New York City Center President & CEO Arlene Shuler today announced Anne Kauffman as Artistic Director of Encores! Off-Center for the 2019 season. Founding Artistic Director Jeanine Tesori will maintain her relationship with the popular summer series as Creative Advisor - working with Kauffman to curate programming which will conclude City Center's 75th Anniversary Season. Kauffman and Tesori served as Co-Artistic Directors for the 2018 series which included Jason Robert Brown's Songs for A New World, Michael Friedman's Gone Missing, and Micki Grant's Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope.
"We were so fortunate to welcome back
Jeanine Tesori and
Anne Kauffman as the leaders of this summer's Encores! Off-Center series," said Shuler. "And we couldn't be more thrilled that Anne, in collaboration with Jeanine, will carry on the mission of the series by continuing to bring new voices and artists to
City Center audiences."
"I am so very grateful to
Michael Friedman for asking me to direct Assassins two summers ago. He introduced me to
City Center and to what musical theater is and could be.
Michael Friedman,
Jeanine Tesori, and
City Center have had an immeasurable impact on my artistic path and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to continue this collaboration," said Kauffman. "Off-Center provides audiences with the opportunity to experience the work of artists like
Micki Grant and
Vinnette Carroll alongside contemporary composers like
Jason Robert Brown. I'm really looking forward to putting together the next season."
Encores! Off-Center was founded in 2013 with the mission of reviving musicals that pushed creative boundaries when they were first produced. Filtered through the lens of today's artists, these shows are presented not as historical documents but as living, vital works that speak to audiences both new and old. The New York Times has called Encores! Off-Center "a summer theater highlight," with past productions including Violet with
Sutton Foster (which transferred to Broadway the following year);tick, tick...BOOM! with
Lin-Manuel Miranda; A New Brain with
Jonathan Groff; Little Shop of Horrorswith
Ellen Greene and
Jake Gyllenhaal;
Elizabeth Swados's Runaways; The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin with
Nikki M. James, and
Micki Grant and
Vinnette Carroll's Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope. In keeping with
City Center's founding mission to make the arts accessible to all, many Off-Center tickets are $25.
Programming for the 2019 Encores! Off-Center season will be announced later.
Anne Kauffman's recent credits include:
Mary Jane and Hundred Days (NYTW); Marvin's Room(Roundabout); Assassins (
City Center Encores! Off-Center); A Life (Lortel and Drama Desk nominations); Marjorie Prime (
Lucille Lortel and Drama League Award nominations); Detroit, Your Mother's Copy of the Kama Sutra, and Maple and Vine (
Playwrights Horizons); Sundown Yellow Moon (
Ars Nova, WP); The Nether and Smokefall (MCC); Buzzer (The Public); Belleville (
Lucille Lortel Award nomination, NYTW and Yale Rep); You Got Older (Drama Desk Award nomination, P73 Productions); The Muscles in Our Toes (
LAByrinth Theater Company); Somewhere Fun and God's Ear(New Georges and Vineyard Theater); and Stunning and Slowgirl (LCT3). Regional:
Goodman Theatre,
Steppenwolf Theatre,
Williamstown Theatre Festival, Yale Rep, and Wilma. Artistic associate and founding member of
The Civilians, Resident Director with Roundabout, Sundance program associate, Clubbed Thumb associate artist and co-creator of the CT Directing Fellow- ship, New Georges associate artist, Artistic Council of
Soho Rep, and SDC executive board member. Two Obie Awards (for Directing and Sustained Excellence), the Joan and Joseph Cullman Award for Exceptional Creativity from Lincoln Center, the
Alan Schneider Director Award, and two Barrymore Awards.
Photo Credit: Beowulf Sheehan
