Angus L. Bowmer

Angus L. Bowmer (September 25, 1904 – May 26, 1979) was the founder of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon, United States. During his tenure as artistic director, he produced all 37 of William Shakespeare's plays and performed 32 Shakespearean roles in 43 separate stagings.

Angus Livingston Bowmer was born in Bellingham, Washington, on September 25, 1904. He was the only child of Charles C. Bowmer (born August 19, 1880, Nevada; died February 1967, Portland, Oregon) and Florence "Flora" Priest (born Dec 1880, Wisconsin; died June 5, 1958, Portland, Oregon). He moved with his family at least twice, living in Mount Vernon, Washington in 1910 and Oak Harbor, Washington by 1920. He graduated from the Washington State Normal School at Bellingham (now Western Washington University) in 1923.

Bowmer attended the University of Washington in Seattle in the 1930s, acting in at least two of its Shakespeare productions, Love's Labor's Lost and Cymbeline under guest director Ben Iden Payne, an Englishman whose ideas for neo-Elizabethan staging of Shakespeare’s plays provided inspiration later in Bowmer's life as he began producing the plays that became the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

In 1931, Bowmer was invited to become an instructor in English at Southern Oregon Normal School, a predecessor to Southern Oregon University, in Ashland, Oregon. Bowmer married Gertrude Butler prior to enlisting in the Army July 20, 1942 where he served as a Warrant Officer. After serving his country and returning to Oregon, Bowmer organized theater activities in Ashland and continued teaching at the college until he retired in 1971. Bowmer befriended Fred C. Adams who came to Ashland to observe the festival's operations prior to Adams founding the Utah Shakespearean Festival in 1961.

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