"Laurie Anderson, Leslie Odom Jr. from Hamilton was here a couple of years ago. It was fantastic. Judd Hirsch. I got a chance to drive in my car with Charles Durning and Jack Klugman, two character actors that I admired all my life. It was a surreal experience.When I got here, I started to do some of the Shakespeare plays, working sometimes with kids from the community and professional artists. Michael Nathanson played Hamlet with us in 2005. Alec Baldwin, Eric Bogosian, Jeffrey Tambor, Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach, who lived in East Hampton about two blocks from here. They were involved in the John Drew Theater from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Through much of their lives, they were lifetime performers at Guild Hall, always in the summer doing a little something. Eli worked up until his 90s, and he was still working, as sharp as a tack. There have been so many artists here. Two summers ago, Questlove was here interviewing Jerry Seinfield on the stage and Alec Baldwin has been our board president for a number of years. He liked the renovations. He liked the show that Harris Yulin did with Amy Irving. He loved The Glass Menagerie and he loved the renovation. So he said, I want to get involved with you guys. The Hamptons is a wonderfully welcoming place to make art. I think going back to the time of Jackon Pollock and before him the tile painters, this has been an artist colony. And I think there is still a spirit of that around."

Josh Gladstone has served as Artistic Director of the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall since 2000 where most recently he directed Alec Baldwin, Blair Underwood and Rob Morrow in the comedy Stan The Man by Eugene Pack, and acted alongside Mercedes Ruehl and F. Murray Abraham in Jules Feiffer’s A Bad Friend, an evening celebrating the playwright’s 90th birthday. At the Drew he’s directed and produced such plays as Romeo & Juliet, Extinction, Steve Martin’s The Underpants, All My Sons starring Laurie Metcalf and Alec Baldwin; Clever Little Lies starring Marlo Thomas; Tony Walton’s productions of Tonight at 8:30 starring Blythe Danner, Equus starring Alec Baldwin and Moby Dick Rehearsed starring Peter Boyle; and The Glass Menagerie starring Amy Irving. Regional credits include Children’s Theatre Co.; Shakespeare Theatre, DC; and four seasons as Artistic Director of Hamptons Shakespeare Festival.

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