Aspen is a place for leaders to lift their sights above the possessions which possess them. To confront their own nature as human beings, to regain control over their own humanity by becoming more self-aware, more self-correcting, and hence more self-fulfilling.
2020/21 Harman/Eisner Artist in Residence
Oskar Eustis
Oskar Eustis has served as the artistic director of The Public Theater since 2005, after serving as the artistic director at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI from 1994 to 2005. Throughout his career, Eustis has been dedicated to the development of new work that speaks to the great issues of our time and has worked with countless artists in pursuit of that aim, including Tony Kushner, Suzan-Lori Parks, David Henry Hwang, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Richard Nelson, Rinne Groff, Tarell Alvin McCraney, and Lisa Kron. He is currently a professor at New York University and has held professorships at UCLA, Middlebury College, and Brown University.
How can Shakespeare continue to provide lessons for today and tomorrow? Staged in theaters across the country, read by almost every student, and valued across ideologies, Shakespeare’s plays are rare common ground in the United States. Two experts on the Bard — Public Theater Artistic Director (and Aspen Institute Harman/Eisner Artist in Residence) Oskar Eustis and author, professor, and Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro — explore our most produced and impactful dramatist’s work in context with some of the themes of this 2022 Aspen Ideas Festival.
