The Huntington Theatre Company, a non-profit organization in residence at Boston University, has been Boston’s leading professional theatre company for a quarter-century. During the past three seasons the company has experienced a period of artistic and institutional growth under the leadership of Nicholas Martin, Norma Jean Calderwood Artistic Director, and Michael Maso, Managing Director. While maintaining its home base at the 890-seat Boston University Theatre, the Huntington has expanded its operations to include the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, housing the 370-seat Virginia Wimberly Theatre and the 200-seat Nancy and Edward Roberts Studio Theatre. Since opening the new spaces, the Huntington offers a seven-play subscription season and special events for an annual audience of more than 200,000.
The Huntington has received three Tony Award nominations for productions transferred to Broadway and six Elliot Norton Awards for Outstanding Production. With last season's production of Gem of the Ocean, seven major works by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson have now been produced by the Huntington prior to their New York premieres. In 2003, the Huntington production of Frank McGuinness' Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, directed by Nicholas Martin, completed a New York run at Lincoln Center Theater where it received two Lucille Lortel Awards and a total of six nominations. In 2001, the Huntington production of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, also directed by Nicholas Martin, enjoyed an acclaimed Broadway run and garnered a Tony nomination for Kate Burton in the title role. The Huntington has also reinvigorated classics by Shakespeare, Molière, Sheridan, Chekhov, Turgenev, Shaw, O'Neill, Hellman, Miller, Williams, Baldwin, and Hansberry, as well as musicals by Gilbert and Sullivan, Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, and Stephen Sondheim.
The Huntington has produced nearly 50 New England, American, or world premieres, including, most recently, the world premieres of Sonia Flew by Huntington Playwriting Fellow Melinda Lopez; The Blue Demon, written and directed by Darko Tresnjak, featuring music by Michael Friedman; and the musical Marty, by the creative team of Rupert Holmes (book), Charles Strouse (music), and Lee Adams (lyrics). Other premieres include works by Tom Stoppard, Brian Friel, Jon Robin Baitz, Christopher Durang, Donald Margulies, Richard Nelson, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Horton Foote. The Altman Fund for Artistic Diversity, founded in honor of former Producing Director Peter Altman, provides support for productions of plays written by and about people of color.
The Huntington's expanded efforts to develop new plays for the American theatre include the Breaking Ground Festival of new play readings and the Stanford Calderwood Fund for New American Plays, which allow the Huntington to commission new works from emerging and established writers. The two new theatres in the Calderwood Pavilion serve as the home for the Huntington's new play development.
The Huntington provides professional training and experience to students in the Boston University School of Theatre. In addition, over the past two decades, the Huntington's nationally-recognized education programs have served more than 200,000 middle school and high school students, and its community outreach programs bring theatre each year to the Deaf and blind communities, the elderly, and other underserved populations in the Greater Boston area.