Michael Wilson currently serving as artistic director at Hartford Stage

Hartford Stage

Hartford Stage, located in Hartford, Connecticut, is one of the leading resident theatres in the United States, known internationally for entertaining and enlightening audiences with a wide range of the best of world drama, from classics to provocative new plays and musicals and neglected works...

, is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 stage director working extensively in regional theatre

Regional theatre in the United States

Regional theaters, or resident theaters, in the United States are professional or semi-professional, theater companies that produce their own seasons. The term regional theatre most often refers to professional theatres outside of New York City...

, Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

, and Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

.

He is devoted to American artists and is completing a ten-year retrospective of the known and neglected works of Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams

Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...

. Mr. Wilson has also furthered new play development by nurturing and commissioning works by both renowned and emerging artists as a director and through Hartford Stage's Brand:NEW Festival of New Works. Under Mr. Wilson's leadership, Hartford Stage is also home to American Voices, a reading series spotlighting American artists of color.

Hartford Stage

As Artistic Director since 1998, Mr. Wilson has overseen forty-five new productions for the theatre, as well as seven SummerStage programs. He has directed seventeen productions for Hartford Stage, including the premiere of Enchanted April (which subsequently transferred to Broadway, garnering a 2003 Best Play Tony

Tony Award

The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 nomination, and 9 Outer Critics Circle

Outer Critics Circle Award

The Outer Critics Circle Awards are presented annually for theatrical achievements both on and Off-Broadway and were begun during the 1949-1950 theater season. The awards are decided upon by theater critics who review for out-of-town newspapers, national publications, and other media outlets...

 nominations, including Best Director); and the premieres of Horton Foote’s The Carpetbagger’s Children (2002 Best Play, American Theater Critics Award) and Eve Ensler’s Necessary Targets; Williams’s The Glass Menagerie (which subsequently toured to Houston and Boston where it won the 2002 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Visiting Production); O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night; and Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Under his leadership, in addition to the Tennessee Williams Marathon—the first national, multi-year retrospective of the great American playwright—Hartford Stage has focused on the development of new work, with ten world premieres, six Broadway or Off-Broadway transfers, and six Brand:NEW festivals.

Wilson has also forged new collaborations with Houston’s Alley Theatre

Alley Theatre

The Alley Theatre is a Tony Award-winning indoor theatre in Downtown Houston, Texas, and hosts two stages. The "Hubbard" is the main stage with seating for 824; the more intimate "Neuhaus" seats 310. Nine towers and open-air terraces give the Alley Theatre a castle-like quality. Inside, a staircase...

, Harvard’s American Repertory Theater, the Dallas Theater Center

Dallas Theater Center

The Dallas Theater Center is a major regional theater in Dallas, Texas . It produces classic, contemporary and new plays. The theater was based in the Kalita Humphreys Theater, a building designed by famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, from 1959 to 2009...

, the Guthrie Theater

Guthrie Theater

The Guthrie Theater is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the result of the desire of Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Oliver Rea, and Peter Zeisler to create a resident acting company that would produce and perform the classics in...

, The Shakespeare Theatre, and Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre.

Broadway

• Horton Foote's "Dividing the Estate" (Lincoln Center Theatre)
• John Van Druten's "Old Acquaintances" (Roundabout Theatre)
• Matthew Barber's "Enchanted April" (Belasco Theatre)

Off-Broadway

• Horton Foote’s The Carpetbagger’s Children (Lincoln Center Theater)
• The Day Emily Married
  The Day Emily Married
  -Setting:The setting is in the early summer of 1956 and takes place in Harrison, Texas. -Synopsis:...
  
  (Primary Stages)
• Christopher Shinn’s What Didn’t Happen (Playwrights Horizons)
• Necessary Targets (Variety Arts)
• Tennessee Williams’s The Red Devil Battery Sign (WPA Theatre)
• Jane Anderson’s Defying Gravity (Laura Pels Theatre)

Resident

• The Alley Theatre (Associate Director, 1990–98)
• American Repertory Theatre
  American Repertory Theatre
  The American Repertory Theater is a professional not-for-profit theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1980 by Robert Brustein, the A.R.T. is known for its commitment to new American plays and music–theater explorations; to neglected works of the past; and to established classical texts...
  
  
• Berkeley Repertory Theatre
  Berkeley Repertory Theatre
  Berkeley Repertory Theatre is a regional theater company located in Berkeley, California. It was founded in 1968, as the East Bay’s first resident professional theatre. Michael Leibert was the founding artistic director, who was then succeeded by Sharon Ott in 1984. The company runs seven...
  
  
• Goodman Theatre
  Goodman Theatre
  The Goodman Theatre is a professional theater company located in Chicago's Loop. A major part of Chicago theatre, it is the city's oldest currently active nonprofit theater organization...
  
  
• Guthrie Theatre
• Long Wharf Theatre
  Long Wharf Theatre
  Long Wharf Theatre is a nonprofit institution in New Haven, Connecticut, a pioneer in the not-for-profit regional theatre movement, the originator of several prominent plays, and a venue where many internationally known actors have appeared....
  
  
• New York Stage and Film
• Philadelphia Theatre Company
  Philadelphia Theatre Company
  The Philadelphia Theatre Company is a 501 non-profit theater company located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1974 as The Philadelphia Company by Robert Hedley and Jean Harrison. The company has produced over 100 world and Philadelphia premieres and has hosted dozens of nationally...
  
  

Awards

• Daryl Roth 2002 Creative Spirit Award, Lincoln Center Theater
• Princess Grace Foundation, 2001 Statue Award and 1992 Theatre fellowship
• Edward Albee Foundation 1992 fellowship
• Connecticut Critics Circle (various), including the 2005 Tom Killen Award

Other

• Board, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC)
• 2001-2003, Connecticut Commission on the Arts
• 2003 Citizen of the Year by the Greater Hartford Civitan Club

External links