Gideon Lester

Who is Gideon Lester?

Gideon Lester is a leading performing arts curator, artistic director, educator, and dramaturg. He is currently Director of Theater Programs at Bard College where he chairs the Theater & Performance department and curates theater and dance at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. He also co-curates the interdisciplinary arts festival "Crossing the Line". He was Acting Artistic Director of the American Repertory Theatre from 2007-2009 and taught at the Columbia University School of the Arts, where he created the Arts Collaboration Lab.

Lester was born in London in 1972 and studied English Literature at Oxford University. In 1995 he was awarded a Fulbright grant and Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship to study dramaturgy at the A.R.T. Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard. He taught dramaturgy at the American Repertory Theatre and playwriting at Harvard.

He was the A.R.T.'s Associate Artistic Director from 2002 until 2006 and was Resident Dramaturg at the A.R.T. for five years prior. His stage translations include Marivaux’s Island of Slaves and La Dispute, Brecht’s Mother Courage, Büchner’s Woyzeck, and two texts by the French playwright Michel Vinaver, King and Overboard. His play Amerika or the Disappearance, adapted from Franz Kafka’s first novel, was staged at the American Repertory Theatre in 2005, directed by Dominique Serrand. His other adaptations include Wings of Desire, Anne Frank and Enter the Actress, a one-woman show that he devised for Claire Bloom.