American Repertory Theatre

Category: Cambridge

The American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.) is housed in the Loeb Drama Center at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1980 by Robert Brustein as a break off group from the Yale Repertory Theatre after a bitter dispute between Yale University and the long-established Yale company. Its last artistic director was Robert Woodruff. It is currently led by Acting Artistic Director Gideon Lester. The A.R.T premiered the Pulitzer Prize winning play Night, Mother by Marsha Norman in 1982. It is also famous for director JoAnne Akalaitis' 1984 production of Samuel Beckett's Endgame, which angered the author by not following his stage directions and setting the play in a subway. In 2003, Time Magazine recognized it as one of the top five regional theaters in the United States.

In addition to the mainstage at the Loeb Drama Center, in 2005 the A.R.T. opened a new black box theater space in Cambridge, at Zero Arrow Street, the aptly named Zero Arrow Theatre. This 300 seat space houses productions by the A.R.T. as well as outside companies and organizations.

Before the Zero Arrow Theatre opened the A.R.T. used the old Hasty Pudding theatre in addition to the Loeb Mainstage, and the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training used the sub-basement of The First Parish in Cambridge, Zero Church Street, a flexible almost black box venue, which they still occasionally use.

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