Zack Winokur Leads an Arts Reboot at Little Island

On Saturday night, Zack Winokur stood at the top row of the amphitheater of Little Island. Hundreds of people had taken their seats for the first performance of the park’s summer season, but he didn’t feel like joining them. “I’m just going to pace,” he said.

If Winokur, Little Island’s producing artistic director, was restless, it was for good reason. The park, a cluster of tulip-shaped structures that support rolling hills above the Hudson River, had been open since 2021, and its amphitheater had been used plenty of times before.

But Saturday’s performance, the premiere of Twyla Tharp’s “How Long Blues,” was a milestone for Little Island, and for New York City: the opening, or rather rebooting, of an institution dedicated solely to commissioning and supporting artists, with Winokur’s curatorial vision and the extremely deep pockets of the billionaire mogul Barry Diller.

Outdoors, with a thrust stage, Little Island’s theater is subject to the elements and open to onlookers, who can watch performances, for free, from the winding paths of the park. (Tickets for amphitheater seats are $25.) The only real barrier to entry, Winokur said, is the West Side Highway.

What really sets the theater apart, though, is its programming of world premiere after world premiere by top-shelf artists. Behind that is Winokur, 35, a Juilliard-trained dancer-turned-director who was a founder of the essential, increasingly visible collective American Modern Opera Company, or AMOC. Now, with Little Island, he is at the vanguard of his generation’s artistic leaders, with a New York stage to call his own.

The financial support that Diller has pledged to Little Island’s programming, millions of dollars with no end in sight, is the kind that most artistic leaders only dream of. Winokur does not have to spend his days courting fund-raisers or securing residencies; instead, he can provide money and space, like a producer.