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The Shakespeare Theatre. The Economist calls it "one of the world's three great Shakespearean theatres." The Wall Street Journal claims that it's "the nation's foremost Shakespeare companies." London's Time Literary Dispatch defines it as "one of the great successes of American Theatre."
Audiences in Washington, D.C., where the theatre is housed, seem to agree, having awarded The Shakespeare Theatre forty-three Helen Hayes awards, the Capitol City's answer to Broadway's prestigious Tony in the last fifteen years.
The secret to its startling success?
Artistic director Michael Kahn, the most recent recipient of the Distinguished Career Award at the 54th Annual Southeastern Theatre Conference in Arlington, Virginia.
Brooklyn born Kahn confessed in his Keynote Question and Answer Address to a packed audience that he fell in love with Shakespeare at an early age, listening to his mother read the Bard to him (cutting out the dirty parts) in lieu of the traditional bedtime story. A student of New York's High School for the Performing Arts, Kahn holds a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia College of Columbia University and an Honorary D.D.L. from Kean College. He has directed shows both Off and On-Broadway (nominated for the Tony for Showboat), and he has served as Artistic Director of the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut; as Producing Director of the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey; and as Head of the Chautauqua Conservatory and Acting Company before moving to Washington, D.C. in 1986.
In addition to serving as the Artistic Director of The Shakespeare Theatre, he has directed the acting program at Julliard since 1968, and he currently spends much of his time traveling back and forth from D.C. to New York, maintaining both positions. Along with the Distinguished Career Award, Kahn recently joined past luminaries Ralph Fiennes, Anthony Hopkins, and Dame Maggie Smith as a recipient of the 2002 Will Award.
When he agreed in 1986 to take on the challenge of "saving" the then failing but very well respected Folger Shakespeare Theatre, he accepted under one condition (as reported by The Essential Washington): "I said I was quite interested in taking the job, but only if I could create the very best classical theatre." As he admitted to the The Washington Post Magazine, he was quite nervous:...