Inside the Visionary Mind of Lear DeBessonet

Any theater lover should be well acquainted with the meteoric rise of Tony nominee Lear deBessonet: from founding the Public Works program at The Public Theater to spearheading the Encores! series at New York City Center to her current role as artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater. In addition to leading these venerable institutions, her brilliant work as a stage director includes projects like Oliver!, Hercules, and The Odyssey. 

One longtime collaborator, choreographer Chase Brock, spoke to the community spirit that is central to so much of DeBessonet’s life and work. “When Lear invited me to dinner to pitch her idea for The Tempest, the inaugural Public Works production, she talked about how, as a young girl in Baton Rouge, her first entry points into theater had been church and football games, so from that early age she had understood theater to involve gospel choirs and marching bands and cheerleaders and huge masses of people coming together in chaotic and glorious harmony.” 

Brock continued: “My jaw dropped lower and lower as she went on to describe how our Tempest…would involve a cast of 200 – yes, 200 – and that, in fact, it would involve a gospel choir (Middle Church Jerriese Johnson Gospel Choir) and would involve a marching band (Raya Brass Band), but that it would also involve the Kaoru Watanabe Taiko Ensemble and Calpulli Mexican Dance Company and students from Elliot Feld’s Ballet Tech. And it would also include community members from every borough of New York City, drawn from vital social service organizations. And it would also include Tony Award winners like Norm Lewis and Laura Benanti. And it would also include workers from the New York City Taxi Workers Alliance, and even the Mayor’s popular ASL interpreter Lydia Callis. Needless to say, her vision is extremely large, and building those initial Public Works productions alongside her was thrilling, challenging and rewarding in so many different and unexpected ways.” 

That adaptation of The Tempest was written by composer Todd Almond, who remembered that “not only was [DeBessonet] able to guide me, the writer/composer, in the writing of the show, she was able to invent an altogether new model for making theater, and then to connect with every individual whom she’d personally invited to participate. I’d never seen anything like it. She’s taught me to trust that there are good people in our business and in the world who want to connect with each other and make powerful change, even when it seems like we’re under the thumbs of powerful bullies.” Almond added a fond personal memory: “At my wedding, she offered the most precious gift, the thing we needed most: she stage-managed the day.” 

Tony nominee Andy Grotelueschen first worked with DeBessonet on her production of Lucy Thurber’s 2009 play Monstrosity. He recalled that: “It had a cast of at least 21 including a full high school chorus number and was 3 and half hours long. There was free lemonade. It was epic, it was messy, it overflowed the Connelly Theatre. It was a wildly ambitious undertaking and a total blast to work on.”

Actress Mia Katigbak recalled a personal anecdote DeBessonet shared during the first rehearsal for a revival of Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan: “It had to do with an encounter in the subway with a panhandler. Herself struggling with resources at the time, Lear found herself trying to help but being somehow criticized by the panhandler for her efforts. And yet she kept trying. That anecdote was such a synthesis of what the play was about for me. When is being helpful a form of martyrdom? When is it a form of egoism? Can it be only for the good of others without being for one's own good? Lear's Good Person posed all these questions. With sublime raucousness and heart.” 

DeBessonet’s tenure at Encores! was incredibly successful, leading to four Broadway transfers, three of which were directed by her. DeBessonet’s successor Jenny Gersten commented that “Lear's love of musical theater and her passion for community fundamentally changed the way we think about Encores at New York City Center. She left an indelible imprint on this building, and we are better for it.” 

Ta’Nika Gibson appeared in Once Upon a Mattress, Into the Woods, and Ragtime at Encores! Her collaboration with DeBessonet started unexpectedly: “I was living in LA and got a call asking if I could be in NYC in 24 hours to play Lucinda in Into The Woods at Encores! I dropped everything I was doing, booked a flight, learned my lines on the plane and started rehearsals the next day! That was my first time meeting Lear, who was seven months pregnant at the time. It was so inspiring to see this powerful woman and mother command a room, barely speaking above a whisper.” 

Two stage veterans who DeBessonet cast in Into the Woods are Annie Golden and David Patrick Kelly. Kelly commented that “Lear represents a new wave and a hopeful future in so many ways. I saw her Tempest in Central Park and was very moved by the unusual casting of older actors as Oberon and Titania’s forest sprites and the freedom and creativity of the actors.” Golden recalled: “I found that when Lear gives you the gig, casts you, selects you: she trusts you. It is a sacred trust to give the performance she needs to complete her vision for the piece. It is extremely empowering!” 

Star of stage and screen Michael Urie, who led the company of Once Upon a Mattress, remembered that “anytime I had a hare-brained idea, Lear not only welcomed it with open arms, she made it better. She is a wizard at community building and exudes collaboration and respect.” Choreographer Lorin Latarro added: “Lear continues to astonish me with her endless imagination and fearlessness. While working on Once Upon A Mattress, I will never forget when Lear declared she wanted leeches stuck to Sutton’s back for her star entrance. We laughed a lot during the creation of that show. For Into The Woods, Lear focused us on creating the most low tech solutions to create our world. A ladder and frame became Rapunzel’s castle. And our beloved Milky White, made out of cardboard, was born.” 

DeBessonet continues to embrace invention in her work at Lincoln Center. Her first production in the Vivian Beaumont Theater was a revival of Ragtime, which premiered during her time at Encores! Gibson remembered the historical import of that production: “The presidential election of 2024 was weeks away and the entire cast was feeling the weight of the story we were telling during this charged time in our country. Lear sat down with the entire cast in a big circle and we all talked about how we were feeling. We discussed ways that we could change the ending of Ragtime to reflect our sentiments at the time. It was beautiful how Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens embraced our ideas, and the new ending for Ragtime was composed!” 

DeBessonet’s collaborations with writers have been equally rewarding. Erin McKeown, who wrote the music and lyrics for Miss You Like Hell, a musical about immigration that DeBessonet directed first at the La Jolla Playhouse and then at The Public Theater, pointed out that “the theater ecology bends itself toward directors. Lear wears power lightly and kindly. She is firm and consistent, but never disregards the work of others.” 

McKeown added that DeBessonet “implicitly brings her spiritual life into her artistic practice - there is a sense of perspective and mission of service that to me is a direct expression of a daily practice of faith. It makes for a life experience rather than a work experience.”

Photo Credit:  Jenny Anderson