Shakespeare & Co. Taps New Chairman

Mescon with his wife at a gala last summer NEW CHAIRMAN AT SHAKESPEARE & COMPANY The acclaimed Lenox-Mass.-based Shakespeare & Company, which mounts original productions, trains actors in Shakespearean technique (including swordfighting), and runs theater programs for high school students, has named a new chairman, Richard Mescon. A retired commercial litigation lawyer who began his career as a prosecutor takes the helm as the company finishes a new theater created out of a major renovation of an existing building on its campus. (The theater will be christened this summer with a private performance by the company's founder, Tina Packer, of her one-woman show "Shirley Valentine," but will not formally open until 2009.) Mr. Mescon said he "got interested in and enthusiastic about the work of this company" about 4 or 5 years ago and has over those years assumed greater responsibility as a board member, most recently as vice chairman. "I'm an educated layman," the Cornell and Columbia graduate told me over the telephone when I interviewed him last June, when the theater project was announced. One of the goals of the new theater is to generate additional revenue from the productions staged there. But there's still a dream project on the to-do list: the building of the Rose Footprint theater modeled after one of the theaters Shakespeare himself used -- an idea of Ms. Packer's that has been stuck in the planning phases for years due to financial limitations. "That will be a larger international effort. You have to walk before you can run," Mr. Mescon said. Please see www.shakespeare.org for information about the upcoming season.