The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The concept of the theater was born in 1959 in a series of discussions among Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Oliver Rea and Peter Zeisler. Disenchanted with Broadway, they intended to form a theater with a resident acting company, to perform classic plays in rotating repertory, while maintaining the highest professional standards.
Arena Stage is a not-for-profit regional theater based in Southwest, Washington, D.C. Established in 1950, it was the first racially integrated theater in Washington, D.C., and its founders helped start the U.S. regional theater movement. Its theater complex was completed for the company in 2010; it is called The Mead Center for American Theater.
Joe Dowling is an artistic director. He was artistic director for the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. He is known for his work as artistic director of the Abbey Theatre in Ireland and his production involvement can be found in the Abbey Theatre archives. He has also directed plays in other theatres in Ireland as well as theatres in London, New York City, Washington D.C., Montreal, and Alberta. In 1975 he directed "Katie Roche" by Irish playwright Teresa Deevy.
Zelda Fichandler was an American stage producer, director and educator.
Bill Rauch is an American theatre director. He was named the inaugural artistic director of the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center (PACNYC) at the World Trade Center in 2018. The Perelman was the final piece of the plan to revitalize the World Trade Center site.
David Esbjornson is a director and producer who has worked throughout the United States in regional theatres and on Broadway, and has established strong and productive relationships with some of the profession's top playwrights, actors, and companies. Esbjornson was the artistic director of Seattle Repertory Theatre in Seattle, Washington, but left that position in summer 2008.
David Hammond is an American director and acting teacher. He trained for the theatre at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and received his M.F.A. from the Carnegie Mellon University Drama Department. He did his undergraduate studies at Harvard University and graduated magna cum laude with a concentration in Elizabethan literature. He taught at the Juilliard School, the American Conservatory Theater, and the Yale School of Drama and later became the artistic director of the PlayMakers Repertory Company.
Artists Repertory Theatre is a professional non-profit theatre located in Portland, Oregon, United States, established in 1982.
Wendy C. Goldberg is an American theatre director and the current Artistic Director of the National Playwrights Conference at The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. Under Goldberg's tenure, The O'Neill was awarded the 2010 Regional Theatre Tony Award, the first play development and education organization to receive this honor. Goldberg is the first woman to run the Playwrights Conference and was named Artistic Director when she was just 31 years old.
David Findley Wheeler was an American theatrical director. He was the founder and artistic director of the Theater Company of Boston (TCB) from 1963 to 1975. He served as its artistic director until its closure in 1975. Actors including Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Duvall, Jon Voight, Stockard Channing, James Woods, Blythe Danner, Larry Bryggman, John Cazale, Hector Elizondo, Spalding Gray, Paul Guilfoyle, Ralph Waite and Paul Benedict were part of the company.
The Actor's Workshop was a theatre company founded in San Francisco in 1952. It was the first professional theatre on the west coast to premiere many of the modern American classics such as Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, and the world dramas of Samuel Beckett, Bertolt Brecht, Jean Genet and Harold Pinter. For the 1953–1954 season, the Workshop offered six plays: Lysistrata, by Aristophanes; Venus Observed, by Christopher Fry; Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller; a revival of Playboy; The Cherry Orchard, by Anton Chekhov; and Tonight at 8.30, by Noël Coward. On April 15, 1955, the Actor's Workshop signed the first Off-Broadway Equity contract to be awarded outside New York City.
Michael Halberstam is an American stage actor and director. He co-founded the Writers Theatre in Glencoe, Illinois, and served as its artistic director until 2021. He resigned after years of reported harassment and abuse from artists working at the theater.
Jonathan Moscone is an American theater director and arts consultant, having most recently served as a Council member then Executive Director of the California Arts Council under Governor Gavin Newsom's administration. Formerly the Chief Producer of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), and artistic director of California Shakespeare Theater in Berkeley and Orinda, California for 16 years, Moscone received the inaugural Zelda Fichandler Award, given by the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation for his transformative work in theater in 2009.
Lisa Portes is a director, educator, and advocate. She heads of the MFA Directing program at The Theatre School at DePaul University. She serves on the board of the Theatre Communications Group, the Executive Board of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, and is a founding member of the Latinx Theater Commons.
Lou Bellamy is an American stage director, actor, producer, entrepreneur, and educator. He is the founder and artistic director, Emeritus of Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul, Minnesota. He taught at the University of Minnesota from 1979 until his retirement as an associate professor in 2011.
Writers Theatre is a non-profit theatre company founded in 1992 and located in Glencoe, Illinois. Michael W. Halberstam, the founder of the company, was an artistic director from its inception in 2021. Kathryn M. Lipuma has been an executive director since 2007.
Dámaso Rodríguez a Cuban American director who is the second Artistic Director of Artists Repertory Theatre, the longest-running professional theatre in Portland, OR. Before joining Artists Repertory Theatre, he was Artistic Director of Furious Theatre Company in Los Angeles, CA. He also served as the Associate Artistic Director under Sheldon Epps at the Pasadena Playhouse. He is one of four leaders of color leading a LORT theatre in the United States today.
Desdemona Chiang is a Taiwan-born American theatre director, and co-artistic director of Azeotrope in Seattle, Washington. Her directing credits include the Guthrie Theater, Alley Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Seattle Repertory Theatre, California Shakespeare Theater, Playmakers Repertory Company, and ACT Theatre. She directs in a variety of genres, including Shakespeare, new plays, and musicals.
Vivienne Benesch is a theatre director and former artistic director of the Chautauqua Theatre who is currently artistic director at North Carolina's PlayMakers Repertory Company, a position she has held since 2016. As part of her work at PlayMakers, Benesch focuses on amplifying the work of women playwrights through their @PLAY program.
Juliette Carrillo is an American theatre director, playwright, and filmmaker. She has directed plays and musicals at the Denver Theater Center, Yale Repertory Theater, South Coast Repertory, Mark Taper Forum, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Seattle Repertory Theatre, the Magic Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Arizona Theater Company, and the Actor's Theatre of Louisville.
