Jeffrey Horowitz, founder of the non-profit Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA), has announced his plans to retire at the end of the organization's 2024-2025 season. Horowitz has served as artistic director, CEO, and president of TFANA for 45 years.
After training as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Horowitz moved to New York and began working as an actor. When he was injured in an accidental fire in his apartment, Horowitz used the $50,000 he won in a lawsuit to found TFANA with a vision to build a modern classical theatre in New York dedicated to the language and ideas of authors.
At TFANA, Horowitz has produced Shakespeare's works alongside classics by authors including Euripides, Ford, Gilbert, Ibsen, Molière, Marlowe, Strindberg and Lope de Vega; contemporary playwrights such as David Greig, Harley Granville-Barker, Samuel Beckett, Edward Bond, Alice Childress, Maria Irene Fornés, Eugene Ionesco, Denis Johnson, and Tennessee Williams; and new plays from Shayok Misha Chowdhury, Annie Dorsen, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Will Eno, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Richard Maxwell, Suzan-Lori Parks, Richard Nelson, and Wallace Shawn.
“Some of what I got to do at Theatre for a New Audience was build an artistic home and support, risk, produce, provoke, entertain, explore, educate, illuminate, reach, challenge the status quo and inquire," Horowitz said in a statement. "It’s been 45 curious and extraordinary years. Others now should have the opportunity to shape the next era of TFANA’s development.”
“Jeffrey has been doing fantastic work for many years, creating and then building TFANA into a wonderful and vibrant platform for theatre artists of all stripes," added Board Chair Robert E. Buckholz. "The exciting new season just announced is the latest step on this truly great path.”
TFANA has established a board-authorized Search Committee and enlisted Arts Consulting Group to conduct a parallel search for a new Artistic Director and Executive Director.
As previously reported, the company's current season includes We Are Your Robots, Henry IV, The Swamp Dwellers, Prosperous Fools, and an Edinburgh run of its 2022 production of The Merchant of Venice.
Visit TFANA.org for more information.
