NEW YORK CITY: Opening up the helm of yet another NYC nonprofit with a Tony-eligible Broadway theatre, producing artistic director André Bishop has announced plans to conclude his 33 years leading Lincoln Center Theater at the end of the 2024-25 season (the other three theatres in this class are Roundabout, Second Stage, and Manhattan Theatre Club). The Lincoln Center Theater’s board of directors will launch a search for a successor in due course to ensure a seamless, coordinated leadership transition.
Bishop’s current title, producing artistic director, is one he’s held for just 10 years, but he joined LCT as its artistic director in January 1992. His departure in June 2025 will coincide with the close of Lincoln Center Theater’s 40th anniversary season. Under Bishop’s stewardship, Lincoln Center Theater presented a wide array of award-winning productions, expanding its footprint to include a new third stage and amplifying its educational and community programs. Among Bishop’s many theatre awards are 15 Tonys for LCT productions.
“My years at Lincoln Center Theater have been happy ones, and I will miss working with all my friends and colleagues,” said Bishop in a statement. “But the time has come, as it inevitably does, for the next generation to step in and step up. I look forward to that. 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.”
In a statement, Adam Siegel, LCT’s managing director, said that Bishop’s “leadership and guidance have been invaluable to all of us at LCT. On behalf of our entire staff, we look forward to the great productions yet to come under André’s leadership over the next two years and ensuring his heart is as full as he has made ours.”
Under Bishop’s direction, Lincoln Center Theater productions have included a number of New York, U.S., and world premieres, 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 Ayad Akhtar; The Oldest Boy, In the Next Room, or the vibrator play, and The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl; Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike by Christopher Durang; the opera adaptation of Intimate Apparel by Ricky Ian Gordon and Lynn Nottage; The Royale by Marco Ramirez; The Light in the Piazza by Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel; A Free Man of Color by John Guare; Hello Again and Marie Christine by Michael John LaChiusa; The Sisters Rosensweig by Wendy Wasserstein; The Substance of Fire and Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz; Contact by Susan Stroman and John Weidman; Via Dolorosa by David Hare; Parade by Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown; A Man of No Importance by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty; 4000 Miles by Amy Herzog; War Horse; Pipeline by Dominique Morisseau; and Greater Clements by Samuel D. Hunter.
Lincoln Center Theater’s noteworthy revivals under his aegis include the William Finn and James Lapine musical Falsettos; 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; Clifford Odets’s Awake and Sing! and Golden Boy; Edward Albee’s Seascape and A Delicate Balance; Shakespeare’s Henry IV; Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth; Paul Osborn’s Morning’s at Seven; The Heiress by Ruth and Augustus Goetz; and Abe Lincoln in Illinois by Robert E. Sherwood.
Bishop’s expansion of Lincoln Center Theater’s programming and outreach included the creation of the Claire Tow Theater on top of the Beaumont at Lincoln Center Theater, and the LCT3 program, whose mission is to produce new work by the next generation of theatre artists and engage new audiences. LCT3 has to date produced 34 new works by artists such as Ayad Akhtar, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Samuel D. Hunter, Nathan Louis Jackson, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Julia May Jonas, Zoe Kazan, Young Jean Lee, Martyna Majok, Dave Malloy, Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu, Aya Ogawa, and Bryna Turner.
Bishop also oversaw the growth of Lincoln Center Theater’s education program, Open Stages, which nurtures deep partnerships with schools that lack the resources to sustain arts programming. More than 100,000 New York City public school students have benefited from the outreach and impact of Open Stages. Additionally, there is the cherished Lincoln Center Theater Review, the theatregoers’ companion to the work on LCT’s stages. The literary magazine’s contributing writers are tasked to question and reflect on the issues and ideas generated by each work to further inform and entertain audiences.
Before arriving at Lincoln Center Theater, Bishop served as Playwrights Horizons’ artistic director for 10 years and as its literary manager for 6.
Lincoln Center Theater was established in 1985 under the direction of Gregory Mosher and Bernard Gersten. As of 2022, its budget was approximately $46.6 million.
