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The Angus Bowmer Theatre at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. (Photo courtesy of Jenny Graham/Oregon Shakespeare Festival)

(Photo courtesy of Jenny Graham/Oregon Shakespeare Festival)

The famed Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland is addressing bigotry head on after a pair of disturbing racial incidents aimed at its employees last month, one in which a man said the Ku Klux Klan was "alive and well" in Oregon.

In an open letter to its supporters, the festival spelled out its mission statement, which seeks to "reveal our collective humanity through illuminating interpretations of new and classic plays."

"Today, it feels woefully inadequate, not only in terms of describing what we should be doing as an organization, but also what we are doing," the festival wrote. "We cannot reveal our collective humanity without addressing the fact that the humanity of a majority of the human race is under attack."

One of those attacks recently hit very close to home for the festival after an actress said she was verbally assaulted and threatened on the streets of Ashland last month.

Christiana Clark, in a post to Facebook, said she was walking on A Street near Railroad Park in the early evening of June 24 when a man appeared to be speaking to her.

She said she pulled out her earphones and the man told her "It's still an Oregon law. I could kill a black person and be out of jail in a day and a half. Look it up."

"The KKK is alive and well here," she recounted the man as saying.

Clark said that a couple who was nearby and overheard the encounter came to her aid, but the experience left her understandably scared.

"I've never had such a frightening and sickening encounter," she said in her post. "I'm shaken and I'm disgusted. I'm sick and upset."

"To be a black person walking around in Ashland isn't as beautiful and as safe as we want it to be."

It's not my natural reaction to take to social media but this is necessary. OSF POC family, be safe! #ThatWasThenAndThenIsNow #BlackLivesMatter #LivingInAmerica #WakeUp ***He is a white man late 40's to mid 50's sandy sun blonde short hair. He had a backpack, was wearing a blue t-shirt, and riding a bike.**** Posted by Christiana Clark on Friday, June 24, 2016

The festival also referenced another incident, a death threat leveled at an employee two days after Clark's altercation when "a black female company member was verbally threatened by a well-known Ashland street person who was sitting on the bricks, saying that he wanted to kill her," a spokesman for the festival said in an email.

The festival has never been shy about expressing solidarity with groups from social movements -- they flew the gay pride flag over their campus after the massacre in Orlando, members of the festival wore Black Lives Matter shirts in the Ashland Fourth of July parade and they brought flowers to the local police department after five officers were killed in Dallas -- but this time they felt they needed to speak out.

"Social justice is central to our mission. Doing whatever we can to provide a safe and welcoming environment for our company and our patrons is also a central priority," the festival wrote. "To both those ends, we will not tolerate hate speech or other acts of racism and prejudice on our campus, and we will not be silent when such acts are committed beyond our campus."

Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, the festival said it would continue to push its values through the work it does on the stage.

"We will continue to choose plays and cast them in ways that reflect the world we live in now, with pride and without apology," the letter read. "We will recognize that we have a long way to go to live up to our goals of equity, diversity, inclusion and justice, and that we don't and won't always get it right--but we will keep trying."

-- Kale Williams

kwilliams@oregonian.com

503-294-4048