02:32 PM EST on Wednesday, November 17, 2004

BY CHANNING GRAY
Journal Arts Writer

After a decade at the helm of Trinity Repertory Company, artistic director Oskar Eustis will be leaving to take the same post at New York's important Public Theater.

The official offer from the theater's board came in a phone call to his office shortly after noon today, Eustis said, following a vote by the board to hire him this morning.

Eustis immediately accepted the offer to become artistic director of the theater, which is devoted to new plays with political sensitivities. "I wanted to run it all my life," he told a Journal reporter today.

Kenneth B. Lerer, chairman of the Public Theater's board, had previously said both the theater's executive committee and the search committee unanimously supported hiring Eustis.

Eustis is known for bringing new plays to the stage in Providence, and he is credited with increasing attendance at Trinity Rep and bolstering the theater's finances.

His departure has been rumored for weeks. News that he was a leading candidate for the New York position had been bandied about in the New York press for some time.

A member of the Public Theater's search committee who did not want to be identified until the full board votes said Eustis "was sparkling with ideas."

Eustis' leaving comes during a crucial period of growth for Trinity, just as the theater is about to open a new performance space and as it begins to build upon its partnership with Brown University. The program, which pairs Brown playwriting students with young actors and directors from Trinity's conservatory, graduates its first students this spring.

But Eustis has also left his mark on Rhode Island's largest performing arts group. Although he will be missed, say those close to the theater, he has accomplished much.

Eustis, who arrived here in 1994 after five years as associate director at the Mark Taper Forum, in Los Angeles, has taken a shine to new plays, doubled the operating budget and seen attendance soar.

During troubled times for arts organizations, Trinity has ended the past eight seasons in the black.

"He's leaving us in a very strong position," said theater spokesperson Emily Atkinson. "Over the last several years, we have grown stronger in terms of management and more stable financially."

Eustis said today that he will split his time between Trinity and the Public Theater until June 1, insuring that he'll be involved in carrying out the current season in Providence.

Associate director Amanda Dehnert, who has risen in recent years to become a crucial member of Trinity's creative team, will take over as acting artistic director.

Board chairman Arnold Chace said he'll be convening a "transition committee" to decide what to do next. Chace said the team, made up of board members, staff, the community and representatives of Brown, will decide whether to conduct a national search or appoint a successor from within.

That person would presumably serve as creative director of the theater and head of the Brown consortium, as Eustis did.

IN NEW YORK, Eustis will take over as artistic director of a company with a $12-million budget, an organization that serves about 250,000 people at six downtown stages, including its free summer Shakespeare in Central Park.

Founded 50 years ago by Joseph Papp as the Shakespeare Workshop, the Public is perhaps the country's preeminent theater. It moved to its current headquarters on Lafayette Street in the late 1960s with the world premiere of the musical Hair.

Over the years, Public productions have collectively garnered 38 Tony Awards, 135 Obies and 4 Pulitzers, and the theater has brought 49 shows to Broadway, including A Chorus Line.

If Eustis is to be remembered for one thing at Trinity, it is perhaps his devotion to new plays, something he shared with his predecessor Adrian Hall.

This season alone contains a new musical from the creator of Annie, Charles Strouse, and a play about a May-December romance by Native American playwright Drew Hayden Taylor.

Last season, Eustis directed Rinne Groff's The Ruby Sunrise, a wondrous new play about a precocious young woman who invented television. He also directed the premiere of Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel's The Long Christmas Ride Home, about a family that is thrust into the future after a highway mishap. That was in May 2003.

Eustis also directed the off-Broadway run of Thunder Knocking on the Door, the blues musical starring Leslie Uggams that was worked up here in Providence before moving on to the Big Apple.

Eustis first directed here about 15 years ago when Anne Bogart ran the place. He was brought in to do a Julius Caesar that company member Fred Sullivan Jr. said was the best Shakespeare he's ever done.

"He's brilliant," said Sullivan. "A world-class man of the theater."

COMPARED WITH BOGART, whose single stormy season here was marked with hard-to-crack, esoteric productions, Eustis was something of a populist, mounting shows like Proof and Nickel and Dimed, which was based on the best-selling book by a journalist who goes undercover and tries to survive on menial jobs.

He was also a big fan of musicals and family fare, which helped draw a diverse audience. Aside from A Christmas Carol, the theater's top-grossing shows remain Annie and My Fair Lady.

Eustis was also popular in the community, and held out a special place in his heart for experimental groups such as Everett Dance Theater.

"He is very articulate," said Trinity managing director Edgar Dobie, "and very charismatic."

The consortium with Brown University's creative-writing program has been another fruitful collaboration. The Pell Chafee Performing Arts Center will come on line this winter as a major component of the new consortium. The complex, located in a former Citizens Bank building on Empire Street, was to be a third mainstage space, but it had to be scaled back when money dried up during the economic downturn.

It will now house the consortium and educational programs for students from area schools.

During Eustis' 10 years as artistic director, annual audience figures have doubled, from just over 92,000 to 185,000. Those numbers include the educational program Project Discovery and the free outdoor Shakespeare plays in the summer.

Started six years ago, outdoor Shakepeare is performed in parks and community centers to some 20,000 spectators a year.

The operating budget for Trinity Rep, now in is 41st season, has also doubled under Eustis, from $3.6 million to $7.3 milllion.

Chace, the board chairman, recalls that when Eustis took over, there was a board of about eight trying each month to make payroll.

"Now he's leaving with it functioning well, with a strong board, strong management, and strong artistically," he said. "It's a night-and-day contrast, and I have to give him a lot of credit for that."

The addition to the staff of Tony Award-winning producer Dobie as managing director was seen as a coup. Dobie was head of his own production company in New York and was president of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Very Useful Theater Company.

Since 1995, Trinity has won nine Elliot Norton Awards, which are given out by the Greater Boston Theater Critics Association. Accolades have ranged from Outstanding Production for Vogel's The Long Christmas Ride Home and Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul, both directed by Eustis, to Outstanding Director for Eustis' work in Kushner's Angels in America.

Eustis' admirers say they are surprised they had not lost him sooner.

-- With reports from staff writer Cathleen F. Crowley and The Associated Press