Co-Founder And Executive Director Sheila Lewandowski Departs The Chocolate Factory

It is with mixed emotions and profound gratitude that The Chocolate Factory Theater announces the departure of its Co-Founder and Executive Director Sheila Lewandowski, after more than twenty years of dedicated service to the Queens-based incubator for experimental performance. Lewandowski will step down on June 30, 2025.

In her role as Founding Executive Director, Lewandowski was an artistic collaborator on many of the organization's projects (including many works preceding the opening of the venue itself); and grew the organization from a tiny volunteer-led operation with a $25k annual budget to an established incubator for experimental performance with a full-time staff of five, a $1+million annual budget, and an international reputation for the quality and impact of its programs. Lewandowski's tireless advocacy efforts over decades led to the purchase of the organization's new permanent facility in Long Island City in 2017, and have profoundly impacted the performing arts field as a whole. 

The Chocolate Factory's Board of Directors state: 

“With gratitude, the Board of The Chocolate Factory has accepted Sheila Lewandowski's decision to step back from the leadership of The Chocolate Factory. Since founding the organization with Brian Rogers more than two decades ago, she has been a champion of this institution's potential.”

“Indefatigable, fierce, and visionary, Sheila not only led The Chocolate Factory but has become a leader in the field. Further - her work did not end at our doors - she has been a passionate believer in the future of our neighbourhood and borough - its diverse residents, businesses, and creative possibilities.”

“Sheila's advocacy with governments across multiple administrations and other funders has led The Chocolate Factory to its new home, and positioned it beautifully to soon commence a renovation, honouring its idiosyncratic spaces while creating a center for artists and audiences into the future. This will extend the vital role this small, but mighty institution will play in the evolution of the performing arts in Long Island City and New York. The Chocolate Factory will always be a home for artists - in our content, and in our process. Thank you Sheila.”

Lewandowski states: 

I will forever be a founder along with the Artistic Director Brian Rogers who was my former life, artmaking and work partner. Today, I am choosing to celebrate what comes next for The Chocolate Factory without me at the helm.”

“I have such gratitude for the artists who dedicate their lives to making and sharing their work. It is through culture and the arts that we can know one another, challenge oppression, change minds, laugh, cry, dance, sing and be alive. The Chocolate Factory is a place for such sharing and it needs to continue and to be supported. I will always support it.” 

Upon Lewandowski's departure in June 2025, Co-Founder and Artistic Director Brian Rogers will assume the role of Artistic Executive Director; with long-time team members Madeline Best and Regine Pieters taking on new leadership responsibilities. 

Concurrently, The Chocolate Factory will launch a multi-year process of evaluation and re-visioning. As we plan for the departure of our founding ED (and for a capital renovation which will necessitate the closure of our facility for several years, presenting short term challenges and long term rewards) - and simultaneously anticipates an uncertain and downward-shifting funding landscape - we deeply understand that our ways of working, and being, will need to fundamentally change. This moment of transition, and the likelihood that The Chocolate Factory will need to restructure and refocus if it hopes to survive and continue to meaningfully support its artistic community, makes this  is an ideal and necessary moment for the organization to deeply consider everything about itself, and to plan for a sustainable - and perhaps very different - path forward.

Rogers states: “Sheila is part of the DNA of The Chocolate Factory, and that can never change. We built this place together, and it's now much bigger than either of us, and better than I could have hoped for.”