Veteran stage director Jessica Stone named La Jolla Playhouse’s next artistic director

Jessica Stone, a veteran stage director whose most recent Broadway shows “Water for Elephants” and “Kimberly Akimbo” earned her Tony nominations for best direction, has been appointed the new artistic director of La Jolla Playhouse, the theater announced Tuesday.

Stone will succeed Christopher Ashley, who is stepping down after 18 years in early 2026 to become artistic director of New York City’s prestigious three-theater Roundabout Theatre Company. Ashley was one of Stone’s mentors when she gradually transitioned from a 30-year acting career into directing in the early 2000s. Ashley announced plans to leave the Playhouse 14 months ago, and Stone’s appointment followed a formal, yearlong national search for a successor.

San Diego theater fans are already familiar with Stone’s directorial work. At The Old Globe, she directed the world premiere of “Ken Ludwig’s Robin Hood!” as well as  “Arms and the Man,” “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” “Barefoot in the Park” and Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.” The touring production of “Kimberly Akimbo,” which won the 2023 Tony Award for Best Musical, visited the San Diego Civic Theatre in October 2024, and the touring production of her Tony-nominated musical “Water for Elephants” will visit the Civic Theatre next  August.

Although Stone is not the Playhouse’s first woman artistic director — Anne Hamburger served briefly in the position from 1999 to 2000 — she is the first to serve alongside the Playhouse’s first woman managing director Debby Buchholz, who was promoted to that position in 2018. With Denise Bevers, a San Diego entrepreneur and philanthropist who now chairs of the Playhouse’s board of directors, they make up the company’s first all-woman leadership team.

“On behalf of the Board of Trustees and the search committee, we are delighted to welcome Jessica Stone to the Playhouse family,” Bevers said in a statement. “Jessica’s incredible directorial credits, her inspiring and collaborative leadership style, along with her passion for making bold, compelling theater, make her the ideal choice to take the artistic reins of La Jolla Playhouse.”

On Friday, Stone and Buchholz sat for a wide-ranging joint interview with the U-T in the Playhouse’s offices on the campus of UC San Diego. Buchholz said that while the search for a new artistic director was under way, many theater industry insiders passed along their recommendations for who to consider and “Jessica was on every single list.”

“She has a deep understanding of the Playhouse culture and our commitment to being a safe harbor for the development of exciting new work. The entire Playhouse staff and board look forward to working with her, and I can’t think of a better partner to co-lead this organization,” Buchholz said.

‘An artistic home’

As a longtime New York City resident who travels the country year-round for directing assignments, Stone said she never imagined settling into a West Coast job as an artistic director. But after exploring La Jolla Playhouse’s national reputation for developing diverse and ambitious new work, as well as getting to know Playhouse Artistic Producing Director Eric Keen-Louie, who shepherds Playhouse-born shows to extended lives on Broadway and beyond, helped her make her decision.

“Honestly, I had to do my due diligence in order to be worthy of a place like this. … I discovered there’s a nationally renowned company that prides itself on audacious work. I already knew about the audiences in San Diego and their hunger for new work and new voices, and that was always inspiring. … And to be asked to build upon the legacy of (artistic directors) Chris Ashley, Michael Greif and Des McAnuff through compelling, bold programming, that started to take hold.

“Then a friend of mine said, ‘Have you ever had an artistic home?’ … That was the universe going ‘BING!’ That was moving to me, the idea I could provide that for other artists really sealed the deal. And then I came out here and I met everybody and I was so knocked out by the incredible staff.  It (also has) an incredible, really adventurous board. I was so humbled by that,” Stone said.

Stone grew up in upstate New York and began her professional acting career at age 12, performing in theater, television and films. She made her Broadway debut as “Frenchy” in the 1994 revival of “Grease.” Other Broadway acting credits include “Anything Goes,” “Butley,” “The Odd Couple” and “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”

She said her acting experience helped her become a better director, and she hopes her directing experience will help her as an artistic director.

“I do feel that I’ve been on all sides of all tables and that is helpful,” she said.

Her biggest directing project to date was “Water for Elephants,” a massive musical that included professional circus performers who required different training, pre-show needs, costumes and equipment. She said that experience, which began with a tryout staging in Atlanta before moving to Broadway, was like moving “the Prussian army.”

“Many different storytelling disciplines required herding and a tremendous amount of listening and orchestrating. Understanding the needs of circus artists required a level of empathy and patience and curiosity that I think was already there, but was honed and improved upon, and I think all of those skills lend to this kind of position,” she said of her new job.

‘Opportunities to expand’

Stone met her husband, three-time Tony-nominee Christopher Fitzgerald, in 1999 when they co-starred in an off Broadway production of “Babes in Arms.” They  married in 2003 and have two teenage sons. Their youngest has another full year of high school before heading off to college, so Stone said she’ll spend her first year in her Playhouse job traveling back and forth frequently to be present for his launch into adulthood.

She said Fitzgerald, who is most famous for his comedic roles in the Broadway musicals “Waitress” and “Young Frankenstein,” and their sons are delighted about her new position in La Jolla. They’ve joined her in San Diego frequently for her directing jobs at The Old Globe, and her sons are now experts on Balboa Park’s museums and what to do in Coronado.

Stone began working as an assistant director in 2004 and was mentored by Ashley, Joe Mantello, David Warren and the late Nicholas Martin, before making her solo directing debut in 2010 with an all-male production of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” for Williamstown Theatre Festival. Besides the Globe, she has directed at several theaters around the country, including A.C.T., Huntington Theatre Company and Two River Theatre Company. In addition to her two Tony nominations, Stone won the Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards for Best Director for “Water for Elephants.”

Although Stone has directed multiple world premieres, Buchholz said Stone’s experience with older plays and musicals was also a factor in her landing the job.

“We don’t only do new work,” Buchholz said. “We’ve focused quite heavily on new work and new voices, but Chris (Ashley) has directed reimagined classics or what we call new classics. We’ve had three strong artistic directors who all had the words ‘new work’ and ‘audacious’ in their mission statements, and each of them has followed the mission statement and interpreted it slightly differently. I think everyone is really excited about how Jessica will interpret it.”

In addition to serving as artistic director and working with the artistic team to plan future seasons, Stone said she will follow in her predecessors’ foosteps by directing some percentage of the Playhouse’s productions.

In an interview with the U-T last fall about directing the bittersweet “Kimberly Akimbo,” Stone described the types of stories that attract her as a director.

“I gravitate toward stories that intertwine pain and hope and joy in any given second,” Stone said. “I think ‘Kimberly Akimbo’ requires a director with a simpatico sensibility. Someone who relishes what is sweet and sour in any given moment. … When something would get too sweet, we had to undercut it with lemon juice. If it was too painful, we had to massage it with some olive oil.”

Stone said she plans to spend her first year getting to know the job of artistic director and all of the people and programs that make the company run. She said it’s too early to talk about any changes she will make, but said she is very interested in exploring more deeply the Playhouse’s relationship with UCSD and its nationally acclaimed theater department.

“I cut my teeth at Williamstown back in the day, so I love a teaching hospital. I believe deeply in intergenerational information sharing. I’m hoping there are a lot of opportunities to expand where there is already a footprint for it here,” she said.

At the other end of the spectrum, Stone said she’d also like to provide development space for later-career artists from all walks of life. And she’s interested in forming creative teams of early career and veteran directors and designers, saying “what we learn from our rookies and our sages are equally valuable.”