McCarter Theatre Center’s new artistic director will be Sarah Rasmussen, effective August 1. Rasmussen will take over for Emily Mann, who in January 2019 announced that she would be stepping down at the end of the 2019–2020 season.
Currently the artistic director of Jungle Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Rasmussen has sought to bring inclusive and bold stories to the stage with diverse talent and gender parity. Among the productions seen under her leadership are School Girls; or, The African Mean Girls Play, The Wolves, and Ride the Cyclone.
“I am so very happy to light the torch of my successor and wish her a glorious tenure as McCarter’s new artistic director,” said Mann.
“I have long admired Emily and her legacy of commissioning and developing new work,” said Rasmussen. “And, as a former professor, I look forward to the possibilities between the theater and Princeton University.”
Rasmussen took leadership of the Jungle Theater in 2015, succeeding founder Bain Boehlke. In 2018, the Star Tribune named her “Artist of the Year” in Minnesota. That same year, she became an inaugural recipient of the BOLD Theater Women’s Leadership Circle grant, which supports the development of female artistic leaders in theater.
Prior to serving as artistic director at the Jungle, Rasmussen was resident director for Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Black Swan Lab new work development program and head of the M.F.A. Directing program at The University of Texas at Austin. She has directed at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Guthrie Theater, Dallas Theater Center, Actors Theater of Louisville and La Jolla Playhouse. She earned her BA from St. Olaf College and MFA from the University of California, San Diego.
