Newsmaker

Every Friday, we choose an alum who has been making headlines—for better or for worse.
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Rocco Landesman ’76DFA

By the staff | 11:44am May 15 2009

Playwright Tony Kushner previews it as the American arts community’s “best news… since the birth of Walt Whitman.” Other colleagues rave about the “vibrant personality” who is “fabledly impatient.” Broadway impresario (he’s president of Jujamcyn Theaters); former racehorse owner and investment manager; producer of The Producers and Angels in America; the man behind the $480 Broadway ticket: ladies and gentlemen, we bring you Rocco Landesman ’76DFA, President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the National Endowment for the Arts. Landesman’s Yale ties run deeper than his degree; he has taught at the School of Drama and championed the works of playwright August Wilson, many of which premiered at the Yale Rep. Those who know him expect this bold commercial talent to shake up the staid nonprofit world of the NEA: “Rocco is bored,” Yale Rep founding director Robert Brustein ’51DRA told the New York Times, “if things just go routinely.”

Filed under performing arts, School of Drama, appointed
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