CMU School of Drama


Wednesday, February 08, 2017

OSF tours canceled due to immigration concerns

KOBI-TV NBC5 / KOTI-TV NBC2: “It’s certainly already affected us negatively cause we want to increase tourism in Southern Oregon.”

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival brings hundreds of people a year to Ashland from across the country, and around the world.

A group of students from Canada were set to visit this season, but recently canceled because of the immigration order.

3 comments:

Evan Schild said...

DONALD TRUMP IS RUINING THIS COUNTRY. This is a huge issue that a group of students are afraid to come to America to come see theater. They cancelled their trip because they thought they would have problems getting over the border. This is not what America should be. Our president should not be scaring people from not coming into this country. People should not be afraid to come into America to go see theater. Susan Tsu is currently opening a show there and I am wondering what the atmosphere is like that 200 people have just cancelled their trip. Also the theater company has now lost close to $9,000. For a theater company to lose this much money is a huge problem. Maybe if Donald trump did not cut the arts budget this would not be as bad. But if big theaters are losing money from this what will smaller theaters that rely on tourists going to do?

Kelly Simons said...

This is absurd. I hated the travel ban before it had even gone into effect, but for the ripple effect to be so far-reaching that it effects our Canadian neighbors is disappointing at best and xenophobic at worst. If the current administration’s goal is to completely close America off from all foreign goods and guests, then it is doing a super job. The worst part about this ripple effect is that it will hit businesses harder than it will decrease terrorist attacks. A seen from the article: “Canada was not included on the list of restricted countries. However, when speaking about the Canadian group, OSF Executive Director Cynthia Rider said, “They were afraid some of their students wouldn’t be able to get across the border.”
The group had more than 200 students and would’ve brought OSF almost $9,000 dollars in revenue.” OSF lost thousands of dollars just because our president is too narrow minded to even consider how his actions effect the entire nation.

John Yoerger said...

Okay so boo hoo they aren't making (... $9000) from some Canadian tourists... The President did something that is adversely affecting their international tourism (how much of that do they really have anyways?) and they need to throw out public distress signals? Why aren't you focusing on more local (meaning the United States) anyways? I can't imagine that they are really that focused on getting international tourism. Sure, it is awesome and fantastic... but there are other states in the United States you can target if you need more tourism instead. Do they not have a marketing department that can concentrate their efforts elsewhere besides outside of the country? Isn't the likelihood that someone would be willing to travel all the way to OSF from China, for a drastic example, a bit slim? A lot slim... I certainly think they have better things they could be doing. I also think they were very dramatic about the entire ordeal. Why do they really need some Canadians? I get it. Culture. Sharing theatre. Experiencing the world. Blah blah. But do you need a damn news story about it? I mean come on...