Seattle Repertory Theatre
Ott left Berkeley in 1997 to become the artistic director of the Seattle Repertory Theatre. Under her leadership, a successful $15 million endowment campaign was completed, and the Rep's annual budget grew from $6 million to $9 million. She maintained a subscription audience of 14,000 and grew the overall audience for the Rep from 140,400 in the year prior to her arrival to a high of 185,000. Ott re-introduced the classics to the Seattle Rep audiences, directing Shakespeare and Shaw herself, and producing the work of Stephen Wadsworth, Mary Zimmerman, and Tina Landau. She maintained the Rep's long term association with August Wilson, producing the world premiere of Wilson's King Hedley II and How I Learned What I Learned, Wilson's autobiographical solo performance work. Ott also produced the world premiere work of several major new artists to the Rep, such as Ping Chong, Phillip Kan Gotanda, and Nilo Cruz.
Read more about this topic: Sharon Ott
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“Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 players, and Tennessee Williams has about 5, and Samuel Beckett one—and maybe a clone of that one. I have 10 or so, and that’s a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.”
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“The theatre is the best way of showing the gap between what is said and what is seen to be done, and that is why, ragged and gap-toothed as it is, it has still a far healthier potential than some poorer, abandoned arts.”
—David Hare (b. 1947)