City Lit Names Brian Pastor Executive Artistic Director

Producer and Artistic Director Terry McCabe will retire on June 30, 2024.

By: Jun. 02, 2023
City Lit Names Brian Pastor Executive Artistic Director

City Lit Board President Daniel Robinson announced that Brian Pastor (they/them), City Lit’s current Resident Director and for nine years its Managing Director, will succeed City Lit’s Producer and Artistic Director Terry McCabe, who will retire on June 30, 2024, following the conclusion of City Lit’s recently announced 43rd season. Pastor will take the new title of Executive Artistic Director.

“Brian has a long and highly successful history with City Lit,” said Robinson, “and as sorry as we are to see Terry go, we look forward to a productive and happy association with Brian.”

Pastor was first hired at City Lit in February 2005 as Business Manager, one week after McCabe was hired as Artistic Director. In 2006 Pastor was promoted to managing director, a position in which they served through June 2015. In 2019 they became City Lit’s Resident Director, and it was Pastor’s production of their own adaptation of Robert Kennedy’s Cuban missile crisis memoir Thirteen Days that was forced to close during previews in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic; it reopened in September 2021 to critical acclaim. They also directed City Lit’s productions of John Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World in 2022, Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man in 2018, and Archibald MacLeish’s J. B. in 2017. With McCabe, they co-adapted Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson for City Lit’s 2008 season. This coming season, Brian will direct City Lit’s world premiere adaptation of Davis Grubb’s gothic thriller The Night of the Hunter, adapted by Shawna Tucker.

As an actor, Pastor has been seen at City Lit in over a dozen productions, including Hauptmann, The Body Snatchers, their own co-adaptation (with Stephen Murray) of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and The Play’s the Thing, in which they acted alongside McCabe’s predecessor, the late Page Hearn.

“I am incredibly honored to follow in the footsteps of my longtime mentors Page Hearn and Terry McCabe,” Pastor said. “City Lit wouldn’t exist without them. I am grateful for the faith in me shown by Daniel Robinson and the Board, and I look forward to building on the rich foundation laid by my predecessors. For me, City Lit has always felt like home.”

A Founder and long-time Artistic Director of Chicago’s Promethean Theatre Ensemble, Pastor is excited to return to producing stories of vital interest to modern audiences. “As a trans/nonbinary artist, I am committed to telling stories of inclusion, utilizing the rich diversity of the theatrical community to put fresh perspectives to well-known stories. Rest assured, City Lit will continue to be a place to awaken your senses and explore the literary imagination. I’m excited to revisit favorite characters, reimagine timeless classics, and introduce everyone to new worlds, both fantastically different and surprisingly familiar.”



2023 Regional Awards


RELATED STORIES - Chicago

1
Photos: Inside See Chicago Dances 2023 Community Celebration & Award Presentation Photo
Photos: Inside See Chicago Dance's 2023 Community Celebration & Award Presentation

See Chicago Dance, the dance industry's nonprofit service organization, held its annual fundraiser, the Community Celebration & Awards Presentation, Tuesday, Sept. 19. Check out photos here!

2
 A Theater In The Dark to Present Live Immersive Staged Reading Of WHITE CITY: AN AUDIBLE  Photo
A Theater In The Dark to Present Live Immersive Staged Reading Of WHITE CITY: AN AUDIBLE EXHIBITION ON H.H. HOLMES, MURDERER

Don't miss the live immersive staged reading of WHITE CITY: AN AUDIBLE EXHIBITION ON H.H. HOLMES, MURDERER this weekend only at the Coach House of Glessner House. Experience the chilling thriller on October 6 and 7 in the South Loop.

3
Chicago Sinfonietta Extends Music Director Mei-Ann Chens Contract by Four Years Photo
Chicago Sinfonietta Extends Music Director Mei-Ann Chen's Contract by Four Years

The Board of the Chicago Sinfonietta has unanimously elected to extend Music Director Mei-Ann Chen's contract through the 2028-29 season, for another four years. Learn more about Chen here!

4
Rough House Theater Relocates HOUSE OF THE EXQUISITE CORPSE III To Steppenwolfs Merle Resk Photo
Rough House Theater Relocates HOUSE OF THE EXQUISITE CORPSE III To Steppenwolf's Merle Reskin Garage Space

Get ready for a spine-chilling experience as Rough House Theater brings House Of The Exquisite Corpse III to Steppenwolf's Merle Reskin Garage Space. Dive into the world of immersive puppetry and horror starting Friday the 13th. Don't miss out on Chicago's only puppet haunted house.

More Hot Stories For You

Videos


#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# Intimate Evening with D.C. Anderson
Jekot Theater @ Mrs Murphy and Sons (10/22-10/22)Tracker
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# Fright: The Improvised Horror Movie
The iO Theater (9/17-11/05)Tracker PHOTOS
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# Fall in Love with Fat Cat Cabaret
Newport Theater (10/06-10/06)Tracker
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# Silent Sky
Citadel Theatre (2/14-3/17)
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# What The World Needs Now
Raue Center For The Arts (10/22-10/22)
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# The Brit Pack
Prairie Center for the Arts (10/13-10/13)
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# The Exonerated
The Center for Performing Arts (4/04-4/07)
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# White City: An Audible Exhibition on H.H. Holmes, Murderer
Glessner House (10/06-10/07)
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# Silent Sky
Citadel Theatre (2/14-3/17)
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# Roast Battle Chicago
The Lincoln Lodge (5/10-12/21)
VIEW ALL SHOWS  ADD A SHOW  

Recommended For You