The Shakespeare Theatre Company

Michael Kahn

STC Artistic Director

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Photograph of Michael Kahn, Artistic Director Michael Kahn, America’s leading classical theatre director and a renowned teacher, has collaborated with, directed and taught three generations of America’s foremost artists. He has served as the Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company since 1986. In 2000, Michael Kahn and STC, in conjunction with The George Washington University, launched the Academy for Classical Acting.

Kahn’s directorial credits with STC include both Shakespeare’s plays and other works such as Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra and Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth and Camino Real. He has directed the Washington premieres of Shakespeare’s King John and Timon of Athens, Jonson’s The Silent Woman and Musset’s Lorenzaccio, and two world-premiere translations by David Ives of Corneille’s The Liar and Regnard’s The Heir Apparent. His production of The Oedipus Plays played at the Athens Festival in 2003, and his Love’s Labor’s Lost wasselected to represent America at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Complete Works Festival in 2006.

Kahn attended Columbia University, where he collaborated with budding artists like Terrence McNally and Andy Warhol. In 1968, He was invited to join the faculty at the newly-established Drama Division of the Juilliard School, where he continues to teach today. He served there as the Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division from 1992 to 2006. Among his former students: Christine Baranski, André Braugher, Kevin Kline, Laura Linney, Patti LuPone, Christopher Reeve and Robin Williams. In 1969, Kahn was named artistic director of the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut, a position he held for 10 years. His productions of Shakespeare’s Othello and Henry V and Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof transferred to highly successful Broadway runs. He simultaneously became a producing director at Princeton’s McCarter Theatre Center in 1974. He helped found The Acting Company in Manhattan in 1978 and served as its Artistic Director for a decade. In 1983, his production of Show Boat at the Houston Grand Opera transferred to Broadway and earned him a Tony nomination. The following year, he founded the Chautauqua Theater Company.

Kahn is the recipient of the 2005 Person of the Year from the National Theatre Conference; Shakespeare Society Medal; William Shakespeare Award for Classical Theatre; Distinguished Washingtonian Award from The University Club; GLAAD Capitol Award; Washingtonian Magazine Washingtonian of the Year; Washington Post Award for Distinguished Community Service; First Annual Shakespeare's Globe Award; John Houseman Award; Bravo International Award, Opera Music Theater International; Mayor's Arts Award for Excellence in an Artistic Discipline. He has received Honorary Doctorates from the University of South Carolina, Kean College, The Julliard School, and The American University.

The 2011-2012 Season marked the 25th anniversary of STC, which under Kahn’s leadership has grown into “the nation’s foremost Shakespeare company” (Wall Street Journal).