Arts Agenda - Boarding the Express

Actor’s Express

has named Jasson Minadakis to replace Wier Harman as the artistic director of one of Atlanta’s most acclaimed theater companies.

For the past nine years, Minadakis has been the producing artistic director of the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival. Kirk Rich, chairman of the Actor’s Express board of directors, says that Minadakis’ leadership abilities made him stand out from the other 20 candidates who were given serious consideration in the theater’s nationwide search. “He co-founded the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival and built it into a major arts organization,” Rich says. “We felt strongly that he was someone who could come in and point out where our systems are weak as a business, and take us to the next level. And we think he’ll be a huge benefit to the Atlanta theater scene, like Wier was.”

Originally from Richmond, Va., Minadakis received his bachelor’s degree in English and theater from James Madison University before moving to Cincinnati to found the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival (originally called Fahrenheit Theatre Company) in 1993. Though Minadakis has directed a great deal of Shakespeare and other classics at the theater, he also programmed such edgy fare as Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train.

“He’s an incredibly seasoned director,” says Rich. “He has a keen understanding of classics, but takes an approach like Actor’s Express founder Chris Coleman would do, of taking a classic and putting it in a contemporary world.”

Minadakis takes the position effective immediately, but will be “officially welcomed” to the theater on the March 30 opening night of Atlanta playwright Steve Murray’s Manna, directed by Wier Harman.