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Oregon native Ty Burrell plays a goofy father on the hit TV show "Modern Family." He was a bartender at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival from 1989 to 1994 and in 1997.

(ABC)

They look shockingly young. They were shockingly young.

Kyle Maclachlan, the fictional mayor of Portland on "Portlandia," was 23 when he played Romeo at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 1982.

Jean Smart of "Designing Women" looks like a moody teenager in "A Moon For the Misbegotten," one of eight roles she played between 1975 and 1977.

OSF stars today

Check out photos of OSF actors

And William Hurt ("The Big Chill") was a callow 25 when he played the family peacekeeper in "Long Day's Journey into Night" in 1975, his only season at OSF.

Thousands of actors have appeared during the festival's 79 years, and a few have gone on to fame beyond Ashland. Ty Burrell ("Modern Family"), Dick Cavett (talk show host) and James Avery ("Fresh Prince of Bel-Air") come to mind.

We thought it would be entertaining to compile a list of actors who got their start at the festival and then flourished in the wider world of TV and movies. Some names will be familiar to today's audiences -- Stephanie Beatriz in the TV comedy "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," which won an Emmy for best comedy this year. And some names will ring bells with older folks -- Harry Anderson, anyone?

The festival is more than a training ground for coverage in People magazine, of course, but it's fun to see how some of them started out.