Humana Festival Among Top Priorities For New Actors Theatre Artistic Director

Actors Theatre is looking for a new artistic director. Marc Masterson, who currently holds that position, is leaving the theatre after eleven years.One major challenge facing Masterson’s successor will be how to maintain and build on the success of the theatre’s signature event: The Humana Festival of New American Plays.The festival is one of the most important events of the year in American theatre. Hundreds of theatre professionals from the U.S. and abroad come to see the plays that debut at Actors Theatre during the festival.Actors Theatre Managing Director Jennifer Bielstein says Masterson’s work on the Humana Festival has led to numerous plays—and playwrights—getting additional opportunities.“With all of the Humana Festival productions in his tenure, eighty-five percent of them have gone on to subsequent productions and fifty percent of the new plays are by women writers, and those are pretty significant," she says.Masterson will still oversee this year’s Humana Festival. It opens February 27^th.   Actors’ Theatre hopes to have a new artistic director in place by the beginning of its fall season.