Williamstown Theatre Festival

The Williamstown Theatre Festival is a resident summer theater on the campus of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1954 by Williams College news director Ralph Renzi and drama program chairman David C. Bryant. It was awarded a Tony Award in 2002 and the Massachusetts Cultural Council Commonwealth Award in 2011. History Inception The Williamstown Theatre Festival was conceived as a way to use the Adams Memorial Theatre on Williams College campus for a resident theatre company. Marcia Henderson, a Theatre World winner and Williamstown native, performed in the first play of the festival. Her co-star was Canadian actor Jonathan Frid, who would later become a TV icon for his portrayal of Barnabas Collins on the gothic television serial Dark Shadows. Other notable actors have since participated in the festival, including Sigourney Weaver, Gwyneth Paltrow, Christopher Reeve, Christopher Walken, Nathan Lane, Richard Chamberlain, Kate Burton, Olympia Dukakis, Paul Giamatti, Bradley Cooper, Calista Flockhart, Matthew Broderick, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Uma Thurman. Nikos Psacharopoulos Nikos Psacharopoulos, a professor at Yale Drama School and a co-founder, became the executive artistic director and guided the company for over thirty years. Psacharopoulos made certain WTF would not be a typical summer stock theater by focusing on such international playwrights as Chekhov, George Bernard Shaw, Jean Anouilh, Tennessee Williams, Bertholt Brecht, and Tom Stoppard . He mentored his associates and assistant directors, such as Tom Brennan, Arvin Brown, Keith Fowler, Peter H. Hunt, Paul Weidner, and Austin Pendleton. He attracted well-known actors including E.G. Marshall, Frank Langella, Rosemary Harris, Blythe Danner, and Colleen Dewhurst. Christopher Reeve, once a WTF apprentice and later a frequently-featured actor at the festival, told an interviewer: "By staying here thirty years, Nikos [did] what they couldn't do in Brooklyn or Washington or at Lincoln Center. He has managed to achieve a national theater."