TheaterWorks Hartford is a non-profit, professional theater company situated on Pearl Street in downtown

Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...

. The company was founded in 1985 by Steve Campo and is currently run by Rob Ruggiero who serves as Producing Artistic Director. Since its founding in 1985, TheaterWorks Hartford has produced over 130 plays and presents approximately 225 performances per season. On average, TheaterWorks Hartford’s annual audience tops 40,000 of which more than 5,000 are subscribers.

Notable Productions

In their 1986-1987 season, TheaterWorks Hartford produced Edward Albee's ''

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' is a play by Edward Albee first staged in October 1962. It examines the complexities of the marriage of a middle-aged couple, Martha and George. Late one evening, after a university faculty party, they receive ...

'' Albee and Campo, being friends, frequently collaborated, and in 2004 TheaterWorks Hartford produced another of Albee's plays, ''The Goat or Who is Sylvia?'' In 2008, TheaterWorks Hartford produced David Harrower's play ''Blackbird'', which the Berkshire Eagle praised as "carefully calibrated, yet nonetheless riveting." In the same year, Jeremy Jordan and Chad Allen starred in ''

The Little Dog Laughed ''The Little Dog Laughed'' is a 2006 comedy play by Douglas Carter Beane. The four characters are an actor, Mitchell, his acerbic agent Diane, a hustler named Alex, and Alex's girlfriend Ellen. When Mitchell and Alex become involved in a physica ...

'', directed by Rob Ruggiero. The year before, but in the same season, Campo directed '' Doubt: A Parable''. TheaterWorks Hartford produced the

John Cariani John Edward Cariani (born July 23, 1969) is an American actor and playwright. Cariani is best known as the unwavering forensic expert Julian Beck in ''Law & Order''. On stage, he earned a Tony Award nomination for his role as Motel the Tailor in t ...

play ''

Almost, Maine ''Almost, Maine'' is a play by John Cariani, comprising nine short plays that explore love and loss in a remote, mythical almost-town called Almost, Maine. It premiered at the Portland Stage Company in Portland, Maine in 2004, where it broke ...

'' in 2013, a production called "lovely, witty," by the New York Times, and the next year produced ''Love/Sick'' by the same playwright. In 2017, TheaterWorks Hartford produced the rock musical hit ''

Next to Normal ''Next to Normal'' (stylized in all lowercase) is a 2008 American rock musical with book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey and music by Tom Kitt. The story centers on a mother who struggles with worsening bipolar disorder and the effects that managing ...

'' under the direction of Rob Ruggiero. The show originally ran from March 24 through April 30 before extending through May 14 of the same year in light of its great success. The show starred Christiane Noll as Diana Goodman, alongside David Harris as Dan Goodman. The cast also included Maya Keleher, John Cardoza, J.D. Daw, and Nick Sacks. The production garnered 10 nominations for the 2017 Connecticut Critic Circle Choice Awards, and won the awards for Outstanding Production of a Musical, Outstanding Actress in a Musical (Noll), Outstanding Director of a Musical, Outstanding Lighting, and Outstanding Debut (Keleher). Joseph Harrison of BroadwayWorld wrote that the production "goes beyond entertainment, reaching in and touching you to your very core in a brilliant symphony of emotional energy." The Hartford Courant praised the show for "being done with such careful thought and expressive detail in such an intimate environment raises this already confrontational musical to a different level of emotional intensity" and praised Noll for being "a fearless performer hocan switch from indomitability to vulnerability in a split second."

Building

TheaterWorks City Arts on Pearl, Hartford CT

The historic Art Deco Building at 233 Pearl Street was built in 1927. TheaterWorks operated in the building in the 1980s, finally purchasing it outright in 1993. In 2008, the building was renamed City Arts on Pearl. TheaterWorks converted the building into an arts center, now home to numerous nonprofit organizations as well as performance, gallery, office, rehearsal, and storage spaces. The theater itself is in the basement of the building and is a small intimate space. It seats 195 people and is only 8 rows back in any direction. The large, brick building is in

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style with decorative

Moorish Revival Moorish Revival or Neo-Moorish is one of the exotic revival architectural styles that were adopted by architects of Europe and the Americas in the wake of Romanticist Orientalism. It reached the height of its popularity after the mid-19th centur ...

touches.Tom Condon
Staging A One-Man Revival, TheaterWorks Founder's Vision, Effort Produces Hartford Arts Linchpin On Pearl Street
Hartford Courant, February 15, 2009

References

External links

Official website
Moorish Revival architecture in Connecticut Theatre companies in Connecticut Art Deco architecture in Connecticut Hartford, Connecticut 1985 establishments in Connecticut Theatres completed in 1927 {{US-theat-stub