American Shakespeare Theater – Stratford, CT

The American Shakespeare Theatre opened on July 12, 1955, in Stratford, CT. Construction began in 1954 and cost $1 million or $9.3 million when adjusted for inflation. It was commissioned by the American Shakespeare Festival Theatre and Academy (ASFTA), formed by Lawrence Langner, a co-founder of The Theatre Guild.  Langner started the ASFTA to create American interpretations of William Shakespeare’s plays in Connecticut.

“Julius Caesar” was the opening production, and the theater company included Raymond Massey, Christopher Plummer, Roddy McDowall, Jack Palance, and Jerry Stiller. Over the years, many famous actors were involved in productions at the theater, including Katharine Hepburn, Fred Gwynne, Margaret Hamilton, James Earl Jones, Lillian Gish, Christopher Walken, and Ed Asner. In 1966, T.S. Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral” became the first non-Shakespeare play performed at the theater.

The final entire season was in 1982, with performances of “King Henry IV,” “Twelfth Night,” and “Hamlet.”  In 1983, the theater was purchased by Connecticut for $1 million due to the threat of foreclosure. The American Shakespeare Theatre Corp. got a 20 year, $1 a year lease, but financial issues continued, and they canceled the summer productions in 1986.

In 1989 the theater was closed. The final production was a one-person show of the Tempest. Connecticut turned the property over to the town of Stratford in 2005 after a few failed attempts to develop the property. On January 13, 2019, a fire destroyed the theater. Three local teens were convicted of setting the fire in June 2021. They had bragged about the crime in a Snapchat video, which was eventually with the police. There are plans to build a new open-air theater modeled after the 1614 version of the Globe Theatre. The projected cost is $77 million.