Oregon Center for the Arts

The Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University is a hub of creativity, education, and community engagement. As an academic division of Southern Oregon University, the OCA offers programs of study for students in Music, Theatre, and Creative Arts, and is also a regional arts center that hosts a wide range of exhibitions and performances. The OCA partners with community arts organizations, including the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Britt Music & Arts Festival, and the Ashland New Plays Festival, to bring a diverse array of arts experiences to the region.

One of the OCA's most exciting initiatives is the Schneider Museum of Art, which engages with the visual arts through exhibitions and programs that support interdisciplinary study, research, and discourse for both the academic and public communities. The OCA is also home to the Chamber Music Concerts, which present chamber music of the highest quality for the enjoyment, enrichment, and education of the Southern Oregon, Northern California, and Southern Oregon University communities.

Each spring, the OCA produces the Oregon Fringe Festival, a multi-day event celebrating bold, innovative, and outrageous creativity in the arts. The festival is a crossroads for emerging artists and professional practitioners to engage with each other’s creative work, and features a diverse roster of music, theatre, visual art, film, physical theatre, dance, circus, spoken word, and more. In addition to performances, the festival also includes panels and workshops for students and the greater community.

The OCA also houses the ShakespeareAMERICA Institute, a forum for practitioners, scholars, teachers, students, and audiences to explore new and provocative thinking about the works of William Shakespeare through the prism of an American perspective. With so much going on, the Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University is a thriving center of artistic excellence and a hub for the creative spirit.