By Amy Wang and Jamie Hale

If you're planning to see an outdoor performance at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland in the next few weeks, add "check on wildfires" to your travel checklist.

Since the festival's outdoor season began in June, smoke from wildfires in southern Oregon has forced the cancellations of nine outdoor performances, said Julie Cortez, a spokeswoman for the festival, on Friday. That's the number the festival canceled all last summer.

"Some of these fires have been really close," Cortez said.

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The festival's three theaters include the outdoor Allen Elizabethan Theatre, which this year is the site of three productions: Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" and "Love's Labor's Lost" and Lauren Gunderson's alternate-history play "The Book of Will." The shows rotate through the 1,200-seat theater, which this time of year has something onstage six nights a week.

Cortez said the festival has a "smoke team" that monitors the weather forecast and air quality data to determine whether to cancel. "It also kind of depends on how long we've been in the smoke situation, in terms of the taxation that can have on the body," she said.

If it's obvious an outdoor show can't go on, the festival tries to post an announcement on its website, osfashland.org, by midday. If the situation is hazier, the smoke team reconvenes around 6 p.m., two hours before curtain time. "We try to let people know by 7 o'clock," Cortez said.

This season, the festival has added another option: moving a performance. Two shows so far have moved to the 400-seat auditorium at Ashland High School.

If a show is canceled, ticket holders have several options. They can ask for a refund. They can request a voucher for the value of their tickets that will be valid through the end of the season. They can exchange their tickets for another performance. Or they can donate the tickets' value to the festival. All refunds and exchanges must take place within seven days of the scheduled performance.

After a couple of years with no wildfire complications, this is the second summer the festival has canceled outdoor performances. "It means a lot of lost revenue and ticket sales," Cortez said, adding that last season, the average loss per canceled performance was around $40,000.

Cortez said the festival is starting to see a drop in ticket sales this time of year. "People are changing their patterns and have limited money and vacation time," she said.

In response, the festival plans to start its outdoor season earlier next year, opening at the end of May. It's also looking at upgrading the Elizabethan theater, possibly with a retractable roof.

Shows at the indoor theaters, the Angus Bowmer and the Thomas, haven't been affected by the smoke.

According to the festival's 2017 annual report, 110,204 people attended plays at the Elizabethan last summer, making up about a quarter of the festival's total attendance. Plays brought in nearly $22 million, the vast majority of the festival's $26 million in 2017 operating revenue.