Appointments and Executive Changes

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    André Bishop Takes a Bow After Hundreds of Shows at Lincoln Center Theater

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    He is moving on from 33 years at Lincoln Center Theater and will head to Rome to focus on his memoirs.André Bishop, the longtime producing artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater, could have chosen almost anything for the final Broadway production of his tenure. He’s known for Golden Age musicals, and has a long history with new plays. But he opted to exit with “Floyd Collins,” a dark and tragic 1996 musical about a trapped cave explorer.Why would anyone select that as their swan song?“I just thought it’s the kind of serious musical that I want to go out on, because everything in it is something that I believe, in terms of the musical theater,” he told me in an interview last week at his nearly empty office — nearly empty because he’s been giving away his theater memorabilia after deciding he didn’t want his home to turn into a museum. He donated his archives — 174 cartons of papers, photos and notebooks — to the Houghton Library at Harvard University, his alma mater.“Now there would be some people who say, ‘Why do you have to do all these sad shows? Why can’t you do something toe-tapping?’ Well, that’s just not my nature,” he said. “I felt that Floyd’s looking for a perfect cave was very close to mine looking for a perfect theater — that somehow these theaters that I’ve worked in for 50 years were these perfect caves that I happened to stumble on.”Jason Gotay, in the background, and Jeremy Jordan in “Floyd Collins” at Lincoln Center Theater. “It’s the kind of serious musical that I want to go out on, because everything in it is something that I believe, in terms of the musical theater,” Bishop said.Richard Termine for The New York TimesBishop, 76, has spent the last 33 years running Lincoln Center Theater, which has a $50 million annual budget, 22,000 members, 65 full-time employees, two Off Broadway stages, and one Broadway house (the Vivian Beaumont). He programmed over 150 plays and musicals, 15 of which won Tony Awards, and then announced in 2023 that he would retire this summer; Monday was his last day on the job, and he is being succeeded by Lear deBessonet, the artistic director of the Encores! program at City Center.His departure is part of a wave of change at Broadway’s nonprofits; all four of the nonprofits with Broadway houses are naming successors for artistic leaders with decades-long tenures.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lynne Meadow, Who Led Manhattan Theater Club for 53 Years, Is Stepping Down

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      Lynne Meadow was just 25 when she took a job running the Off Off Broadway Manhattan Theater Club. Now the nonprofit is a major player on and off Broadway.Lynne Meadow, the last of the long-serving artistic directors who for decades led the four nonprofits with Broadway theaters, plans to step down from her current position, she said in an interview.Meadow, 78, has served as artistic director of Manhattan Theater Club since 1972, and by her own count has produced or presented more than 600 shows, making her one of the most prolific and successful figures in the American theater. Among the successes: the repeatedly extended Lynn Nottage play “Ruined,” which won a Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2009, and Jonathan Spector’s “Eureka Day,” which won a Tony Award earlier this month.She said she will stay with the organization as an artistic adviser, but that a search for a new artistic director is already underway.Her move will follow that of André Bishop, whose 33-year run leading Lincoln Center Theater ends next week; Carole Rothman, who in 2023 ended a 45-year tenure atop Second Stage Theater; and Todd Haimes, who died in 2023 after running Roundabout Theater Company for 40 years.The departures mean that, after decades of constancy, a new generation of leaders will oversee the nonprofit presence on Broadway. These institutions, which together control six of the 41 Broadway theaters, over the years have been an important ballast for the industry, preserving a place for new plays, risky work and large-orchestra musical revivals during periods when those types of projects have been less appealing to commercial producers.“I’m doing this because I feel that the timing is right to do this — there are things that I want to do,” Meadow said. “I’m not tired, and I’m not bored, and I’m not depressed, but I’m excited for Chapter 2.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Donald Palumbo Reinvigorated the Met Opera Chorus. Next Stop Chicago.

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      The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has hired Donald Palumbo, 76, the former chorus master of the Metropolitan Opera, to lead its chorus.When Donald Palumbo departed his post as chorus master of the Metropolitan Opera last year after nearly two decades, he could have easily taken a break.But Palumbo, 76, wasn’t finished. “I knew it was not a retirement situation for me,” he said.Now Palumbo has lined up his next position: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra announced on Tuesday that he would serve as its next chorus director — only the third in the choir’s 67-year history — beginning an initial three-year term in July.“I love this chorus,” Palumbo said in a telephone interview from Chicago, where he was rehearsing the chorus. “I love this city.”Palumbo was a fixture at the Met from 2007 to 2024, helping turn the chorus into one of the most revered in the field. He could often be seen during performances racing around backstage, working with singers to refine bits of the score.He was chorus master at Lyric Opera of Chicago from 1991 to 2007. At the Chicago Symphony, he said, he hoped to work with the singers on “creating an identity as a chorus from the way we sing, and the way we devote ourselves to the music.”Jeff Alexander, the Chicago Symphony’s president, said that Palumbo had built a close relationship with the chorus during guest appearances over the years, creating ”an atmosphere of collaboration that yielded exceptional artistry.”“We knew this would be the ideal choice to build on the legacy of this award-winning ensemble,” Alexander said in a statement.Palumbo, who lives in Santa Fe and will commute to Chicago, is already at work with the Chicago singers. He will serve as guest chorus director this month for Verdi’s Requiem, working with Riccardo Muti, the Chicago Symphony’s former music director. In July, he will begin his tenure as chorus director with a performance of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony at the Ravinia Festival, led by the festival’s chief conductor, Marin Alsop.While Palumbo has forged a close relationship with Muti, he said, he was still getting to know Klaus Mäkelä, the Chicago Symphony’s incoming music director, who begins in 2027. (Palumbo said he has been watching videos of Mäkelä on YouTube: “Everything he does musically is exciting,” he said.)Palumbo said he hoped to stay in Chicago beyond the end of his initial term in 2028.“I certainly am not planning on having a cutoff point,” he said. “I intend to keep working.” More

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      Willem Dafoe Returns to His Stage Roots at the Venice Theater Biennale

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      Willem Dafoe is returning to his roots. While his distinctive, chiseled features are instantly recognizable from over 150 movie roles, Dafoe, 69, actually got his start in experimental theater. In 1980, he co-founded the New York City-based company the Wooster Group, and performed with it for more than 20 years.Now, he is taking on the role of a curator. Last year, Dafoe was announced as the artistic director of the 2025 and 2026 editions of the Venice Theater Biennale, one of several festivals that began life as offshoots of the Art Biennale. (The theater event is actually an annual fixture.)And there will be familiar faces around Dafoe at this year’s edition, which opens Saturday and runs through June 16. Dafoe is paying tribute to some avant-garde theater companies that shaped him and were prominent 50 years ago at the 1975 edition of the festival, with productions from Denmark’s Odin Teatret and Thomas Richards, formerly of Workcenter Grotowski. The Wooster Group’s longtime director (and Dafoe’s ex-life partner), Elizabeth LeCompte, will receive the event’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.Under the tagline “Theater Is Body. Body Is Poetry,” the Theater Biennale will also welcome a mix of European directors whom Dafoe described in a recent video interview as “modern maestros” — including Romeo Castellucci, and Milo Rau — as well as emerging artists. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How did this appointment come about? Did Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, the president of the Venice Biennales, reach out personally?Yes. I knew him a little bit: He was a very good friend of a dear friend of mine. I knew he wanted to talk to me, and it was the simplest of phone calls. I was very happy to accept.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Freddy Lim, Frontman of Chthonic, Is Taiwan’s New Envoy to Finland

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      Freddy Lim, the founder and lead singer of Chthonic, is well known in Finland, a heavy metal capital of the world.Diplomatic appointments do not usually excite the world’s metalheads. But when Taiwan on Monday named the frontman for a band known as “the Black Sabbath of Asia” as its envoy to the heavy metal mecca of Finland, rockers on multiple continents rejoiced.“Because if you’re gonna be an ambassador to any Scandinavian country, you better be in a metal band,” the Brooklyn-based publication Metal Injection wrote.The choice of Freddy Lim, founder and lead singer of Chthonic, by President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan appears apt: Finland has the most metal bands per capita, with about 80 for every 100,000 citizens — a data point often cited by metal fans. And Mr. Lim already has an affinity for the country, where his band has played in major cities and performed with Finnish musicians.“Working with my partners in the Finnish music industry for a long time has made me have a special feeling for this country,” Mr. Lim said in a social media post on Monday, noting that his band had released four albums with the Finnish-founded label Spinefarm Records.His selection as Taiwan’s envoy is not based on musical fame alone. Taiwan’s foreign minister, Lin Chia-lung, said on Monday that Mr. Lim was chosen for his human rights work and international exchange experience: He served as a national legislator from 2016 to 2024 and was chairman of Amnesty International in Taiwan from 2010 to 2014. Mr. Lim, 49, formed Chthonic (pronounced THON-ik) around 1995, creating a heavy metal mythology for the band using elements of Taiwan’s local lore instead of the pagan and satanic imagery of some Western bands. The band’s 2005 album, “Seediq Bale” (Real Person), which was released in the United States in 2006 and worldwide the next year, brought the band international attention. It got Chthonic a spot in Ozzfest — on a tour founded and headlined by the British heavy metal legend Ozzy Osbourne — playing 24 major American cities. The band also toured Europe that year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Soprano Patricia Racette to Lead Opera Theater of St. Louis

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      Patricia Racette, who has a recent history of performing in and directing productions with the company, will begin as its artistic director this fall.The soprano Patricia Racette has performed on some of the world’s biggest stages, but she has long felt a special connection to Opera Theater of St. Louis, where she made her debut in 1993.Now Racette, 59, will deepen her ties to St. Louis: She will lead Opera Theater as its next artistic director, the company announced on Tuesday.Racette, who has directed productions for the company and overseen its young artist program for six years, said she was excited by the challenge of working to keep opera fresh and relevant.“It feels like a very natural evolution for me,” she said. “I feel we all have a stake in this.”She begins her tenure in October and will succeed James Robinson, who departed last year to lead Seattle Opera as general and artistic director.Racette said she would build on Opera Theater’s reputation for experimentation. The company, founded in 1976, has given the premiere of works like Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” which later became the first work by a Black composer to be presented by the Metropolitan Opera. She said that she hoped to work with a variety of contemporary composers, including Kevin Puts, Jonathan Dove and Missy Mazzoli.“I have a perspective and passion for new works, and I’m going to enjoy applying that perspective and passion again on the other side of the curtain,” she said.Racette, who made her debut at the Met in 1995, is known for her portrayals of Puccini heroines. She has also ventured into other genres, including cabaret, which she said she hoped to bring to St. Louis. She said opera companies should not fear crossover repertoire.“These are our stories and traditions,” she said. “It’s an opportunity for accessibility, relevance and impact.”Many opera companies, including Opera Theater of St. Louis, are grappling with rising costs and the lingering effects of the pandemic. The company has benefited from a robust endowment, which is currently valued at about $100 million, and is exploring building a new home at the former headquarters of a shoe company in Clayton, a suburb of St. Louis. (Its theater is in another suburb, Webster Groves.)Racette said she was not daunted by financial challenges.“We’re just going to have to get more creative,” she said. “The arts in troubling times are more important than ever.” More

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      Film at Lincoln Center Chooses Daniel Battsek as Next President

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      At the production company Film4 he was instrumental in financing British movies. In New York, his goal is to attract a younger, more diverse audience.Film at Lincoln Center, the nonprofit organization that programs the New York Film Festival, has named the British movie executive Daniel Battsek its next president.From 2016 until early 2024, Battsek, 66, was chairman of the British production company Film4, overseeing the financing of “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2017) and “The Banshees of Inisherin” (2022), among other releases.Battsek will succeed Lesli Klainberg, who had led Film at Lincoln Center since 2014 before stepping down last year.In an interview, Battsek, who will take over in May, said the centrality of film in the New York City cultural landscape had always appealed to him.“In many other cities, including London, film is much further down the culture ladder than it is here,” said Battsek, who was based in New York as president of Miramax Films before joining Film4. “I love that cinema is seen as being on a level with opera and ballet and theater.”Battsek’s appointment comes amid an industrywide downturn as movie theaters struggle to attract an audience that has yet to return to prepandemic numbers and are increasingly contending with competition from streaming services.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Touring Kennedy Center, Trump Mused on His Childhood ‘Aptitude for Music’

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      During his first visit to the Kennedy Center since making himself the chairman of its board, President Trump had a lot to say about Broadway shows, dancers in silk tights, the Potomac River and Elvis Presley.But in a private discussion at the start of a meeting of the center’s board on Monday, Mr. Trump offered something he usually steers away from in bigger settings: a personal anecdote about his childhood.He told the assembled board members that in his youth he had shown special abilities in music after taking aptitude tests ordered by his parents, according to three participants in the meeting.He could pick out notes on the piano, he told the board members, some of whom he’s known for years and others who are relatively new to him. But the president said that his father, Fred Trump, was not pleased by his musical abilities, according to the participants, and that he had never developed his talent. One person in the room said Mr. Trump appeared to be joking about his father. “I have a high aptitude for music,” he said at one point, according to people at the meeting. “Can you believe that?”“That’s why I love music,” he added. Mr. Trump’s remarks have not been previously reported. They were not part of an audio recording of the board meeting obtained by The New York Times earlier this week.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Amid Kennedy Center Upheaval, a Maestro Decides to Stay On

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      As the center goes through changes after President Trump’s takeover, Gianandrea Noseda is extending his tenure at the National Symphony Orchestra, one of the center’s main groups.The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington has gone through big changes since President Trump’s recent takeover of the institution.But there will be at least one constant in the coming years: The conductor Gianandrea Noseda will stay on as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, one of the center’s flagship groups. Mr. Noseda has extended his contract through at least 2031, the ensemble announced on Wednesday.Mr. Noseda, 60, the ensemble’s maestro since 2017, said that he felt he still had more to accomplish with the orchestra. He wants the ensemble to tour more often, to commission more pieces and to perform more opera.“We have established this kind of mutual trust in our relationship,” Mr. Noseda, whose contract had been set to expire in 2027, said in an interview this week. “It would have been a pity to stop.”Mr. Trump took over the Kennedy Center last month, purging its board of all Biden appointees and installing himself as chairman. Deborah F. Rutter, the center’s president for more than a decade, was fired. She was credited with luring the highly esteemed Mr. Noseda to the orchestra in what was widely seen as a coup.After the president’s takeover, Ben Folds, the singer and songwriter, resigned his post as an adviser to the orchestra. The orchestra has stayed largely quiet about the changes; its musicians issued a statement saying they were “proud to perform for our patrons, our community in our nation’s capital, and the country at large.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More