Playwright Horizons Managing Director Leslie Marcus to Step Down
(© David Gordon)
Leslie Marcus, the managing director of the venerable off-Broadway theater company Playwrights Horizons, will step down at the end of the 2023-24 season. She has been in the position since 1993.
“I’ve spent thirty years doing something I love and that I’m extraordinarily proud of,” said Marcus in an official statement. “What has kept me at Playwrights all these years is the creativity and spirit of innovation that exists across the organization. Our mission is our north star, and it can never get old because it’s about what is new.”
Founded by Robert Moss in 1971, Playwrights Horizons is dedicated to producing new work by American composers and playwrights.
Marcus has worked with three artistic directors during her tenure: Don Scardino (1993-1996), Tim Sanford (1996-2020), and Adam Greenfield (2020-present). In that time, the company has presented new work by Will Arbery, Annie Baker, Tanya Barfield, Clare Barron, Adam Bock, Agnes Borinsky, David Cale, John J. Caswell, Jr., Kirsten Childs, Kia Corthron, Lisa D’Amour, Larissa FastHorse, Michael Friedman, Melissa James Gibson, David Greenspan, Adam Guettel, Amy Herzog, Lucas Hnath, Michael R. Jackson, Kenneth Lonergan, Craig Lucas, Taylor Mac, Richard Nelson, Bruce Norris, Lynn Nottage, Robert O’Hara, Theresa Rebeck, Sarah Ruhl, Tori Sampson, Christopher Shinn, Jeanine Tesori, Anne Washburn, Doug Wright. David Adjmi’s Stereophonic recently completed a sold-out and critically acclaimed world premiere run at Playwrights.
Marcus was instrumental in raising $32 million for the construction of the company’s current home on 42nd Street, which was built on the site of a former adult burlesque that Playwrights Horizons had been using since the late 70s. The groundbreaking took place just weeks before the September 11 attacks in 2001.
Under Marcus’s leadership, the institution has been recognized with four Pulitzer Prizes, nine Tony Awards, and 47 Obies.
“One can’t overstate Leslie Marcus’s contributions to Playwrights Horizons and, by extension, to the landscape of new plays at large,” said current artistic director Adam Greenfield. “For the seventeen years I’ve worked at this theater — through recessions, boom times, hurricanes, floods, a pandemic, and even a few successes — Leslie has remained a stalwart optimist, propelling our theater into the future with savvy and faith.”
The Board of Trustees has engaged Tom O’Connor Consulting Group to lead the search for Marcus’s successor.
