Gregory Mosher - Lincoln Center

Lincoln Center

After seven seasons at the Goodman, Mosher was invited by former New York City mayor John V. Lindsay to head the theatre at Lincoln Center, which, despite the leadership of such theatre giants as Elia Kazan and Joseph Papp, had faltered through much of its twenty year history. At the time of Lindsay’s offer, the theatre had not produced a play in over four years; it had virtually no operating capital, little ability to generate it, and no community of artists to energize the stages.

Mosher launched an innovative production schedule and revolutionized marketing efforts, discarding the traditional subscriber arrangement to seek a younger, less affluent, and more diverse audience. These efforts, supported by a remarkable board and staff, and a freshly enthused giving community, quickly sparked theatrical life; the company’s two houses were soon filled, and annual income rose within two years to nearly $45 million.

During this period, Mosher continued to focus on new work. While many of the creators (such as Julie Taymor) were at that time relatively unknown in New York, others were legendary; Lincoln Center and Goodman audiences saw new work from Samuel Beckett, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Elaine May, Stephen Sondheim and eventual Nobel prize-winners Wole Soyinka and Derek Walcott.

Among the most celebrated of Mosher’s productions were John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation, David Rabe’s Hurlyburly (starring William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Harvey Keitel and Christopher Walken, directed by Mike Nichols); the South African township musical Sarafina!, Mike Nichols' version of Waiting for Godot (starring Robin Williams and Steve Martin), James Joyce’s The Dead (Tony Award for author Richard Nelson), numerous Spalding Gray premieres (including Swimming to Cambodia and Monster in a Box), David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow (starring Madonna, Joe Mantegna and Ron Silver), John Leguizamo’s Freak, Anything Goes, the long delayed world premiere of Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes’s Mulebone, and the widely acclaimed revival of Our Town, for which Mosher won his second Tony Award.

Lincoln Center Theatre productions were adapted into a dozen feature films, presented in cast recordings, and on television for NBC and PBS. Productions at the Beaumont and the Newhouse theatres frequently were extended or transferred for long runs on Broadway, as well as venues in England, Europe and Japan.