WESTPORT — Mark Shanahan, whose career in theater includes a nearly two-decade relationship with the Westport Country Playhouse, has been named its next artistic director.
Shanahan, currently curator of the playhouse’s “Script in Hand” play-reading series, will assume the role for the 2024-25 season, succeeding Mark Lamos, who is stepping down in January after 15 seasons.
Shahahan takes on the artistic director position during a challenging time for the theater, which was forced to cancel three of its five productions planned for the 2023 season and faces a “tenuous financial position,” Athena T. Adamson, the chairwoman of the theater’s board of trustees, said in June.
To address the financial crisis, the playhouse launched a campaign aiming to raise $2 million by the end of July. To donate, click here.
“Like so many theaters across the country, the playhouse faces challenges,” Shanahan said in a statement released Friday by the theater. “But I’ve personally witnessed the passion and love this community has for its theater, and I know that together we can usher in a new chapter for the Westport Country Playhouse which will honor its wonderful theatrical heritage while forging new and exciting paths ahead.”
Shanahan’s association with the playhouse began in 2005 when he acted in a production of “Journey’s End,” and he subsequently performed in several other playhouse shows, including in “David Copperfield,” directed by Joanne Woodward and Anne Keefe.
“I immediately fell in love with the theater’s rich history and beauty, and the artistry presented on its stage,” Shanahan said in the playhouse statement.
“There’s nothing like our big old red barn when filled to capacity. It is an honor to be invited by the board to serve this remarkable institution’s loyal audience and help it find ways to grow.”
Among his credits, Shanahan is the writer and director of The New York Times Critics’ Pick, “A Sherlock Carol,” which also received an Off-Broadway Alliance nomination for Best New Play 2021. He recently directed his adaptation of “Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,” and is the author of “A Merry Little Christmas Carol,” “See Monsters of the Deep,” “The Dingdong” and radio plays as creator of the White Heron Ghost Light series, which has featured performers like Christopher Plummer, Judith Ivey, Rhonda Ross and others.
At the playhouse, he has acted in more than 20 Script in Hand play-readings, and in 2019, succeeded Anne Keefe as curator of the series. He is also the creator and curator of Westport Country Playhouse Radio Theater, in partnership with radio station WSHU.
Shanahan has acted in and directed theatrical productions at venues across the country.
A graduate of Brown University with a bachelor of arts degree, he earned a master of arts at Fordham University and formerly was a member of its adjunct faculty.
Congratulations and good luck to Mark. We attended Dial M for Murder this week and it was very good. An announcement was made just prior to the curtain raise, stating the theatre’s need to raise $2M in an unrealistically short period of time. I believe the theatre is a Westport treasure and we attended the show as a call to action from the community. We long ago stopped attending because the programing was not to our liking. Admittedly, I know nothing about the business of operating a theatre but it seems to me a diverse program that included serious children’s programing, an attachment to Staples HS along with other events such as symphony performances, ballet and even an occasional opera might cast a much wider net of attendees? In this post Covid world perhaps the theatre needs to pivot to adjust to the new environment. My hope is the Board will make some intelligent decisions to keep our local theatre alive.
Are we to expect every show will have a “modern” , read woke, spin to it? If so, do not be surprised that you continue to turn off the majority of your potential audience. I thought that doing a classic like Dial M for Murder was a sign you were starting to get it. Alas, apparently not. Seriously, it has to be a lesbian, inter-racial couple? This has become tedious, boring and depressingly predictable.