Supplement to case SM104. In September 2015, Executive Director Cynthia Rider and Artistic Director Bill Rauch submitted the 2015-2025 OSF Long Range Plan to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival board. With the festival leadership finally in place and stable, they collectively created their first strategic plan, and the company headed into its 81st season with an 82-page guiding document. Throughout his first eight years, Bill Rauch had remained notable for his vision and drive for the company to grow and change. The theater's national profile developed substantially, making it "something of a mecca for the theater arts." Major programming and capital expansions occurred, as did unforeseen challenges such as an increase in nearby forest fires and a successful unionization attempt. As Rider and Rauch looked to build on their successes and handle these challenges, they developed a new kind of strategic plan. More concise, external facing, and focused on vision than previous plans, the new document sought to push the company into an ambitious future. Whether the new plan has stretched OSF far enough, or perhaps too far, remains to be seen.

Paul Nicholson, Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) Executive Director, announced that he would retire at the end of the 2012 season, after a 32-year tenure at OSF. His successor, only the third in 77 years of existence, would take over during the final year of the 2009-2013 Long Range Plan, creating great uncertainty as well as great opportunity. OSF is an arts organization that defies trends. It achieves high artistic quality, attendance, and financial stability, despite presenting challenging, classical material 280 miles from the nearest urban center. However, it is also a company whose core strengths-rotating repertory, longevity in staff-can also work against innovation. To determine focus, OSF goes through a strategic planning process every five years, often bringing about large-scale change. This case describes the planning process for the 2009-13 Oregon Shakespeare Festival Long Range Plan. It explores challenges around innovation and leadership transitions that the executive team faced, and how OSF moved forward despite a strategic plan that was lacking. As the final year of the plan approaches, OSF must determine what it wants in and hire a new Executive Director, a major milestone for the organization, while simultaneously designing the next long range plan.