Roundabout Names Rebecca Habel as New Managing Director

Roundabout Theatre Company has named Executive Producer and General Manager Rebecca Habel as Managing Director. Habel will begin consulting with the theater this fall and assume the full-time position in January 2026. Habel and Christopher Ashley, Roundabout’s incoming artistic director, will comprise a new co-leadership model for the nonprofit.

In this new position, Rebecca Habel will lead Roundabout’s business management and administration, beginning in January. Christopher Ashley was involved in Habel’s selection, and on the artistic side, he is collaborating with Scott Ellis on the 2026–27 season, and will begin his full-time tenure in July 2026.

Current interim CEOs Scott Ellis, Sydney Beers, and Christopher Nave have led the theater since Haimes’s passing in 2023. Beers will continue as Executive Producer and Nave as Chief Advancement Officer, working with Habel and Ashley. After collaborating with Ashley on planning the 2026-2027 season, Scott Ellis will continue to consult for the artistic team.

Habel is a longtime leader in the non-profit theatrical world, holding leadership positions at the Vineyard Theater (General Manager 2003-2005 and Managing Director 2011-2012) and Roundabout (General Manager, 2005-2011). She currently is a partner at TT Partners, a Broadway producing and general management company, where she has recently served as General Manager and/or Executive Producer of the Broadway premieres of Jez Butterworth’s The Hills of California, Peter Morgan’s Patriots, Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt, and last year’s Tony nominee for Best Musical Illinoise.

Habel returns to Roundabout Theatre Company after spending six years as a General Manager, first of their Harold & Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre where she launched the Roundabout Underground program with Todd Haimes, and then the formerly named American Airlines Theatre on Broadway.

“I am thrilled to return to Roundabout to work again with Scott Ellis, Sydney Beers, and Chris Nave and to partner with Chris Ashley in guiding Roundabout in its next phase of producing world-class theatre. I am grateful to the Board for their confidence as we embark on this work together,” said Rebecca Habel. “I have had a wonderful experience with my partners at TT Partners and am excited for them as they continue to build on all the success we have had together.”

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Rebecca Habel, current Partner at TT Partners, has been the general manager of more than 30 productions on and off-Broadway at Vineyard Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company and at Stuart Thompson Productions and Thompson Turner Productions. On these New York stages, she has overseen productions ranging from Stephen Karam’s first play Speech & Debate in Roundabout’s Black Box Theater to the Broadway premiere and First National Tour of the musical Mean Girls. She co-created and produced Reconfiguration: An Evening with Other Lives in BAM’s Next Wave Festival and was a producing consultant for The Park Avenue Armory on The Hairy Ape. She has a B.A. in Communications from American University and an M.A in Performing Arts Administration from New York University.