Gideon Lester is Senior Curator at the Center for Human Rights & the Arts and Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the Fisher Center at Bard. A festival director, creative producer, and dramaturg, he has collaborated with and commissioned artists across disciplines, including Romeo Castellucci, Justin Vivian Bond, Brice Marden, Sarah Michelson, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Claudia Rankine, Kaija Saariaho, Peter Sellars, and Anna Deavere Smith.
His recent projects include Where No Wall Remains, an international festival on borders (co-curated with Tania El Khoury); Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma! (Tony award); Pam Tanowitz’s Four Quartets; Ronald K. Brown and Meshell Ndegeocello’s Grace and Mercy; and Ashley Tata’s Mad Forest. He was previously a curator of Crossing the Line Festival (New York City) and Acting Artistic Director at the American Repertory Theatre.
Gideon’s interests include altered models of festival curation, collaboration, and arts funding, creating exceptional conditions for artistic creation across disciplines.
Gideon holds a BA in English Language and Literature from Oxford University, and a diploma in dramaturgy from Harvard’s Institute for Advanced Theater Training, where he was a Fulbright and Frank Knox scholar. He was director of Bard’s undergraduate Theater & Performance Program from 2012-2020, and previously held faculty positions at Columbia and Harvard. He teaches courses on collaboration, dramaturgy, theater and performance studies, and creative producing.