Guthrie Theater names Joseph Haj as new artistic director

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The Tony Award-winning Guthrie Theater announced Tuesday that Joseph Haj has been named artistic director of the Minneapolis organization, one of the key regional theaters in the nation.

Haj, 51, comes to the Guthrie from the University of North Carolina's PlayMakers Repertory Company. The award-winning theater director who acted on the Guthrie stage 25 years ago was chosen after a year-long search to replace Joe Dowling, who is leaving the Guthrie after two decades.

"I'm stepping into a thriving organization, a successful organization," Haj told a crowd of staff, supporters and media gathered at the Guthrie on Tuesday.

He said his time at PlayMakers, a professional theater housed at the university in Chapel Hill, was "a turnaround job." The Guthrie is about 10 times the size of PlayMakers, where Haj oversaw a schedule of about 10 productions per season since taking over as producing artistic director in 2006.

Haj has also directed throughout the U.S., including at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Kentucky, and the Folger Theater in Washington, D.C.

Dowling, who oversaw the theater's move into its $125 million three-stage complex overlooking the Mississippi River, called Haj an "inspiring and inspired choice."

"I feel good about the past and even better about the future," Dowling said before Haj was introduced.

Haj, who takes over July 1, praised Dowling's "exceptional legacy." When asked about his own vision, Haj replied "yeah" to laughter.

"Obviously, it's an enormous question," Haj said, adding later that the theater should be responsive to what is going on in the world and the community. Theater entertains while also being "in service to something," he said.

An Arab-American, Haj was born to Palestinian immigrant parents in Paterson, New Jersey, and grew up in Miami. He made his Guthrie acting debut in a production of Jean Genet's "The Screens" in the 1989-90 season under former artistic director Garland Wright.

Haj was a 2014 recipient of The Zelda Fichandler Award, named after a founder of the American regional theater movement, and was named by American Theatre magazine as one of the 25 theater artists who will have a significant impact on the field in the next quarter century.

In an interview, Haj told The Associated Press it "feels thrilling" to rise from actor to artistic leader of the Guthrie. The not-for-profit employs 140 full-time employees and 80 part-time workers, and ended the fiscal year with a nearly $250,000 surplus after ending the 2012-13 season with a $437,000 deficit.

"This is one of the world's great theater facilities," Haj said. And while he did not specify which works he might have planned, Haj said there was no shortage in plays he liked and stressed the need for an eclectic and diverse program.

The late Irish stage director Sir Tyrone Guthrie founded his namesake theater in Minneapolis in 1963.

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Online:

Guthrie Theater: http://www.guthrietheater.org

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