OUR HISTORY (continued)

The Antaeus Company was created in 1991 as a project of the Center Theatre Group. Our inaugural production on the main stage of the Mark Taper Forum -- Anton Chekhov’s The Wood Demon -- was revelatory. Our wildly successful revival (the first in the U.S. since 1948) of Arthur Miller’s first Broadway play The Man Who Had All The Luck created a nationwide buzz in 2000. And in 2004 Chekhov X 4 received the L.A. Drama Critics Circle award for best ensemble and best translation/adaptation, and was an L.A. Times “Critic’s Choice” production – as was Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children and, most recently, our internationally acclaimed production of Sinan Ünel’s Pera Palas

In the last four years Antaeus also produced three major classics “festivals” in North Hollywood: MayFest 2003, SpringFest 2004, and ClassicsFest 2006 – dozens of workshop productions of the classics, running in repertory, with a scheduled event every night of the week over a month-long period.

These festivals were the breeding ground for productions still to come: A Tale of Charles Dickens was presented in SpringFest 2004 as a six-hour, two-part chronicle of the early life of Charles Dickens, with 26 actors playing 123 different roles, was presented in October, 2005. The show has since been condensed into a single evening, which we hope to see produced in Los Angeles. A two-hour version was taped before a live audience at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles for broadcast on NPR’s “The Play’s the Thing.” And a fully-mounted advanced workshop production of David R. Slavitt's adaptation of Seneca’s Phaedra was presented at the Getty Villa in Malibu in October, 2006.

In our Monday night monthly Potluck Reading series, we’ve presented more than 80 play readings, as well as workshops demonstrations on subjects such as Shakespeare and Commedia dell’Arte, and fully staged and costumed workshop productions.

 “A city without a classical theater ensemble is potentially a city without masterpieces.”

Dakin Matthews, quoted in L.A. THEATER MAGAZINE, May 1994

Antaeus was founded by renowned actor, scholar, translator and playwright Dakin Matthews and the equally peripatetic Lillian Groag. In 2003 Matthews, who had served as Artistic Director for more than twelve years, retired from running the Company. He found his successors in Company members John Apicella and Jeanie Hackett, who accepted the responsibility of running Antaeus as a team.

Co-Artistic Directors Apicella and Hackett, whose mutual credits span Broadway, regional theater, film, and television, recognized that Antaeus needed to move aggressively forward into a new era. With the support and energy of the membership behind them, they quickly made dramatic strides.

The past three years have seen an enormous increase in Antaeus’ public profile, through successful productions and increased fundraising; through expanding our educational mission, and through the growth of our Academy training program, out of which emerged the Academy Company, an ensemble of young actors who serve as an adjunct to the main company. New people have joined the Antaeus management team, continuing the process of steady growth and fulfilling the Company’s core mission.

We’ve expanded our Board of Directors to include community members, developed an Artistic Advisory Board, created a professional office environment, and assembled a team of business and artistic talents to successfully manage Antaeus’ many projects and to pursue the many opportunities now being offered to the Company.

We’ve reached out to community organizations and civic leaders, developing a pilot program for cooperation with Eagle Rock’s Renaissance Arts Magnet School and a long-range project with Santa Monica’s famed Virginia Avenue Project, and we’ve consistently grown our family of donors and supporters, our passionate audience, who know that an Antaeus show will be an event to remember.