Summer Theater Festival will launch its first season this summer, offering two family classics: Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie” opening June 26th and William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” opening July 3rd.   Performances will run in rotating repertory, Tuesdays thru Sundays, thru July 18th in Hall Auditorium.

All performances will be absolutely FREE to the public, and geared for the entire family, including school-aged children - ages 8 to 80! To accommodate families with younger members, most evening performances will begin at 7 PM. Friday performances will begin at 9 PM to accommodate audience members who also want to attend the weekly Band Concerts in Tappan Square. To make attendance easier, especially for our older audience members, and to allow out-of-town patrons the opportunity to see two shows in the same day, there will be 2 PM matinees on both Saturday and Sunday. TO reserve tickets, please call (440) 775 8169 or visit this page for more information.

Artistic Mission

The Oberlin Summer Theater Festival’s mission is to serve Lorain County and the larger northeastern Ohio community by presenting free productions of meaningful theater classics. We believe that the experience of attending live professional theater should be available to  everyone in our community,  regardless of age or socio-economic background. In particular, all parents should have the opportunity to share our wonderful and diverse theatrical heritage by taking their children to see great plays, works by William Shakespeare, Anton Chekhov, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Lorraine Hansberry, Kaufman and Hart, August Wilson, Thornton Wilder and others.

To that end, admission to OSTF productions will be FREE, eliminating the obstacle of the box office to make attendance accessible to the widest possible audience. We will also make our shows “family friendly” so that they will be suitable for the entire family, including school-aged children.  The acting company and play selections will be racially and culturally inclusive to reflect the diversity of our area.

In addition to Mainstage shows, other components to the programming will eventually include a late-night cabaret and a week-long, day-camp theater institute for area high school students. The Cabaret company will consist of Oberlin College students hired as interns for the summer festival who would also assist with the camp.