Operation 'Macbeth': how the Alabama Shakespeare Festival took the front line in a new cultural campaign.

American Theatre, February, 2005 by Thompson, Kent

THE CALL CAME WHILE I WAS REHEARSING Noises Off in March of 2003. Gigi Bolt, director of the theatre program at the National Endowment for the Arts, told me that she was calling at the request of the chairman, Dana Gioia, to propose an unusual project: If the NEA could work out the necessary funding, would the Alabama Shakespeare Festival be interested in touring its future production of Macbeth to U.S. military bases? I was taken aback, but after a moment replied, "Well, sure.... but why?"

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Gigi said the chairman wanted to create national initiatives that would reinvent the image of the NEA--and the "Shakespeare in American Communities" program was the first and boldest of these. The chairman was working hard on Capitol...

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