Community Playwriting Retreat
2024-04-26 - 2024-04-28 | Ashland area, Oregon, 97520
Ashland New Plays Festival is expanding its offerings in 2024 with a new Community Playwriting Retreat, designed to give writers of any level a chance to develop their craft among fellow artists.
The retreat will take place April 26-28 in beautiful downtown Ashland, Oregon.

Waiting for the Kick- film with director Q&A
2024-04-26 15:30 - 17:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | SOU Meese Auditorium
As part of the Oregon Fringe Festival, director Ilima Considine will be presenting her feature film musical, Waiting for the Kick.
Oscar Wilde’s Salome is remade into a darkly comedic fever dream of a rock opera written and composed by the Ilima Considine of The Sexbots, reset in an after hours club full of off-duty strippers, bartenders, and mountains of cocaine and John the Baptist is an autistic drug dealer.
This is a gay, feminist retelling of Salome- retold not as a story of a man in power led astray by a teenage temptress, but of a young girl caught in an impossible situation in a world where patriarchy forces women to objectify both themselves and others in order to survive. And yet, in spite of everything, young queer folk discover themselves and each other — irrepressible as dandelions growing out of a sidewalk. The 85-minute film will immediately be followed by a director Q&A.

8x8 at 88 Fundraiser
2024-04-26 17:00 - 20:00 | 88 North Main Street, Ashland, OR 97520, 88 North Main Street, Ashland, 97520
The 8×8 at 88 Fundraiser will bring together fifty original artworks where creativity flourishes within the confines of 8 inches by 8 inches. Each artwork showcased in this exhibition will serve as a testament to the limitless creativity that can be encapsulated within a small space. From intricate paintings to complex illustrations, each artwork has been crafted with meticulous attention to detail, offering viewers a glimpse into the vast imaginations of our members.
The 8×8 at 88 Fundraiser will serve as a fundraising initiative to support future programming and operations for the Ashland Gallery Association. All artworks will be priced at $88.00.
Currently, The Haines and Friends Visual Arts Grant Program has a vacant and empty space that they would like to utilize to enhance our visual arts community as a whole. Until the space has been leased, they have generously partnered to collaborate with the Ashland Gallery Association to provide members with a physical space to display and sell their artwork.
Fundraiser Dates:
Friday, April 26 – Sunday, April 28
Opening Reception:
Friday, April 26, 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Location and Hours:
88 North Main Street, Ashland, Oregon
Saturday – Sunday: 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
More Information:
www.ashlandgalleries.com
www.hainesandfriends.org

Plumbing the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument - Friday Night Talk
2024-04-26 18:00 - 19:30 | SOU Science Building, 1250 Ashland St., Ashland, OR, 97520, United States
The quote, “Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over” has been attributed to Mark Twain and frames the controversy over western water policies. Euro-American settlement of the west cannot be separated from the moving of water from sources to distant mines, farms, and cities. While California is the most plumbed of all states, Oregon has a fair share of dams, ditches, and water diversions — including in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.
Western water development went into high gear with the 1902 passage of the Newlands Reclamation Act. Under the act, the Bureau of Reclamation began development of projects all over the west, including the Rogue Basin Project. This project saw water storage on both sides of the Cascade Crest and deliverance of a secure supply of water to the orchards and towns in the Rogue Valley. Many projects also include flood control and hydroelectric power generation. This presentation will look at the overall history of western water development up to the current removal of dams on the Klamath River.
John Schuyler is a retired forester who received a B.S. in forestry from the University of California at Berkeley. During his 32-year career with the USDA Forest Service, he worked on national forests in Oregon, California, and Arizona — working in timber management, recreation, minerals, planning, and administration.
The Friday Night Lecture will take place at the SOU Science Building in room 161 from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Friends of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument is a nonprofit organization, and our mission is to support the protection, restoration and conservation of the monument through service, advocacy and education. Our Hike and Learn programs are designed to introduce the public to different topics and locations within the Monument. Hike and Learns are co-created with local scientists, historians, artists, students, and more.

Showing of film on Christian Nationalism
2024-04-26 18:30 - 21:00 | First Presbyterian Church of Ashland, 1615 Clark Ave, Ashland, OR, 97520, United States
“God & Country” is a 2024 American documentary film directed by Dan Partland and produced by Rob Reiner.
The film focuses on the emergence of Christian Nationalism and its close relationship with far-right politics in the United States, exploring its perceived threat to democracy and the politicization of Christianity. First Presbyterian Church, Ashland and South Mountain Friends Meeting (Quakers), the host congregations, hope to create a civic dialogue about this effort to merge American and Christian identity.
