André Bishop Will Step Down as Artistic Director of Lincoln Center Theater

André Bishop today announced plans to conclude his celebrated 33-year leadership tenure at Lincoln Center Theater upon completion of the theater’s 2024-25 season.

The Lincoln Center Theater Board of Directors will launch a search for a successor in due course to ensure a seamless, coordinated leadership transition.

Bishop is the second longtime not-for-profit head to step down this week, as Second Stage's Carole Rothman announced that she will leave after 45 years.

Bishop has served as Producing Artistic Director of Lincoln Center Theater since July 2013, and first joined the organization as 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 flourished as a premier cultural institution, presenting a wide array of award-winning productions, expanding its footprint, and amplifying its educational and community programs. A 2012 Theater Hall of Fame inductee, Bishop has won numerous theater awards, including 15 Tony Awards for Lincoln Center Theater productions.

“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.”

Mr. Bishop said, “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.  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.”

Adam Siegel, Lincoln Center Theater’s Managing Director, said, “André 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 memorable 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’ 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 oversaw the expansion of Lincoln Center Theater’s programming and outreach.  Among his many significant achievements, he is proudest of leading 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 theater artists and engage new audiences.  LCT3 has, to date, produced thirty-four 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 directed 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 one hundred thousand 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 theatergoers’ thoughtful 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 ten years and as its Literary Manager for six.  His many successful productions at that theater included the original productions of three Pulitzer Prize winners: The Heidi Chronicles, Driving Miss Daisy, and Sunday in the Park with George. 

Lincoln Center Theater’s current season includes the New York premiere of The Gardens of Anuncia, a new musical by Michael John LaChiusa, featuring direction and co-choreography by Graciela Daniele, at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater; the LCT3 production of Daphne, a new play by Renae Simone Jarrett, directed by Sarah Hughes, at the Claire Tow Theater; and a new translation of Anton Chekhov’s classic Uncle Vanya by Heidi Schreck, directed by Lila Neugebauer at the Vivian Beaumont Theater.  Over the next two seasons, Lincoln Center Theater, under the direction of Bishop, will also produce a new play by J.T. Rogers, directed by Bartlett Sher; a new play by Ayad Akhtar; a world premiere musical; and additional programming to be announced in the coming months.

Lincoln Center Theater was established in 1985 under the direction of Gregory Mosher and Bernard Gersten. Now celebrating its 39th year, LCT is one of New York’s favorite not-for-profit theaters, with productions at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont, Mitzi E. Newhouse and Claire Tow theaters and other theaters on and off Broadway, as well as touring productions nationally and around the world, TV and film projects and original cast recordings. In addition to its full-scale productions, Lincoln Center Theater also develops new work and encourages emerging artists through play readings and workshops. Open Stages, LCT’s education program, reaches thousands of New York City public school students with curriculum-related projects, tickets to LCT productions and a middle and high school Shakespeare program. The Theater also publishes the literary magazine, the Lincoln Center Theater Review, which explores subjects related to its productions. In the fall of 2008, the Theater inaugurated LCT3, which is dedicated to producing new work by the next generation of theater artists and bringing new audiences to Lincoln Center Theater. Visit us online at www.LCT.org, visit our channel on YouTube, follow @LCTheater on X and Instagram and find LCT on Facebook.

Photo Credit: Chasi Annexy