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.