Kahn's legendary legit track record

Artistic head of D.C.'s Shakespeare Theater makes strides

By PAUL HARRIS

"I’ve never counted them up," says Michael Kahn, but the official tally pegs his current production, "The Alchemist," as the director’s 150th stage assignment.

Few theater careers have the longevity of Kahn’s. A longtime lion of New York’s Juilliard School, where he has taught acting for 37 years, Kahn’s more public face is as artistic director of the Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington, D.C. The classical troupe is staging the Ben Johnson farce through Nov. 22 at the Lansburgh Theater in a modern-dress reworking in which the con artists parody contempo figures from Donald Trump to Bill Clinton.

While Kahn, 74, says he found the pace of holding down two full-time jobs "stimulating," he reluctantly scaled back his Juilliard role three years ago in favor of the expanding D.C. theater. But that doesn’t mean he has slowed down.

"Teaching and directing feed off each other," he says. "I think I understand the real world for actors and the actor’s process when I’m directing."

Kahn’s professional staging credits began in 1963, when he directed an Off Off Broadway play by Jean-Claude van Itallie called "War." A year later he introduced groundbreaking black arts movement playwright Adrienne Kennedy with her one-act, "Funnyhouse of a Negro." Next came a job with Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival.

In addition to Broadway productions such as a 1974 revival of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" starring Elizabeth Ashley and Keir Dullea, and a 1983 "Show Boat" with Donald O’Connor, Kahn notched lengthy stints at leading regional houses, including a.d. of the American Shakespeare Theater in Stratford, Conn., and producing director of McCarter Theater on the Princeton campus in New Jersey.

Kahn joined Juilliard in 1968 when its drama division was founded. He headed the division for 15 years and now teaches a three-week master class each year. Not surprisingly, the Bard represents the lion’s share of his directorial output — in excess of 60 productions, he says. Kahn has staged "Measure for Measure" the most (four times).

"It’s interesting to come back to a play 10 years later and see how your understanding of it has grown," he says, explaining that his cardinal rule is to honor the author’s intentions while supporting the text.

Kahn’s relationship with D.C. began in 1986, when he was invited to rescue the city’s troubled Folger Theater. He was so successful that the troupe outgrew the tiny Elizabethan space and six years later moved to the new 451-seat Lansburgh.

Under his guidance, STC has grown into a world-class institution that mounts visually stunning productions and attracts directors and performers from far afield. One of Kahn’s most celebrated recent projects was the 2006 season’s "Love’s Labor’s Lost." Set in India during the psychedelic ’60s, the show was a hit both in D.C. and at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Complete Works Festival in Stratford-on-Avon.

Among current-season high notes, STC hosted the Goodman Theater production of "King Lear" with Stacy Keach, and in its only U.S. date, the National Theater of Great Britain’s "Phedre," starring Helen Mirren. This year’s recipient of STC’s annual Will Award, Ian McKellen, performed his solo show, "A Knight Out," on Oct. 29.

Kahn’s passion for the classics, and developing future audiences for them, is the impetus behind the theater’s popular "Free for All" initiative. For three weeks each summer, STC presents gratis performances of a remounted production, such as this year’s "The Taming of the Shrew." The 19-year-old program has introduced thousands of people to Shakespeare, he says.

Nine years ago, the theater partnered with George Washington U. to create the Academy of Classical Acting, billed as the country’s only one-year Masters of Fine Arts program dedicated solely to classical acting. Kahn teaches two sections of five weeks each.

Meanwhile, Kahn continues his active directorial pace including freelance gigs for his other passion, opera. He hopes to tackle the handful of Shakespearian plays he has not yet staged, along with personal favorites such as Eugene O’Neil’s "Strange Interlude." Plans also call for touring STC productions within the U.S.