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It is a snowy evening in Minnesota. At a small garage space in south Minneapolis, a handful of people have braved the storm and brutal windchills to see a shoestring production of Suzan-Lori Parks's The America Play. One of them is Guthrie Theater artistic director Joe Dowling.
Switch scenes to a cafeteria-sized meeting hall in Bemidji, Minn., 200 miles north of the Twin Cities. In the middle of icefishing season, a modest crowd has gathered to hear an impassioned Irishman talk about the importance of art-particularly theatre-in their world. The man who doesn't know any better: Joe Dowling.
Switch scenes yet again to the Guthrie thrust stage on opening night of last year's The Cherry Orchard. The audience is on its feet, applauding an interpretation of Chekhov that is at once funny, thoughtful, wise, relevant and a host of other things productions of Chekhov often are not. The director, a humble-looking fellow with big square hands and an impish grin, waves briefly to the crowd, which responds with a burst of enthusiastic hoots and whistles. The director's name: Joe Dowling.
Everyone knows Joe
Scenes like these have played themselves out countless times since Joe Dowling replaced Garland Wright as the Guthrie Theater's artistic director in December of 1995. Seemingly tireless in his duties, Dowling accepts almost every speaking invitation extended to him, in the Twin Cities or out of state; he makes a point of seeing as much local theatre as possible; and it is virtually impossible to find an actor or director in town he hasn't talked to or had lunch with in the past year. Everyone knows Joe.
Two years ago, of course, no one in Minnesota knew Joe. At the press conference announcing Wright's successor, Dowling's name wasn't on anyone's guess list. Reporters covering the event had to scramble to the phones to find someone in New York or Washington, D.C.-or Ireland-who could fill them in on his accomplishments. They soon found out that, among other things, Dowling was the Abbey Theatre's youngest artistic director ever, that he...