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. He has directed over thirty productions for the company including Not About Heroes (starring Nicholas Pennell), Private Lives, Look Back In Anger, Candida, The Father, Crime and Punishment, Benefactors, Seagull, The Duchess of Malfi, Othello, The Savannah Disputation, the world premiere musical A Minister’s Wife, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, She Loves Me and The Real Thing and Hamlet. Halberstam has appeared in numerous Writers’ Theatre productions including Richard II (title role), 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 and As You Like It. Halberstam’s other Chicago acting credentials include productions with Wisdom Bridge, Court Theatre and Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Elsewhere he directed The Gamester (Northlight Theatre), A Man For All Seasons (Peninsula Players Theatre), Hamlet (Illinois Shakespeare Festival), Candida (Jean Cocteau Re pertory in New York), Ten Little Indians (Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace), a highly acclaimed revival of Crime and Punishment, which Writers’ Theatre produced off-Broadway at 59E59 Theaters in New York City, Enchanted April and State of the Union (Milwaukee Repertory Theater). In 2011 he directed A Minister’s Wife at Lincoln Center Theater. His forays into opera have included The Rape Of Lucretia (Chicago Opera Theater), Francesca De Ramini featuring the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christoph Eschenbach and Le Freyshutz, a Berlioz adaptation of the Weber opera conducted by Christoph Eschenbach in its North American Premiere (Ravinia Festival). He spent two and a half years teaching Shakespeare at The Theatre School at DePaul University and has received awards for excellence in theater management and/or artistic achievement from The Chicago Drama League, The Arts & Business Council, Chicago Lawyers for the Creative Arts, The Chicago Associates of the Stratford Festival and most recently, the 2010 Zelda Fichandler Award.
Kathryn M. Lipuma joined Writers’ Theatre as its Executive Director in March 2007 where she is responsible for overseeing all administrative, fiscal and institutional matters, including budgeting, marketing, fundraising, board development and strategic planning. Currently, she is leading the planning and creation of a new state of the art theater complex which will be the future home for Writers’ Theatre’s two venues, rehearsal and administrative spaces. Lipuma is partnering with internationally renowned architect and recent MacArthur Fellow or “Genius Grant” recipient Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang Architects on the project. Prior to Writers’, Lipuma spent nine seasons with the award-winning Signature Theatre Company in New York where she was Executive Director. At Signature, she produced 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 as well as the launch of Signature Theatre Company’s successful $15 Ticket Program. Prior to her time at Signature, she spent six years with Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. Ms. Lipuma has been a guest lecturer on arts management in the graduate programs at New York University, Marymount Manhattan College and Northwestern University and has acted as management and fundraising consultant for many not-for-profit organizations. 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, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Commercial Theatre Institute/Chicago Producing Conference. Lipuma currently serves on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the League of Chicago Theatres, the trade association representing more than 200 Chicago-area theater companies and producers and Theatre Communications Group, the national service organization consisting of more than 400 not-for-profit theaters. She is also the co-creator of DoNORTH, a new umbrella organization joining four cultural neighbors - Chicago Botanic Garden, Kohl Children’s Museum, Ravinia Festival and Writers’ Theatre - to attract new audiences to the cultural, environmental, and community activities of the North Shore. She is a graduate of The George Washington University in Washington, DC.
