The Regions - Lincoln Center Theater
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The Regions
We continue our series of visits to the web sites of major
regional theatres. This week:
Lincoln Center Theater
The Vivian Beaumont Theater of Lincoln Center was completed in 1965 and was originally home to the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center (a group which began two years earlier under the co-direction of Elia Kazan and Robert Whitehead). They lasted in the space until 1973, when the space was taken over by the New York Shakespeare Festival who vacated for more southerly climes in 1977*. After several years of inactivity and rentals (and the short-lived Vivian Beaumont Theater, Inc.), the theatres became the home of Lincoln Center Theater in 1985, which continues to thrive, pioneer, and win Tonys®. They began under the leadership of Artistic Director Gregory Mosher (who left in 1992) and Executive Producer Bernard Gersten (who continues to this day). In 1992 André Biship assumed artistic leadership. Between them, according to their website, they've been nominated for 119 Tonys and won 28, 155 Drama Desks and won 38, 60 Outer Critics Circles and won 15, won 12 Obies, and had four Pulitzer Prize nominations. Of their two spaces (the Vivian Beaumont Theatre with 1100 seats and the Mitzi E. Newhouse (formerly The Forum) with 299), the Beaumont is considered a Broadway house (and therefore eligible for Tonys). They've also mounted a number of productions in other houses, including on Broadway.
Among their many celebrated productions and world or US premieres are: Marie Christine, Parade, Juan Darien, Arcadia, Carousel, My Favorite Year, Four Baboons Adoring the Sun, Contact, Pride's Crossing, A Fair Country, Hello Again, The Sisters Rosensweig, The Substance of Fire, Six Degrees of Separation, Some Americans Abroad, The House of Blue Leaves, Boys' Life, Sarafina!, Via Dolorosa, Speed-The-Plow, Two Shakespearean Actors, The Heiress, Chronicle of a Death Foretold and A Delicate Balance. Currently Contact is still enjoying its open-ended run in the Beaumont. Upcoming for the LTC is Thou Shalt Not, a musical adaptation of the novel Therese Raquin by Emile Zola (opens off-site at the Plymouth Theatre), to be directed by Susan Stroman, with a book by David Thompson and music and lyrics by Harry Connick, Jr.; and QED, in a limited run of a production transported from the Mark Taper Forum.
LCT runs the "Open Stages" program, "designed to train teachers to use the arts effectively in their general curriculum" and "offer... students an experience that enables them to discern connections between issues in their lives and the dilemmas faced by on-stage characters they encounter." They also run the Directors Lab, "an interactive forum to engage directors in an intensive study of their craft and to foster collaborative relationships among a community of artists";
