Williamstown Theater Festival Names New Artistic Director - ArtsBeat Blog - NYTimes.com

Williamstown Theater Festival Names New Artistic Director - ArtsBeat Blog - NYTimes.com:

The Williamstown Theater Festival on Wednesday announced the appointment of its new artistic director: Jenny Gersten, a widely admired New York producer at the Public Theater who also worked as associate producer at Williamstown from 1996 to 2004.

Ms. Gersten, 41, will succeed Nicholas Martin, who is leaving after his third season this summer as artistic director at Williamstown, one of the nation’s premiere summertime theater presenters.

Ms. Gersten, meanwhile, will depart as the associate producer of the Public Theater, the acclaimed nonprofit company in New York that was founded by Joseph Papp. At the Public, she has most recently produced “The Book of Grace” by Suzan-Lori Parks, “The Brother/Sister Plays” by Tarell Alvin McCraney, “The Idiot Savant” by Richard Foreman, and Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” which Daniel Sullivan directed last summer at the Public’s Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

(And THE LAST CARGO CULT!) Congratulations, Jenny—this is absolutely marvelous news, and it is inspiring to see one of the biggest institutions in the American theater come under the leadership of a new generation.