How the Globe Acquired ‘Husbands’

Timing, coincidence and common friends were everything in the Old Globe Theatre’s acquisition of Richard Wilbur’s latest translation, “The School for Husbands.”

The Globe had originally scheduled the West Coast premiere of Jon Robin Baitz’s “Substance of Fire” in this slot. Then the Globe’s smoldering conflict with the Dramatists Guild flared. The theater has refused to sign a standard minimum contract with the guild, preferring to negotiate with its playwrights on an individual basis. As early as last summer, Baitz, a member of the guild, declared himself unwilling to work with a theater that was not a signatory to the organization.

Jack O’Brien, artistic director of the Globe, was looking for a replacement when he heard that Wilbur had just embarked on his fifth Moliere translation.

The man he heard it from was Brian Bedford, who on Friday received raves for “Two Shakespearean Actors”--which O’Brien directed and opened on Broadway on Thursday.

Bedford, a close friend of Wilbur’s, also just happens to be the man to whom Wilbur dedicated his new translation.

Then, too, O’Brien said from New York, it helped that Wilbur shared the same agent--Gilbert Parker-- with Globe associate artist A. R. Gurney and Terrence McNally, who had premiered “Up in Saratoga” at the theater.

Calls were made, papers were signed, and soon the Globe was to have “the major coup,” as O’Brien puts it, of Wilbur making his Globe debut.

“I’m not sure how it happened,” Wilbur said. “But I can’t wait to see what the Old Globe will do with it.”