The Acting Company's Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at Guthrie Theater

Guthrie Theater is at Dowling Studio, 818 South 2nd Street, Minneapolis, MN.

The Guthrie Theater opened on May 7, 1963, with a production of Hamlet directed by Sir Tyrone Guthrie, the theater’s founder. The idea for a different kind of theater sparked in 1959 during a series of conversations among Guthrie, an acclaimed theater director, and his two colleagues, Oliver Rea and Peter Zeisler, who were all disenchanted with Broadway. They envisioned a resident theater that would draw world-class artists to perform the classics with the highest professional standards. What began as a summer season of four productions supported by a minimal staff is now a complex organization that serves nearly 350,000 patrons and the Twin Cities community year-round.