Actors Theatre of Louisville is a non-profit performing arts theater located in downtown Louisville, Kentucky.Actors Theatre was founded in 1964 following the merging of two local companies, Actors', Inc and Theatre Louisville, operated by Louisville natives Ewel Cornett and Richard Block. Designated as the "State Theater of Kentucky" in 1974, the theater has emerged as one of America's most consistently innovative professional theater companies, with an annual attendance of 150,000.The theater presents almost 400 performances annually and delivers a broad range of programming, including classics and contemporary work through the Brown-Forman Series, holiday plays, a series of free theatrical events produced by the Apprentice/Intern Company, and the Humana Festival of New American Plays—the premier new play festival in the nation, which has introduced nearly 450 plays into the American theatre repertoire over the past 39 years. In addition, the theater provides more than 17,000 arts experiences each year to students across the region through its education department, and boasts one of the nation's most prestigious continuing pre-professional resident training companies, the Apprentice/Intern Company, now approaching its 44th year.The theater has been the recipient of some of the most prestigious awards bestowed on a regional theatre, including a Tony® Award for Distinguished Achievement, the James N. Vaughan Memorial Award for Exceptional Achievement and Contribution to the Development of Professional Theatre, and the Margo Jones Award for the Encouragement of New Plays. The theater has toured to 29 cities and 15 countries worldwide, totaling more than 1,400 appearances internationally. Currently, there are more than 50 published books of plays and criticism from the theater in circulation—including anthologies of Humana Festival plays, volumes of ten-minute plays and monologues, and essays, scripts and lectures from the Brown-Forman Classics in Context Festival. Numerous plays first produced at the theater have also been published as individual acting editions, and have been printed in many other anthologies, magazines and journals—making an enduring contribution to American dramatic.