Hartford Stage is one of the leading resident theatres in the United States, known internationally for entertaining and enlightening audiences with a wide range of the best of world drama, from classics to provocative new plays and musicals and neglected works from the past. The theatre has earned many of the nation’s most distinguished awards, including the Regional Theatre Tony Award, the Margo Jones Award for Development of New Works, OBIE and New York Critics Circle Awards, an Elliot Norton Award and a 2007 Bank of America Neighborhood Builders Award. We are located in downtown Hartford, Connecticut.
Founded in 1963 by Jacques Cartier, Hartford Stage began in a former grocery store warehouse on Kinsley Street. On April 1, 1964, Othello, directed by Cartier, opened the theatre, which quickly established itself as a major cultural resource for the region, producing seasons offering a range of works from Molière to Beckett to Genet. Paul Weidner, who assumed leadership of the theatre in 1968, oversaw its move to its present home-the 489-seat John W. Huntington Theatre, designed by renowned architect Robert Venturi. Weidner continued the theatre’s dedication to both classic and contemporary works, as well as representing diverse communities with productions of Ray Aranha’s My Sister My Sister and Miguel Pinero’s Short Eyes, with its original cast of ex-convicts. Mark Lamos became Artistic Director in 1980, bringing international recognition to Hartford Stage during his seventeen seasons with explorations of the great works of dramatic literature, most notably the plays of Shakespeare, Molière, Ibsen and Schnitzler. In January 1998, Michael Wilson became the fourth artist to lead Hartford Stage, launching the Tennessee Williams Marathon, the annual production of A Christmas Carol, the annual Brand:NEW festival, and SummerStage. Darko Tresnjak became the fifth Artistic Director in July of 2011.
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