André Bishop will step down as producing artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater next year, after working at the non-profit theater company for 33 years.
Bishop will depart at the end of the theater’s 2024-2025 season and the board of Lincoln Center Theater will launch a search for his successor “in due course.” The move from Bishop, who has held the position of producing artistic director at the Lincoln Center theater since July 2013, after serving as artistic director since January 1992, marks the latest shake-up in Broadway’s nonprofit realm, which consists of four theater companies.
On Wednesday, Second Stage founder Carole Rothman announced she would leave the company after 45 years. Longtime Roundabout Theatre Company CEO and Artistic Director Todd Haimes passed away in April, and Manhattan Theatre Club Executive Producer Barry Grove announced his departure in January after 48 years with the organization.
Chris Jennings, who had previously been the executive director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C, succeeded Grove. Director Scott Ellis has stepped in as interim artistic director at Roundabout.
Bishop said he is leaving the position to allow the next generation of leadership to step in.
“My years at Lincoln Center Theater have been happy ones, and I will miss working with all my friends and colleagues. But the time has come, as it inevitably does, for the next generation to step in and step up. I look forward to that,” Bishop said. “LCT has always been a welcoming home for artists, and I know that tradition will continue. I thank the Board for their continued support, and I look forward to collaborating on a seamless transition.”
This season, Lincoln Center Theater is producing the New York premiere of The Gardens of Anuncia by Michael John LaChiusa, as well as a new translation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya by Heidi Schreck. Over the next two seasons, Lincoln Center Theater plans to produce a new play by J.T. Rogers, directed by Bartlett Sher, a new play by Ayad Akhtar and a world premiere musical.
During his tenure, Bishop has won 15 Tony Awards for Lincoln Center Theater productions, with notable productions including The Coast of Utopia, The Invention of Love and Arcadia by Tom Stoppard, Oslo and Blood and Gifts by J. T. Rogers, Disgraced by Akhtar, The Light in the Piazza by Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel, War Horse and Pipeline by Dominique Morisseau and Parade by Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown.
Lincoln Center Theater is also well-known for its revivals, which have included Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I, South Pacific and Carousel, Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot and My Fair Lady, August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and many more under Bishop’s tenure.
Bishop also led the creation of the Off-Broadway Clarie Tow Theater, which opened in 2012 as the home for the LCT3 program, which has a mission of producing new work by the next generation of artists. Those artists have included Ayad Akhtar, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Young Jean Lee, Martyna Majok, Dave Malloy, Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu and more.
“André has accomplished so much and touched so many. His leadership and artistic vision can be credited for Lincoln Center Theater’s longstanding success and impact, and our high stature among the preeminent not-for-profit performing arts organizations in America,” said Kewsong Lee, chairman of the board of directors of Lincoln Center Theater. “On behalf of the Board, I express our deepest gratitude for his devotion, insight, and care in guiding the institution. As Lincoln Center Theater prepares to celebrate its 40th anniversary, we look forward to continuing in the tradition André helped establish and welcome new leadership to guide the next era of achievement and growth.”
