The Guthrie Theater (1990)

One scholar has called the earliest regional theatres "acorn theatres," meaning that they grew somewhat randomly, from very small, scattered, and uncertain origins. In his book Regional Theatre: The Revolutionary Stage (University of Minnesota Press, 1973, p. 65), Joseph Wesley Zeigler contrasts these "acorn theatres" with another type of regional theatre that emerged in the early 1960's: "theatres sanctioned by the power structure of communities, large and famous from their inception - theatres which were, in short, 'oak trees,' planted fully grown." He characterizes the fundamental differences between the "acorns" and "oak trees" as follows: Institutionally, the difference was in scope. The early acorn theatres were started by anonymous people seeking places in which to work and to define their own untested talents. Their anonymity forced them to start small, to work with no money and no power and with people as unknown as themselves. The oak tree theatres, corning at the time of the