Executive Leadership
Writers’ Theatre Artistic Director Michael Halberstam co-founded the theater in 1992 and has been fueling its creative growth ever since. In 2007, he was joined by Executive Director Kathryn M. Lipuma, one of the most innovative leaders in the country, making Writers’ Theatre one of Chicago’s most successful and intimate theaters.
Michael Halberstam is the Artistic Director and co-founder of Writers’ Theatre, where he has directed Love & Lunacy, A Play on Words, Dear Master, Not About Heroes (starring Nicholas Pennell), Diary of a Madman, My Own Stranger, Marriage & Bears, Blake, Memoir, Private Lives, Look Back in Anger, Candida, Fallen Angels, Nixon’s Nixon, Spite for Spite, The Father, A Phoenix Too Frequent, Rough Crossing, Crime and Punishment, Benefactors, The Doctor’s Dilemma, Seagull, The Uneasy Chair, The Duchess of Malfi, Othello, The Savannah Disputation, Nixon's Nixon, A Minister's Wife and most recently Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Michael appeared in the Writers’ Theatre productions Two by Shaw, Oscar Remembered, Damon, Ring & F. Scott, In the Heart of Winter, the title role in Richard II, pInteracts, Loot and Misalliance. Previously, he spent two years at The Stratford Festival in Ontario and performed in Timon of Athens, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (title role), Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It and Macbeth. Halberstam’s other Chicago acting credentials include productions with Wisdom Bridge, Court Theatre and Chicago Shakespeare Theater. He spent two-and-a-half years teaching Shakespeare at The Theatre School at DePaul University. Elsewhere he directed Pledge of Allegiance (American Theatre Company), The Gamester (Northlight Theatre), A Man for All Seasons (Peninsula Players Theatre), Hamlet (Illinois Shakespeare Festival), Candida (Jean Cocteau Repertory in New York City, NY) and Ten Little Indians (Drury Lane Oakbrook), a highly acclaimed revival of Crime And Punishment, which Writers’ Theatre produced Off-Broadway at 59E59 Theatres in New York, and most recently Enchanted April and State of the Union (Milwaukee Repertory Theater). His forays into opera have included The Rape of Lucretia (Chicago Opera Theater), Francesca da Ramini featuring the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christoph Eschenbach and Le Freyschutz, a Berlioz adaptation of the Weber opera conducted by Christoph Eschenbach in its North American Premiere (Ravinia Festival). Halberstam has received awards for excellence in theatre management and artistic achievement from The Chicago Drama League, The Arts & Business Council and the Chicago Lawyers for the Creative Arts. Halberstam will be directing A Minister’s Wife in New York as part Lincoln Center Theater's 2010/11 Season.
Kathryn M. Lipuma joined Writers’ Theatre as its Executive Director in March 2007 after nine seasons with the award-winning Signature Theatre Company in New York where she was Executive Director. At Signature, she produced 28 productions including award-winning revivals of Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful, August Wilson’s Seven Guitars and Lanford Wilson’s Burn This and worked with such acclaimed writers as Edward Albee, Lee Blessing, Horton Foote, Maria Irene Fornes, John Guare, Bill Irwin, Romulus Linney, Paula Vogel, August Wilson and Lanford Wilson. During her tenure, the organization enjoyed consistent growth and recognition. Among its numerous awards and accolades was recognition as Outstanding National Theatre of the Year and the launch of Signature Theatre Company’s successful $15 Ticket Program, which has become a national model for subsidized ticket programming. Prior to her time at Signature, she spent six years with Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. Lipuma has consulted with not-for-profit theatres, hosted fundraising seminars for development professionals from across the country and has been a guest lecturer on arts management in the graduate programs at New York University, Marymount Manhattan College and Northwestern University. She has served on numerous arts and funding panels, including the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Philadelphia Theatre Institute for the Pew Charitable Trust, the Multi-Arts Production (MAP) Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. Lipuma currently serves on the Board of Directors of the League of Chicago Theatres and the Glencoe Chamber of Commerce. She is a graduate of The George Washington University in Washington, DC.
