Rocco Landesman

Who is Rocco Landesman?

Rocco Landesman has been a long-time Broadway theatre producer. He served as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts from August 2009 to December 2012. The NEA is a public agency of the Federal Government with an annual budget that is directed into grants to support excellence in the arts, bring arts to all Americans and provide leadership in arts education. He is part owner of Jujamcyn Theaters, but he was a passive owner while serving in Washington.

Landesman was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, studied at Colby College in Waterville, Maine and The University of Wisconsin, and earned a doctorate in Dramatic Literature at the Yale School of Drama. At the Yale School of Drama he would become a protégé and friend of Robert Brustein. At the completion of his course work he stayed at Yale for 4 years as an Assistant Professor. While at Yale, Landesman got to know novelist Jerzy Kosinski and he worked with Kosinski on two of his novels, Being There and The Devil Tree. Landesman was involved as an editor, helping Kosinski, not a native speaker of English, with his English syntax and writing.