Group Theatre's Tim Bond To Join Shakespeare Festival

Group Theatre director Tim Bond will soon become an associate artistic director at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the West Coast's largest theater operation.

Bond had announced he would leave the multiculturally oriented Group Theatre this June, after five years at the helm. Of African American, Native American and Caucasian ancestry, he will be the first artist of color to serve in an executive artistic capacity at OSF, a popular 61-year- old theater company located in Ashland, Ore.

A longtime Seattle resident and University of Washington graduate, Bond was artistic director of Seattle's now-defunct Paul Robeson Theatre, and he served in various capacities at the Group over the last decade. As a free-lance director, he also has staged shows recently for the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Seattle Children's Theatre and other regional companies.

In announcing the appointment, OSF artistic director Libby Appel called Bond "an articulate and brilliant spokesperson for the theater, (who) possesses the unique ability to bring diverse experiences and cultures together to create a rich theatrical experience."

Bond will begin his duties at OSF this fall, and is slated to direct OSF's 1997 production of "Blues for an Alabama Sky" by Pearl

Cleage.