Co-authored by the resident dramaturg at Shakespeare Theatre Company and a long-time scholarly consultant, this book chronicles how a small repertory troupe at the Folger Theatre on Capitol Hill became an internationally renowned company performing in a lavish, multi-venue performing arts centre in downtown Washington, D.C.

 

The artistic vision and business acumen of Michael Kahn, the founding Artistic Director, largely catalyzed this transformation, but so too did the forces of neoliberalism and, more recently, globalization and new media. Accordingly, Shakespeare in the Theatre: Shakespeare Theatre Company not only examines directorial decision-making but also 3 decades of social and economic change in the nation’s capital, from the complexities of gentrification to the arts policies of successive administrations.

In addition to discussions of directorial practice, this book examines the ambivalence of American theatre artists toward their British cultural inheritance. Analyses of representative productions and interviews with Kahn and his British successor, Simon Godwin, illuminate this complex relationship: one that aspires to a cosmopolitan Anglophilia while positioning classically trained American actors as worthy rivals to their counterparts at the RSC and the National Theatre of Great Britain.

Drew Lichtenberg is Artistic Producer at Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. As the dramaturg in residence since 2011, he has worked on dozens of productions, ranging from Shakespeare and the Greeks to award-winning world premieres. He has also worked at the Royal National Theatre in London, on and off Broadway, and at regional theaters around the country. He has taught at Catholic, Yale, and the New School, his writing has appeared in The New York Times, and he is the author of two books, including this fall’s new Shakespeare in the Theatre: Shakespeare Theatre Company, the first ever critical history of the company from the esteemed Arden Shakespeare. He holds a doctorate of fine arts from Yale School of Drama.

Deborah C. Payne is Professor of Literature at American University, USA. She was the Humanities Research Consultant at the Shakespeare Theatre Company from 2000 – 2009, and she has dramaturged for Studio Theatre, Arena Stage, the Kennedy Center, and the Bach Sinfonia. Her publications include The Business of English Restoration Theatre, 1660 – 1700 (2023), Revisiting Shakespeare’s Lost Play (2016), Four Restoration Libertine Plays (2005), The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre (2000) and Cultural Readings of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century English Theatre (1995).

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