About the American Repertory Theatre

The A.R.T. occupies a unique place in the American theatre. It is the only not-for-profit theatre in the country that maintains a resident acting company and an international training conservatory, and that operates in association with a major university. Over its twenty-two year history the A.R.T. has welcomed American and international theatre artists who have enriched the theatrical life of the whole nation. The theatre has garnered many of the nation’s most distinguished awards, including a Pulitzer Prize, a Tony Award, and a Jujamcyn Award. Since 1980 the A.R.T. has performed in eighty-one cities in twenty-two states around the country, and worldwide in twenty-one cities in sixteen countries on four continents. It has presented one hundred and sixty productions, over half of which were premieres of new plays, translations, and adaptations.

The A.R.T. was founded in 1980 by Robert Brustein and Robert J. Orchard, and has been resident for twenty-two years at Harvard University’s Loeb Drama Center. In August 2002 Robert Woodruff became the A.R.T.’s Artistic Director, the second in the theatre’s history. Mr. Orchard assumed the new role of Executive Director, and Gideon Lester that of Associate Artistic Director. Mr. Brustein remains with the A.R.T. as Founding Director and Creative Consultant.

The A.R.T. provides a home for artists from across the world, whose singular visions generate and define the theatre’s work. The company presents a varied repertoire than includes new plays, progressive productions of classical texts, and collaborations between artists from many disciplines. The A.R.T. is also a training ground for young artists. The theatre’s artistic staff teaches undergraduate classes in acting, directing, dramatic literature, design, and playwriting at Harvard, and in 1987 the A.R.T. founded the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training. In conjunction with the Moscow Art Theatre School, the Institute provides world-class training for graduate-level actors, directors, and dramaturgs.

The A.R.T.’s American and world premieres include among others, works by Robert Auletta, Robert Brustein, Don DeLillo, Keith Dewhurst, Christopher Durang, Elizabeth Egloff, Peter Feibleman, Jules Feiffer, Dario Fo, Carlos Fuentes, Larry Gelbart, Leslie Glass, Philip Glass, Stuart Greenman, William Hauptman, Milan Kundera, Mark Leib, David Lodge, Carol K. Mack, David Mamet, Charles L. Mee, Roger Miller, John Moran, Robert Moran, Heiner Müller, Marsha Norman, Han Ong, David Rabe, Franca Rame, Adam Rapp, Keith Reddin, Ronald Ribman, Paula Vogel, Derek Walcott, Naomi Wallace, and Robert Wilson.

Many of the world’s most gifted directors have staged productions at the A.R.T., including JoAnne Akalaitis, Andrei Belgrader, Anne Bogart, Lee Breuer, Robert Brustein, Liviu Ciulei, Ron Daniels, Liz Diamond, Joe Dowling, Michael Engler, Alvin Epstein, Dario Fo, Richard Foreman, David Gordon, Adrian Hall, Richard Jones, Michael Kahn, Jerome Kilty, John Madden, David Mamet, Des McAnuff, Jonathan Miller, Tom Moore, David Rabe, François Rochaix, Robert Scanlan, János Szász, Peter Sellars, Andrei Serban, Susan Sontag, Marcus Stern, Slobodan Unkovski, Les Waters, David Wheeler, Frederick Wiseman, Robert Wilson, Robert Woodruff, Yuri Yeremin, Francesca Zambello, and Scott Zigler.

A.R.T. productions were included in the First New York International Festival of the Arts, the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival in Los Angeles, the Serious Fun! Festival at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the International Fortnight of Theatre in Quebec. The company has also performed at international festivals in Edinburgh, Asti, Avignon, Belgrade, Ljubljana, Jerusalem, Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Venice, and at theatres in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Perugia, and London, where its presentation of Sganarelle was filmed and broadcast by Britain’s Channel 4. In 1986 the A.R.T. presented Robert Wilson’s adaptation of Alcestis at the Festival d’Automne in Paris, where it won the award for Best Foreign Production of the Year. In 1991 Robert Wilson’s production of When We Dead Awaken was presented at the 21st International Biennale of São Paulo, Brazil. The company presented its adaptation of Carlo Gozzi’s oriental fable The King Stag, directed by Andrei Serban, at the Teatro Español in Madrid in1988 and at the Mitsui Festival in Tokyo in 1990. The production was also presented at the Taipei International Arts Festival in Taiwan, together with Robert Brustein’s adaptation of Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author in 1995. In March 1998, the A.R.T. opened the Chekhov International Theatre Festival in Moscow - the first American company to perform at the Moscow Art Theatre - with The King Stag, Six Characters in Search of an Author, and Joseph Chaikin and Sam Shepard’s play When The World Was Green (A Chef’s Fable). In June 1998 the company presented two works including Robert Brustein’s new play, Nobody Dies on Friday at the Singapore Festival of the Arts. In October 2000, sponsored in part by AT&T:On Stage, the company embarked on a year-long national and international tour of The King Stag, with stops in twenty-seven American cities in fifteen states, ending with a three-week residency at London’s Barbican Centre in the summer of 2001.
For more information about the American Repertory Theatre, visit our website at www.amrep.org