Michael Hackett
In Memoriam
Michael Hackett was a professor of directing and theater history.
He directed for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden; the Royal Theatre at The Hague; the Centrum Sztuki Studio and Dramatyczny Theatre in Warsaw; the Santa Fe Short Story Festival; the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl; Los Angeles Opera (children’s series); the Getty Center and Getty Villa; Musica Angelica; the Antaeus Company; the Geffen Playhouse; the Hammer Museum; and 15 radio productions for L.A. Theatre Works, including Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest with Charles Busch (which was nominated for two Audie Awards). He served as the artistic producer for Robert Wilson’s King Lear at Studio One, Metromedia in Hollywood, and co-produced, with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, two radio plays directed by Peter Sellars.
Hackett taught at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art for three years, where he co-designed and instituted a music-drama program and gave lecture-demonstrations for the Royal College of Music. He also led workshops for the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. For 15 years, he directed Greek chorus workshops and presentations for the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center.
Familiar to opera audiences in Southern California, Hackett lectured extensively for Los Angeles Opera and, for these activities, received the Fifth Annual Peter Hemmings Award from the Opera League of Los Angeles. He also conducted more than 70 arts-related interviews for classical radio KUSC and lectured at the Huntington Museum of Art, the Norton Simon Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Costume Council), the Hammer Museum, the Craft and Folk Art Museum, and the Getty Research Institute. He served as co-editor and wrote the introduction for Five Plays by Carlo Goldoni (University of Toronto Press) for the Lorenzo da Ponte Italian Library.
He directed five productions in Poland: in addition to work at the Dramatyczny and Studio Theatres, he directed for the Third and Sixth International Gombrowicz Theatre Festivals in Radom and at the Ninth International Theatre Confrontations Festival in Lublin. His adaptation of Gombrowicz’s short story Virginity—based on a translation by Anna Krajewska-Wieczorek and starring Barbara Krafftowna—was performed at the Gombrowicz Festival in Lublin, at the Slowacki Theatre in Krakow, the Lodz Cultural Center, and the National Theatre in Warsaw. He taught for the Theater Academy in Warsaw and gave guest lectures for the Krakow Theater Academy and the University of Warsaw (Fulbright Fellowship and United States Information Agency). A short documentary focusing on his first three productions in Warsaw was shown on Polish National Television. His adaptation, with Anna Krajewska-Wieczorek, of Gombrowicz’s A Feast at Countess Kotlubay’s, also featuring Barbara Krafftowna, was published by Yale Theater Magazine as part of the Gombrowicz centenary celebration.
In March 2020, he was awarded the Witkacy Prize by the Polish Centre of the International Theatre Institute for “outstanding achievements in promoting Polish theater in the world.”
Hackett earned a B.A. in English from Boston College and received his Ph.D. in Drama and the Humanities from Stanford University. He passed away on December 14, 2025.
