Announcing
Kent Gash
The Acting Company is excited to announce the appointment of Kent Gash as its next Artistic Director. Gash joins The Acting Company following a distinguished career as an award-winning director, artistic leader, educator and author.
Gash brings to The Acting Company an extensive career as a stage director including productions by living dramatists Quiara Alegría Hudes, Robert O’Hara, Dominique Morisseau, Suzan-Lori Parks, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Regina Taylor, George C. Wolfe, among many others; and has directed important revivals of the plays or musicals of Noël Coward, Duke Ellington, Frank Loesser, Stephen Sondheim, William Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, and August Wilson. Gash’s productions have been seen at most of the leading U.S. theaters including the Public Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and the forthcoming production of Choir Boy at Steppenwolf Theater in the summer of 2022. In addition, Gash is an Arts Professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and is the Founding Director of the Tisch School of the Arts’ New Studio on Broadway, a role he will continue while serving as Artistic Director.
"Kent Gash is the perfect artistic director for The Acting Company now. He will expand on the company’s founding mission, the work we have been doing recently, and redefine how the classics speak to our time."
–Margot Harley, Founder, The Acting Company
Gash’s productions have appeared at most of the leading theaters in the U.S. including Arizona Theatre Co. (“Master Harold”… and the boys), Cleveland Playhouse (Ain’t Misbehavin’, Mahalia), Denver Center (Gee’s Bend, Pure Confidence), Ford’s Theatre (The Wiz), Geffen Playhouse (Harriet’s Return), Guthrie Theatre (Guys and Dolls), Intiman Theatre (his own adaptation of Richard Wright’s Native Son), Marin Theatre Co. (The Legend of Georgia McBride, Seven Guitars), Oregon Shakespeare Festival (The Comedy of Errors), Primary Stages (Call the Children Home), The Public Theatre (Barbeque), Rattlestick Theatre (Lockdown), South Coast Rep (Gem of the Ocean), Signature Theatre (D.C.) (U.G.L.Y.), Studio Theatre (Wig Out!, Choir Boy), Trinity Rep (The Mountaintop), True Colors Theatre Co. (Steel Magnolias with a bi-racial cast), among many others. For this large body of work, he has received Audelco, Bay Area Critics, Boston Critics, Helen Hayes, and Suzi Bass Awards.
“I'm thrilled and delighted to be the new Artistic Director of The Acting Company, building on the legacy of John Houseman, Margot Harley, Zelda Fichandler, Michael Kahn, and Ian Belknap before me. The Acting Company has been and will always be, AMERICA'S DYNAMIC NEW AND CLASSIC THEATRE, WHERE THEN MEETS NOW!”
–Kent Gash
Previously, Gash was an Associate Artistic Director of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, where he directed Troilus and Cressida, Twelfth Night, Regina Taylor’s A Night in Tunisia, and Five Guys Named Moe, among others. He also served as Associate Artistic Director at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre, recipient of the 2007 Tony Award for American Regional Theatre, directing the premiere of Jelly’s Last Jam, Quiara Alegría Hudes’ 26 Miles, God of Carnage, and Topdog/Underdog, among others. He also served on the Board of Directors of the National Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts and on the Tony Awards Nominating Committee. Gash currently serves on the Arts Advisory Board of the Princess Grace Foundation, the board of the Rattlestick Theater, and he also serves on the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundations’ Lloyd Richards New Futures Residency Committee for Black Directors.
“Kent’s talent, creativity and depth of experience as an actor, director and founding director of NYU’s New Studio on Broadway make him the perfect choice to shape the Company’s artistic vision and to carry on our legacy of developing young professional actors.”
–Earl Weiner, Board Chair, The Acting Company
Kent serves and advises on several national committees and boards which include the Stage Directors and Choreographers' Lloyd Richards New Futures Residency Committee for Black Directors and Artistic Leaders, and their Inclusion Rider Committee. He serves on the Arts Advisory Board of the Princess Grace Foundation, Peabody Awards Committee, and previously served on the Board of Directors of the National Theatre Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts and the Tony Awards Nominating Committee. He holds a B.F.A. from the Carnegie-Mellon University School of Drama and an M.F.A. from the University of Southern California at Los Angeles School of Theatre, Film and Television.
