John Andrews is president of The Shakespeare Guild, a cultural organization that presents the Gielgud Award for Excellence in the Dramatic Arts (a trophy that was established in 1994 at the Folger Shakespeare Library and has been presented in such venues as the Barrymore Theatre and Lincoln Center in New York and the historic Guildhall in London). He hosts Speaking of Shakespeare conversations in collaboration with the National Arts Club and The Players on Manhattan’s Gramercy Park South. He holds degrees from Princeton, Harvard and Vanderbilt, and has taught at several universities, among them Florida State and Georgetown. Andrews's publications include two Scribner reference sets on Shakespeare’s world, work and influence and two editions of the dramatist’s poems and plays, one for Doubleday’s Literary Guild and another for Orion Books in the UK.

During his decade as director of academic programs at the Folger (1974-84), Andrews edited Shakespeare Quarterly and chaired a national advisory panel for The Shakespeare Plays, a BBC/Time-Life series of the dramatist’s complete canon. He then spent three years as deputy director of education programs for the National Endowment for the Humanities and several months as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Education. In July of 2000, during a ceremony at the British Embassy, he became an honorary Officer of the British Empire (an OBE). He has lectured in Egypt, England and Japan, and his publications have appeared in The American Scholar, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. In recent months he has hosted online interviews with such luminaries as actors F. Murray Abraham, Judi Dench, and Ian McKellen, playwright David Hare, and NPR’s Susan Stamberg.