Lear deBessonet to Succeed Jack Viertel as Artistic Director of City Center Encores!

New York City Center has announced that current Encores! Resident Director Lear deBessonet will take over as the program's artistic director next season. She will replace Jack Viertel, who announced in July that he would be stepping down after two decades as artistic director. deBessonet will work alongside Viertel throughout 2020 and assume her new role beginning with the 2021 Encores! season.

Viertel said, "The moment I saw Lear's work as a director I knew I wanted to collaborate with her. Her expression of wit, joy, brains, taste, warmth and inclusiveness was captivating. Her relationship with City Center began in 2014 and set in motion a series of wonderful, like‐minded conversations and eagerly hatched plans. When I decided it was time for me to hand the baton to the next generation of artists, Lear's ability to inspire and excite artists and audiences made her the ideal candidate."

deBessonet said, "I have a deep respect for the mission of Encores! and am personally passionate about making work that is vibrant and accessible to a new generation of audience members. There's an enormously rich history here, and I'm particularly excited by the promise and meaning of City Center as a center—a place for all New Yorkers to come together around the arts. I look forward to advancing the tradition of American musical theater at this historic theater."

At City Center, deBessonet has directed the Encores! staging of Big River and Encores! Off-Center's Pump Boys and Dinettes. She is also the founder of the acclaimed Public Works program and resident director of The Public Theater, where she has directed musical adaptations of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, The Winter's Tale and The Odyssey. Her production of Brecht's Good Person of Szechwan, starring Taylor Mac and Lisa Kron, earned her a Lortel nomination and an Obie Award.

As previously announced, the 2020 Encores! season will include a new production of Throughly Modern Millie starring Ashley Park as well as star-packed stagings of Mack and Mabel and Love Life.