Tony Simotes Appointed Shakespeare & Company’s New Artistic Director

Tony Simotes has been appointed as the incoming Artistic Director of the Berkshires-based Shakespeare & Company. Simotes will join the company full time on June 1.

Simotes will lead the planning for the company’s 2010-2011 season, while the company’s Founding Artistic Director, Tina Packer, will focus on the long-term vision of the company. This work will include codifying the company’s training and performance techniques, and building a historically accurate reproduction of the Elizabethan-era Rose Theatre.

Simotes co-founded the company with Packer and other artists in 1978. Throughout his career, he has worked as an actor, director, fight director and choreographer, as well as a tenured professor and director of the University Theater at the University of Wisconsin.

For more information about Shakespeare & Company, visit shakespeare.org.