NEA's Chairman Rocco Landesman Featured in Newsweek

Since his appointment as Chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Broadway theatre producer Rocco Landesman has stirred up the status quo in the federal agency with his assertive style and outspoken nature.

A feature story in Newsweek takes a look at Landesman's tenure thus far, including his stance against a bureaucratic status quo, and his push to extend funding options for artistic programs.

The feature examines Landesman's leadership qualities, particularly his determination to bring about change. "In speech after speech, he has vowed to abandon the agency's defensive posture and "to move the ball down the field." That mandate is reinforced every time he looks in the mirror, on the reasonable assumption that you don't hire an alligator-boot-wearing Broadway gambler to maintain the bureaucratic status quo. To judge from the early going, The Rocco Show offers a chance to watch a charismatic outsider say what needs saying and change the tone in Washington. In other words, it's a chance to see someone do what we elected his boss, the president, to do."

Of the 2010 budget allotted for the NEA programs, Newsweek says that Landesman expects more in order to carry out the artistic programs he feels should be part within the organization's mandate. "While the unusually large 2010 budget of $168 million gives Landesman more funding options than any chairman has had in more than a decade, he still calls the level "pathetic" and "embarrassing"-language that risks insulting people in and around Congress who sweat to secure even that much."

To read the rest of the story in Newsweek, click here.

Landesman grew up in St. Louis, where his father and uncle owned the Crystal Palace cabaret, giving young Rocco an early intro to stars like Barbra Streisand, Mike Nichols and Lenny Bruce. With a doctorate from the Yale School of Drama in hand, Landesman taught at the school for a spell, owned a handful of racehorses, and ran a small hedge fund before teaming up with the Production Company Dodger Theatricals. With Dodger, Landesman co-produced the retro musical Pump Boys and Dinettes in 1982 and the Tony-winning Big River in 1985. In 1987, he became president at Jujamcyn Theaters, the owner of five Broadway venues (the ST. James, the Eugene O'Neill, the Al Hirschfeld, the Walter Kerr and the August Wilson) and the third-biggest Broadway theater owner behind the Shubert and Nederlander Organizations.

The play that established Jujamcyn as a force to be reckoned with was David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, which took home the Tony for Best Play in 1988. Over the next decade and a half, Landesman produced dozens of plays and musicals under the Jujamcyn banner, including hits like 42nd Street, City of Angels, Angels in America, Grease, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Kiss Me, Kate, Proof, Urinetown, and Tony Kushner's Caroline, or Change.
Following the death of Jujamcyn's chairman Jim Binger in 2005, Landesman bought the chain for a reported $30 million. Today, fellow Broadway producers Tom Viertel and Paul Libin also own a small stake in the company, and creative decisions are handled by Jujamcyn's artistic director, Jack Viertel, Tom's brother. Since the acquisition, Landesman has managed an extremely favorable hit/flop ratio, putting on successes like John Patrick Shanley's Doubt, Sweet Charity, Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, Jersey Boys, Grey Gardens, and Curtains. Jujamcyn's Eugene O'Neill Theater hosted the mega-hit Spring Awakening, which swept the Tonys in 2007, winning the Tony for Best Musical and six other statuettes.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is a United States federally funded and donation assisted program that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current chairman is the poet and former CEO Dana Gioia and it has its offices in the Old Post Office building, in Washington, D.C.

Photo Credit: BWW-Staff