American Repertory Theater Informations

The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) is a professional not-for-profit theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1980 by Robert Brustein, the A.R.T. is known for its commitment to new American plays and music–theater explorations; to neglected works of the past; and to established classical texts reinterpreted in refreshing new ways. Over the past thirty years it has garnered many of the nation's most distinguished awards, including a Pulitzer Prize (1982), a Tony Award (1986), and a Jujamcyn Award (1985). In December 2002, the A.R.T. was the recipient of the National Theatre Conference's Outstanding Achievement Award, and in May 2003 it was named one of the top three theaters in the country by Time Magazine. The A.R.T. is housed in the Loeb Drama Center at Harvard University. The A.R.T. houses the Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University and the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club.

In 2002 Robert Woodruff replaced founder Robert Brustein as the A.R.T.'s Artistic Director. After Woodruff's departure in 2007, Associate Artistic Director Gideon Lester took the reins for 2008-09 season, and in May 2008 Diane Paulus was named the new Artistic Director. Paulus, a Harvard alum, is widely known as a director of theater and opera. Her work includes The Donkey Show, which ran off-Broadway for six years; productions at the Chicago Opera Theatre; and the Public Theater's 2008 production of Hair, which won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical.

Under the leadership of Robert Brustein, the American Repertory Theater was established at Harvard in 1979 as a permanent professional arts organization on campus that offered undergraduate courses in acting, directing, and dramaturgy, taught by professional members of the company with teaching experience. Brustein later described the founding of the theater as "a groundbreaking event and an unusual act of faith by the administration".

Brustein served as artistic director of the theater until 2002, when he was succeeded by Robert Woodruff, founder of the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. In 2008, Diane Paulus became the new artistic director.

The A.R.T. has become a leading force in the American theater, producing groundbreaking work in Cambridge and beyond. During its 32-year history, it has welcomed many major American and international theater artists, presenting a diverse repertoire that includes premieres of American plays, bold reinterpretations of classical texts, and provocative new music theater productions. The A.R.T. has performed throughout the U.S. and worldwide in 21 cities in 16 countries on four continents. It is also continues to be a training ground for young artists, with the artistic staff teaching undergraduate classes in acting, directing, dramatic literature, dramaturgy, voice, and design. In 1987, the A.R.T. founded the Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard, which offers a five-semester M.F.A. graduate program that operates in conjunction with the Moscow Art Theater School, the Institute provides world-class professional training in acting, dramaturgy, and voice.

Since becoming artistic director, Diane Paulus has enhanced the A.R.T.’s core mission to expand the boundaries of theater by continuing to transform the ways in which work is developed, programmed, produced, and contextualized, always including the audience as a partner. Productions such as Sleep No More, The Donkey Show, Gatz, The Blue Flower, Prometheus Bound, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, Wild Swans, and Pippin have engaged audiences in unique theatrical experiences. The A.R.T.’s club theater, OBERON, which Paulus calls a second stage for the 21st century, has become an incubator for local and emerging artists, and has also attracted national attention for its innovative programming model.

The theater's productions have garnered three Tony Awards, including for Best Revival of a Musical for its productions of Pippin (2013) and The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess (2012). The A.R.T. also received the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theater, the Pulitzer Prize, and many Elliot Norton and I.R.N.E. Awards. Its recent premiere production of Death and The Powers: The Robots’ Opera was a 2012 Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Of the ART's 31st season, Artistic Director Diane Paulus said, "I promise that our 2010/2011 season will be another year of theatrical events — from rock stars to a robot chorus, mosh pits to the geodesic dome, Sophocles to Lewis Carroll — there will be something for everyone."

The A.R.T.'s 30th season, its first under the helm of Artistic Director Diane Paulus, eschews the traditional model and instead offers a series of "festivals" which will encourage audiences to experience productions as parts of larger cultural events.

The A.R.T. prides itself on presenting both American and World premiere productions. Over the years, these have included works by Robert Auletta, Robert Brustein, Anton Chekhov, 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, Allan Havis, Milan Kundera, Mark Leib, Gideon Lester, David Lodge, Carol K. Mack, David Mamet, Charles L. Mee, Roger Miller, John Moran, Robert Moran, Heiner Müller, Marsha Norman, Han Ong, Amanda Palmer, David Rabe, Franca Rame, Adam Rapp, Keith Reddin, Ronald Ribman, Paula Vogel, Derek Walcott, Naomi Wallace, and Robert Wilson.

The A.R.T. has also engaged a collection of world-famous stage directors throughout the years, including JoAnne Akalaitis, Andrei Belgrader, Anne Bogart, Steven 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, Krystian Lupa, John Madden, David Mamet, Des McAnuff, Jonathan Miller, Tom Moore, David Rabe, François Rochaix, Robert Scanlan, János Szász, Peter Sellars, Andrei Şerban, Sxip Shirey, Susan Sontag, Marcus Stern, Slobodan Unkovski, Les Waters, David Wheeler, Frederick Wiseman, Robert Wilson, Robert Woodruff, Steven Mitchell Wright, Yuri Yeremin, Francesca Zambello, and Scott Zigler.

In 1987, the A.R.T. founded the Institute for Advanced Theater Training, a five-semester professional training program which includes a three-month period working and training at the Moscow Art Theatre School in Russia. The program provides training for graduate-level actors, dramaturgs, and voice students. From 1999 until 2016, this joint program conferred an M.F.A. from the Moscow Art Theatre School, along with a certificate of completion from Harvard. Beginning with the graduating class of 2017, students have been granted a master of liberal arts degree through the Harvard Extension School.

For a time, the Institute included a director-training program, which was discontinued in 2004; the dramaturgy program was simultaneously tripled in enrollment.

In July 2017, in the wake of criticism from the U.S. Department of Education concerning the worrisomely high average debt load of students completing the program, the A.R.T. Institute announced a three-year pause in admissions, while it seeks to improve student financial aid, and continues to negotiate with Harvard University about establishing an M.F.A. degree.

OBERON, sometimes referred to as Club Oberon, is a club theater venue that was built by the Carr Foundation in 2004 and opened in August 2009 as A.R.T.'s second venue. The space that was once the Zero Arrow Street Theater, and A.R.T.'s use of it was originally for the open ended residency of their production of The Donkey Show, but it was soon decided to convert the theater into a fully functioning club theater venue fitting the philosophy developed by The Donkey Show's creator Randy Weiner. OBERON is now home to upwards of 200 individual productions every year.

Before OBERON, A.R.T. used the old Hasty Pudding theater as a second space in addition to the Loeb Mainstage. A.R.T.'s Institute for Advanced Theater Training formerly used the sub-basement of The First Parish in Cambridge at Zero Church Street, as a flexible venue. In May, 2015 the ART staged an opera premiere at the Schubert Theater in Boston, their first use of that venue.

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