Gideon Lester

Artistic Director, Fisher Center; Professor of Theater and Performance; Senior Curator, Center for Human Rights and the Arts

Primary Academic Program: Theater and Performance

Biography: Gideon Lester is Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the Fisher Center at Bard, and Senior Curator at the Open Society University Network’s Center for the Arts and Human Rights. A Tony and Olivier award-winning creative producer, festival director, and dramaturg, he has collaborated with and commissioned a broad range of American and international artists across disciplines, including Romeo Castellucci, Justin Vivian Bond, Tania El Khoury, Brice Marden, Sarah Michelson, Claudia Rankine, Kaija Saariaho, Peter Sellars, and Anna Deavere Smith.

Recent projects include the world premiere of Justin Peck and Sufjan Steven’s Illinoise; Common Ground, an international festival on the politics of land and food; Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma! (Tony award; Olivier Award); Pam Tanowitz’s Four Quartets and Song of Songs; Ronald K. Brown and Meshell Ndegeocello’s Grace and Mercy; and Peter Sellars’ film This body is so impermanent… 

Productions he has developed and commissioned have toured to theaters and art centers around the world, including BAM (Brooklyn); Circle in the Square (Broadway); CAP-UCLA (Los Angeles); the Kennedy Center; St Ann’s Warehouse (Brooklyn); New York City Center; Barbican (London); Walker Art Center (Minneapolis); Spielart (Munich); Onassis Cultural Center (Athens); Edinburgh International Festival, and many others. He was previously co-curator of Crossing the Line Festival, and Acting Artistic Director and Dramaturg at the American Repertory Theatre.

A professor at Bard College, he was director of Bard’s undergraduate Theater and Performance Program from 2012-2020, and has previously held faculty positions at Harvard and Columbia, where he founded and directed an interdisciplinary arts collaboration lab at the Graduate School of the Arts. 

As a writer for the stage, his translations include Moliere’s Dom Juan; The Island of Slaves and The Dispute by Marivaux, Büchner’s Woyzeck, and Brecht’s Mother Courage, and his adaptations include Kafka’s Amerika, Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire, and Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita.  

Lester received his BA and MA from Oxford University, and completed graduate training at Harvard, where he was a Fulbright and Frank Knox Scholar. 
Phone: 845-758-7949
Email:
Departments: Arts,Fisher Center for the Performing Arts
Location: Fisher Center for the Performing Arts