Avery Willis Hoffman, the incoming artistic director of Chicago’s Court Theatre, developed a love for the classics from an early age. With a father who taught history at Princeton University and a mother who was an artist, she grew up participating in theater and began learning Latin and ancient Greek in her teens. She later earned a bachelor’s in classics and English from Stanford University and a master’s and doctorate in classical languages and literature from the University of Oxford, where she was a Marshall Scholar. Her theses for each of these degrees focused on modern adaptations of ancient Greek theater.
Hoffman’s academic background, combined with her experience as a cross-disciplinary arts administrator, seems a natural fit for her new role, which she takes up in November. Court Theatre, winner of the 2022 Regional Theatre Tony Award, has a long tradition of translating and adapting classic texts for contemporary audiences, dating back to the tenure of founding artistic director Nicholas Rudall (1971-1994). Rudall was also a classics professor at the University of Chicago, where Court is in residence, and the ties between the university and theater remain strong.
During her graduate studies, Hoffman was “very steeped”, she shares, in Rudall’s translations and scholarship. When Court’s artistic director position became vacant upon the 2024 departure of its second artistic director, Charles Newell, Hoffman took a closer look at the theater’s production history. Her admiration grew as she learned more about its championing of such modern masters as August Wilson and Tom Stoppard. “It got me really excited to think, ‘What is a classic?’ And, especially for the last ten or 15 years, ‘What does it mean to do Shakespeare in the 21st century? What does it mean to do Greek tragedy now?’”
For Hoffman, the answers to these questions begin with the text. “It’s important to really understand the text in its original context and then have the courage to jump from there. And that’s where it’s hard. Which direction do you jump? For me, it has a lot to do with being sensitive to what’s happening in the world. I think what makes a classic, in many ways, is the ability for every generation to reinterpret it in a new way, with a new set of findings and explorations.”
Hoffman comes to Court from Brown University, where she served as the inaugural artistic director of the Brown Arts Institute from 2020 to 2024. In this role, she oversaw the opening of The Lindemann Performing Arts Center and produced more than 50 multidisciplinary projects featuring student and faculty work, along with visiting artists such as Carrie Mae Weems, William Kentridge, Tanya Tagaq and Peter Sellars.
As the founder of Avery Productions, Hoffman has also produced international tours and performances across a range of art forms. She previously worked as program director at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City and content developer at Ralph Appelbaum Associates, where she developed the permanent exhibitions of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Other institutions she has partnered with include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, National Black Theatre, New York City Opera and the Aspen Institute.
Through these varied experiences, “what I’ve learned the most is the power of collaboration, really thinking about ways that we can build structures to support artists and the arts,” says Hoffman. “That ability to cross disciplines and to invite people into the room, to think differently, to un-silo art making, has been something that I’ve done across my career. Relationship building has been my greatest joy.”
At Court, Hoffman aims to continue this collaborative approach. Unlike her predecessors, she doesn’t plan to direct many productions herself, instead focusing on developing the pipeline of newer talents. “In these times, when theater’s really under a lot of pressure, I’m really interested in making space for other voices, for new voices, for different visions,” she says.
Hoffman’s other priorities include two goals that Newell also pursued during his 30-year tenure: deepening Court’s relationships with the University of Chicago and with the South Side community. Hoffman believes that theater can serve as an important “center of civic life” and hopes to explore what that means for an area of Chicago that has an “incredible history of art making and creativity.” In addition, she plans to continue “really digging into our new canon cultivation.” Court’s award-winning adaptation of Berlin, the graphic novel by Jason Lutes, is a recent example of the company’s innovation in this area. “That’s going to be part of this ongoing conversation about our mission,” states Hoffman. “What it means to not just interpret the classics for our time, but help create classics for this generation and for this time.”
