Williamstown Theatre Festival Names Jenny Gersten New Artisitc Director

Williamstown Theatre Festival (Nicholas Martin, Artistic Director; Joe Finnegan, General Manager) announced today that Jenny Gersten has been named the company's new Artistic Director. Gersten will succeed current Artistic Director Nicholas Martin, who will depart after the upcoming 2010 summer season.

Gersten, an alumnus of Williamstown Theater Festival, where she served as Associate Producer from 1996 to 2004, is currently Associate Producer of The Public Theater.

About the appointment, Artistic Director Martin enthused, "Since our Happy Days at Williamstown, Jenny has risen through the ranks of the theater industry exercising her extraordinary theater savvy and singular vision at every step along the way. How ideal that she is coming home after all these years." He added, "I have been proud to call her a collaborator and friend and now have the honor to welcome her back as Artistic Director."

In a statement, Jenny Gersten said, "The opportunity to return to the Williamstown Theatre Festival as Artistic Director brings me immeasurable satisfaction and joy. Williamstown is one of my most favorite places on earth, and the combination of the memorable experiences I've had there, along with the future I envision for WTF, fills me with hope for what the next few years could bring. I've had an extraordinary six years away from the Berkshires, and brilliant mentors and collaborators at Naked Angels, The Public Theater and beyond, who have given me so many good gifts and insights. I can't wait to come back and bring the fruits of that knowledge to bear on this new time."

"When we set out to find our next leader, we wanted someone with not only impeccable taste, but also an ability to run and build an organization," said Matt Harris, Williamstown Theatre Festival Board Chairman. "In Jenny, we found someone with that very rare combination."

Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director of The Public Theater, commented, "I am so proud of Jenny Gersten I could bust. Her appointment as Artistic Director of the Williamstown Theater Festival is a great thing for the American Theater. For the last three years her talent, diligence, brains and incredible good humor have graced the halls of The Public Theater, and we know she will bring joy to the Berkshires. Congratulations to her and to the Williamstown Theater Festival!"

Continuing its 56-year history, Williamstown Theatre Festival hosts award-winning actors, directors and playwrights who join forces to entertain and delight the Berkshire community of year-round and seasonal patrons. In addition to its acclaimed productions, WTF has extensive training and professional development programs for the next generation of actors, writers, directors, designers, technicians and managers. In 2002, WTF received the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre.

Jenny Gersten is currently the Associate Producer of The Public Theater in New York City. She has produced the following plays in the past year: Twelfth Night in Central Park (directed by Daniel Sullivan), The Idiot Savant (written and directed by Richard Foreman), The Brother/Sister Plays by Tarell Alvin McCraney (directed by Tina Landau and Robert O'Hara), The Book of Grace by Suzan-Lori Parks, and serves as the associate producer of HAIR on Broadway as well as in London. Prior to joining The Public Theater, she was the Artistic Director of Naked Angels, a theater company founded in 1986 by a company of actors, writers, directors, designers and producers. In that time, she produced the World Premieres of Elizabeth Meriwether's The Mistakes Madeline Made, and Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell, as well as three evenings of one-act plays by known and emerging playwrights, and countless readings and workshops of new work.

During her nine years at Williamstown Theatre Festival (WTF), the company received a Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, transferred six productions to Broadway (and others to Off-Broadway and to prominent regional theaters), and Ms. Gersten served as associate producer to 103 new and revived plays. In addition, she curated and produced a new play reading series, oversaw the training program for upcoming actors and directors, and helped create and oversee a long-range plan for the Festival as well as launch a campaign for an endowment fund. She independently produced My Renaissance Faire Lady, written and directed by Evan Cabnet, at the Ontological Hysteric Theater.

Prior to WTF, Ms. Gersten was Director of Marketing and Development at The 52nd Street Project, a mentoring theater organization which brings inner-city youth from the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood together with professional theater artists to create original plays. She has served as a casting director for Billy Elliot the Musical as well as for visual artist Gregory Crewdson. She has reviewed grants for the national theater service organization, TCG and for the Department of Cultural Affairs in New York City,, been a Special Events consultant for the Atlantic Theater Company, led workshops for the Off-Broadway service organization ART/NY, guest lectured at Yale and taught self-producing to young directors and actors at NYU. Ms Gersten was an archaeology and art history major at Oberlin College. While at Williamstown, she married playwright and lyricist Willie Reale and had two boys, Gus and Leo.

www.wtfestival.org

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