(BOSTON) – Peter DuBois—the award-winning resident director and former associate producer at New York’s acclaimed Public Theater, and a former artistic director of Alaska’s innovative Perseverance Theatre Company—will become the Huntington Theatre Company’s next artistic director on July 1, 2008. 

Huntington Board Chairman David Wimberly made the announcement today after a Board of Trustees vote ratified the results of an 11-month national search.  DuBois will succeed Nicholas Martin, who has been artistic director since 2000 and announced last year he would leave the company in June 2008.

“Peter’s distinctive strength is his ability to understand and cultivate both sides of an artistic organization,” says Huntington Board Chair David J. Wimberly.  “He is a first-rate director, a gifted nurturer of talent, and a true institutional leader.” 

“I am delighted to welcome Peter DuBois to the Huntington,” said Managing Director Michael Maso, “and congratulate the search committee on an inspired choice.  Peter has the energy, artistry, and experience to be one of the country’s finest institutional theatre leaders.  With great enthusiasm I look forward to the changes he will bring to our partnership and to Boston.” 

In more than four years at the Public, which is considered among America’s top theatres, DuBois directed a number of major productions, including the 2006 OBIE Award-winning production of David Grimm’s “Measure for Pleasure,” 2004’s acclaimed staging of “Richard III” for the New York Shakespeare Festival, and 2007’s “Jack Goes Boating” with the LAByrinth Theatre Company starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Ortiz, and Daphne Rubin-Vega.

DuBois’ wide-ranging responsibilities at the Public also have included oversight of the Public’s Broadway transfers, its international artistic exchanges (notably with Dublin’s Abbey Theater and The Royal Court Theater in London), and its co-productions with high profile groups such as LAByrinth and Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

A champion of young talent, DuBois developed and managed programs to support rising stage directors at the Public, and served as the company’s artistic liaison to its patrons, corporate funders and individual supporters.

Before being recruited to the Public, DuBois was artistic director of Perseverance Theatre in Juneau, Alaska.  A mid-sized regional company, Perseverance is known for distinctive artistic boldness, innovation, and a dedication to its community and its audience.  There, DuBois directed revivals of Beckett, Shakespeare, and Chekhov, and introduced the community to modern-day works by Paula Vogel, Suzan Lori Parks, and others.

DuBois also helped steady the company’s financial status by cutting debt, and completing multimillion-dollar capital and endowment campaigns for artistic commissions and facility upgrades.  During his tenure at Perseverance, the company grew to be Alaska’s largest producing arts organization, and the highest-rated by the state’s arts council.

DuBois is a well-respected stage director with a robust career in New York, across the United States and around the world.  In addition to Hoffman and Rubin-Vega, he has worked with well-known actors Michael Cerveris, Peter Dinklage, and Rosie Perez, and top playwrights such as Tony Kushner, Christopher Durang, Neil LaBute, Suzan Lori Parks, Caryl Churchill, Jose Rivera, and Craig Lucas.  His productions been nominated for several Drama League Awards and in 1999 he was named by American Theatre Magazine one of the 15 artists who would “transform American’s stages for decades to come.” 

Two theatre works that DuBois developed -- a musical called “The Long Season” by Chay Yew and Fabian Obispo, and “The Doll Plays” by Alva Rogers -- received Rockefeller Multi-Arts Production (MAP) Fellowships that support innovative new works in the live performing arts.  “The Long Season” premiered at Perseverance in 2005 and had a well-received workshop production earlier this year at New Jersey’s George Street Playhouse.  DuBois is currently working with Sam Shepard on a new version of “The Curse of the Starving Class,” which he will direct at San Francisco’s American Contemporary Theatre in the spring of 2008.

Several other new projects DuBois is developing include a musical by writer Rachel Sheinken (“25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”), Tony Award-nominated composer Michael John LaChiusa, and singer/actress Lea Delaria; a new adaptation of Clare Booth Luce’s “The Women”; a contemporary update of “The Mikado”; and a revival of Moliere’s “Tartuffe.”

A recognized and sought-after leader in the American theatre community, DuBois served for six years as a board member and executive committee member of Theatre Communications Group, the influential national trade organization.

DuBois received a bachelor’s degree from Villanova University.  He holds a master’s degree in theatre from Brown University, and has studied at St. Catherine’s College (Oxford University), and at University College in Galway, which is affiliated with Ireland’s Druid Lane Theatre Company.

MEDIA CONTACT: John Michael Kennedy
jmkennedy@huntingtontheatre.bu.edu or 617 273-1537

updated 12/12/07

Previous Page    Back to News    Next Page