Andrew Hamingson named Public's executive director

NEW YORK—Andrew Hamingson has been appointed executive director of The Public Theater, one of the nation's most prominent nonprofit theaters, it was announced Wednesday by the Public's board of directors.

Hamingson, who worked previously for the Atlantic Theater Company and Manhattan Theatre Club, takes over Oct. 1 from Mara Manus, who announced last season she would step down after six years on the job.

"Throughout this rigorous and highly competitive search process, (Andrew's) intelligence, passion and integrity made a deep impression on me and on all the board members," Oskar Eustis, the Public's artistic director, said. "His love of theater and his humanity are also apparent to anyone who spends time with him, and I am certain that we can achieve great things for The Public Theater."

The theater's 2008-09 season will include works by such artists as Stephen Sondheim, John Guare, Christopher Durang and Craig Lucas.

Sondheim's contribution will be the New York premiere of "Bounce," a musical written with John Weidman and first seen in 2003, in a different production, at Chicago's Goodman Theatre and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

The Public's version, opening in October, will be directed by John Doyle.