Lawrence Harbison is an editor for play publisher Samuel French, Inc. He has attended the Humana Festival for 25 years.

When I first went to Louisville in to attend something called the Humana Festival, in 1980 I think, as a representative of Samuel French, I was greeted by a cheery, lovely woman who made me feel exceedingly welcome. This is one of my fondest memories of the festival—the hospitality one always experiences when going there.

Over the years, I have seen many fine plays and many fine productions at Humana. Many of these plays have been published by Samuel French and gone on to production all over the world. What matters to me most, though, is the feeling of community one experiences at Humana. That "we’re-all-in-this-together" feeling between theatre artists and their audience, which is the closest thing I can think of to what the Festival of Dionysus must have been like in ancient Athens. All of us together in a ritualized examination of various matters which seek to define who we are as a culture.

Once, I was having breakfast with Jon Jory in the down stairs restaurant. He asked me, as he always asked everyone, what I thought of that particular festival so far. I surprised him by saying I had a complaint to make: There just weren’t enough plays to see. "You see that fellow sitting over there in the corner?" Jory said, pointing to a man sitting at a nearby table. "That’s Paul Owen. Why dontcha go over there and say that to him?" Which, of course, I did, much to the amusement of the good natured Mr. Owen, whose incredible sets have been one of the many glories of the festival over the years. Who can forget Paul’s sprawling trash dump on the stage of the Pamela Brown Theatre for Middle Aged White Guys, capable of being struck in—what?—15 minutes to make room for the next play in that theatre. Unbelievable.

Thanks for the memories, Humana.