Craig Noel

"[1] The Old Globe began as an attraction at Balboa Park's 1935 California Pacific International Exposition with the presentation of 50-minute versions of Shakespeare plays.

He never left, personally directing more than 200 productions, producing 270 more, and building the Globe into a theatrical powerhouse which won the Tony Award for best regional theater in 1984.

He created the San Diego National Shakespeare Festival in 1949, making the Globe the first professional Actors Equity theater on the West Coast.

[6] He fostered the careers of numerous actors and directors who later achieved fame, including Jack O'Brien, Marion Ross, David Ogden Stiers, Kelsey Grammer, Kandis Chappell and Jonathan McMurtry.

In 2007, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts for his ”decades of leadership as a pillar of the American theater.”[5] He died April 3, 2010, at the age of 94 at his home in San Diego.