TONY AWARD®-RECOGNIZED
WILLIAMSTOWN THEATRE FESTIVAL
ANNOUNCES NEW BOARD LEADERSHIP
MARGARET GOULD STEWART
NAMED NEW CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
New York, NY (November 29, 2023) – Today, Williamstown Theatre Festival (Jenny Gersten, Interim Artistic Director) announced that Margaret Gould Stewart will succeed Jeff Johnson as the Chair of the Board of Trustees. Johnson has led the board for the last five years and will remain a member of the Board of Trustees. Johnson said “It has been my great pleasure to serve the Williamstown Theatre Festival as Chair of the Board. I’m particularly gratified to have advanced the Festival’s mission to nurture and present unforgettable theater experiences and its vital work of creating more equitable, diverse, inclusive, and sustainable production systems. As I pass the baton, I’m excited for the future of the Festival and know that my friend and colleague Margaret Gould Stewart will bring wisdom, empathy, and vision to her new role.”
"As a catalyst for creativity, an incubator for talent, and an agent of change, the Williamstown Theatre Festival represents the best of what American theater can and should be,” says Stewart. “I am excited to step into the role of Board Chair and am grateful to Jeff Johnson for his dedicated leadership over the past five years. I look forward to supporting the Festival in continuing the generative and artistic risk-taking for which it is known and to ensuring that it remains a source of innovation and inspiration for the Berkshires community and for all who love theater.”
"We are deeply grateful to Jeff for his commitment and service in guiding the Williamstown Theatre Festival through some of its most challenging years," says Interim Artistic Director Jenny Gersten. "I'm thrilled about the possibilities that lie ahead with Margaret as our Board Chair. Her background in innovation and design, combined with her deep understanding of the digital and artistic worlds offer WTF an ideal resource to lead the organization ahead. She is naturally creative, curious, and thoughtful — qualities we require at this juncture. I look forward to collaborating with her to carry forward the Festival's legacy of artistic excellence."
Margaret Gould Stewart has been a Williamstown Theatre Festival trustee since 2020. A noted global leader in the field of user experience design, Stewart has led design for some of the world’s most successful products at Meta, Google, and YouTube. In 2018, she established Meta’s Responsible Innovation team and is a frequent speaker on inclusive design and the effects of technology on society at conferences such as TED, Grace Hopper, CHI, and AIGA. In addition to her work with WTF, Stewart is a member of the Board of Trustees and Chair of the Committee on Trustees for the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; a member of the Advisory Board of East Fork Pottery, LLC; and a member of the Operating Council of F7 Ventures. In 2014, she was named by Fast Company magazine as one of the Most Creative People in Business. Stewart studied Communications at Boston College, where she was active with the theatre community as a performer and designer. She is also a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she earned a Master’s degree in Interactive Telecommunications. She splits her time between the Berkshires and Palo Alto, CA.
ABOUT WILLIAMSTOWN THEATRE FESTIVAL
For seven decades, the Tony Award-recognized Williamstown Theatre Festival has brought emerging and professional theater artists together in the Berkshires to create a thrilling summer festival of diverse, world premiere plays and musicals, bold new revivals, and a rich array of accompanying cultural events. Artists are drawn to Williamstown Theatre Festival to make great theater in an environment conducive to artistic risk-taking. Matthew Broderick, Audra McDonald, Dominique Morisseau, Mary-Louise Parker, Susan Stroman, Uma Thurman, and Blair Underwood are just a few of the luminous theater artists who have worked at the Festival. Many others, including Sterling K. Brown, Ty Burrell, Charlie Day, Paul Giamatti, Kathryn Hahn, Allison Janney, Brie Larson, Chris Pine, and George C. Wolfe, began their careers at the Festival. Productions and artists shaped at the Festival fill theaters in New York City and around the world. Recently, Williamstown Theatre Festival was represented on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regionally by The Sound Inside, Grand Horizons, The Rose Tattoo, The Visit, Fool for Love, The Elephant Man, Seared, Selling Kabul, Unknown Soldier, the 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning Cost of Living, and Lempicka, which will make its Broadway debut this coming Spring. Learn more about Williamstown Theatre Festival at www.wtfestival.org.