Lincoln Center Theatre, a leading nonprofit theater with a long track record of producing luxe Broadway musical revivals as well as contemporary plays, has chosen new leadership for the first time in more than three decades.
The theater’s next artistic director will be 44-year-old Lear deBassonnet, who specializes in musical revivals. Artistic Director Encores! Program at New York City Center. DeBassonette will succeed Andre Bishop, who has led Lincoln Center Theater since 1992, most recently taking on the title of artistic director; it is Retired in June.
DeBassonette will work with Bartlett Sher, 65, a Tony-winning director who is the institute’s director-in-residence, and who will now assume the title of executive producer. DeBassonette will select and oversee the theater’s shows and its day-to-day operations; Sher will focus on strategic planning, fundraising and global partnerships. They will both report to Board Chairman Kewsong Lee.
In an interview, DeBassonette said there was “no bigger job I can imagine” than running the Lincoln Center Theater. “American theater is the great passion of my life,” she said. “I’ve wanted to be a director and run a theater since I was 5 in Baton Rouge.”
The changes come amid a tidal wave of turnover across American theater, prompted by a variety of factors including the retirement of several regional and off-Broadway theater leaders, as well as the ousting of several leaders who have lost patronage. Across the industry, leaders are facing a new reality: These jobs have become increasingly challenging due to rising costs for nonprofits, shrinking audiences, pressure for feature programming that advances social justice but also sells tickets, and changing entertainment consumption habits.
With an annual budget of about $40 million and about 55 employees, Lincoln Center Theater says it is financially healthy at a time when much of the industry is struggling.
“Lincoln Center Theater is the most profitable for-profit theater in America, with a significant endowment and strong resources,” Lee said. “We’re in good shape, but not immune to the challenges the industry is facing, which is why it’s so important for our new leadership to enable us to evolve and change.”
The theater’s Tony-winning productions include revivals of the musicals “The King and I” and “South Pacific” and stagings of the plays “Oslo” and “The Coast of Utopia.” its The latest Broadway production, “McNeil,” The AI themed drama starring Robert Downey Jr. is now in previews.
It has the only Broadway stage not located in Midtown—the Vivian Beaumont, which is on the Lincoln Center campus on the Upper West Side. The organization has an off-Broadway stage, the Mitzi E. There’s also the Newhouse Theater and a rooftop Off-Broadway venue, the Claire Tow Theatre.
DeBassonette, a native of Baton Rouge, La., has been around for a long time A proponent of the idea that theater can build community and more social change. This interest led her to create Public Works Program of the Public Theatre: Musical pageants adapted from classic works and featuring a mix of professional and amateur performers. Many of those productions, often staged outside around Labor Day, have been artistically successful, and the program has been adopted by other theaters across the country and in Britain.
Her tenure in Encores! It has been a bit of a roller coaster. She started in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, and her initial productions Impressed critics And Alienated some Audience members who felt politics were being prioritized over storytelling. But she found her feet with an enthusiastically received revival of “.Into the Woods” which transferred to Broadway, and followed with one success after another; Its encores! Production ofOnce upon a mattress” is now playing on Broadway. She has committed to directing one more production for Encores!Ragtime“This fall.
In recent years she has become increasingly interested in the idea that the arts can create public health benefits, and she envisions this summer’s 18-city Art for everyone The project is modeled after the Federal Theater Project.
What does she hope to accomplish at Lincoln Center Theater? “I feel very passionate about keeping strong the great legacy Andre created,” she said, “creating new plays, new musicals, revivals and classics in a rich balance.” She also hopes to “focus on making theater that’s an event—something distinctly different from watching Netflix on your couch.”
She said she would like to broaden, but not change, the theater’s audience. “People create a false binary: ‘Do you want to keep the audience that’s there or find a new audience?'” she said. “I want everyone to keep coming and feel satisfied and happy before coming to Lincoln Center Theater, and I also want to continue to expand the embrace. I don’t see those things as opposites.
“I’m mainly here to support Lear,” said Sher, who has directed at Lincoln Center Theater for two decades and been on staff for 15 years. He said he believed his experience would allow him to provide a measure of continuity with the change in leadership, and also said he wanted to “give back” to the theater industry by helping it secure its finances.
Both DeBassonette and Sher said they expect to continue directing the show.
Lincoln Center Theater is one of four nonprofits that has its own Broadway house, and is the second of those to name new leadership this year. Second Stage Theater recently named Evan Cabnet (who previously ran Lincoln Center Theatre’s Off Off Broadway programming) as its new artistic director after a 45-year tenure. Carol Rothman; The Roundabout Theater Company is expected to soon name a successor to Todd Haims, who ran the theater for 40 years. His death last year. The Manhattan Theater Club is led by Lynn Meadow, who has run that organization for more than 50 years.
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