Litchfield 54

2011 “KRAPP’S LAST TAPE” BY SAMUEL BECKETT, STARRING BRIAN DENNEHY. PHOTO BY RICHARD HEIN

GREEN ROOM

LONGWHARF THEATRE CELEBRATING 50 YEARS

F ifty years ago, Long Wharf Theatre was founded by Yale School of Drama grads Jon Jory and Harlan Kleiman, and a group of visionary civic leaders who believed that New Haven deserved a major regional theatre. Named for the Long Wharf port along New Haven Harbor, the theatre was built in a vacant warehouse space in a busy food terminal, with its Mainstage originally stocked with seats borrowed from a retired movie house. No one, included the people who founded it, could have envisioned the heights their ostensibly modest theatre would scale. Long Wharf Theatre evolved into an organization of international renown, producing an annual season of six plays on its two stages, along with children’s programming, new play workshops and a variety of spe- cial events for an annual audience of approximately 100,000. Under the leadership of Arvin Brown and Edgar Rosenblum for over 30 years, Long Wharf Theatre established itself as an important force in the regional theatre movement, regularly sending shows to New York and winning a Tony Award in 1978 for Outstanding Regional Theatre. Current leaders, Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein and Managing Director Joshua Borenstein, have helped Long Wharf Theatre continue to be a force in American theatre, revitalizing classic and modern plays for a contemporary audience, discovering new resonance in neglected works and premiering new plays by new voices that both investigate and celebrate the unique circumstances of the times. Long Wharf Theatre has transferred more than 30 Long Wharf

productions to Broadway or Off-Broadway, some of which in- clude Wit (Pulitzer Prize), The Shadow Box (Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award/Best Play), Hughie, American Buffalo, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Quartermaine’s Terms (Obie Award/Best Play), The Gin Game (Pulitzer Prize), The Changing Room, The Contractor and Streamers . Some recent New York successes include a critically lauded production of The Glass Menagerie (with Judith Ivey), and Off-Broadway productions of My Name is Asher Lev and Satchmo at the Waldorf . “We are so excited to celebrate everything which we have accom- plished over the last fifty years. Yet, it is critically important that we think about the next fifty. Our hope is that our new initiatives will

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