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Productions in S.F., San Diego : Stage Director Allen Fletcher Dies at 63

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Allen Fletcher, a director particularly well known in dramatic circles for stage productions in San Francisco, Seattle, Denver and San Diego, has died in Denver at the age of 63 after a long battle against a rare blood disease.

Fletcher, who last year became head of the National Theatre Conservatory at the Denver Center Theatre Company, died Wednesday.

Earlier he had been artistic director of the Seattle Repertory Theatre, moving to San Francisco in 1967 to work with the American Conservatory Theatre.

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Although Fletcher directed such ACT productions as “Arsenic and Old Lace,” “The Ruling Class” and several Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller plays, he established his major reputation as a translator and director of the works of Henrik Ibsen, seven of which were presented by ACT. His production of “Peer Gynt” was so popular it ran for two seasons in San Francisco.

In all, he staged 35 plays for ACT.

He also directed shows at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, San Diego’s Old Globe, the New York City and San Francisco opera companies, the American Shakespeare Festival in Connecticut and the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts in Solvang, Calif.

Fletcher, who received a master’s degree from Stanford University, taught at Purdue University and the Carnegie Institute of Technology, which has graduated many leading contemporary stage directors.

Fletcher’s wife, actress Anne Lawder, said her husband’s illness stemmed from a blood disease that aggravated an infected foot. Complications from pneumonia were blamed for his death.

In San Francisco, ACT General Director William Ball said Fletcher had been asked to direct Noel Coward’s “Private Lives” for ACT’s coming season and also teach a class on Ibsen.

In addition to his wife, Fletcher is survived by a son, Jack, and a daughter, Julia.

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