Bridget Leak Named Know Theatre’s Fifth Producing Artistic Director

An eight-month process to hire a new producing artistic director for Know Theatre of Cincinnati has concluded with the announcement today that Bridget Leak will lead the edgy 27-year-old company as of May 1, 2024. She will be responsible for mapping out Know’s 2024-2025 season, which is yet to be announced.

Leak has been part of the Cincinnati theater scene for a decade as a freelance theater director. She is currently an artist in residence at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, where she recently served as assistant director of the new production of A Christmas Carol . (She came to Cincinnati as a directing fellow at the Playhouse). Additionally, with her husband playwright-composer Trey Tatum, she is the co-founder of Queen City Flash, an adventurous theater company that has been involved with 10 Cincinnati Fringe shows (the Fringe is produced by Know Theatre) and numerous other avant-garde theater productions, as well as a pair of zany podcasts, Zoinks! and Have Monster, Will Travel .

During her time in Cincinnati, Leak has been a People’s Liberty grant recipient and a Cincinnati Art Ambassador. Beyond Cincinnati, she was an SDC Denham Fellow, a Lincoln Center Directors Lab alum, artist in residence at Robert Wilson's The Watermill Center, a Sir Gielgud Fellowship finalist and an SDCF Observer at the Cleveland Play House and Maryland’s Round House Theatre. She earned her MFA in directing from the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University in New York City. She and Tatum live in East Price Hill.

“As Know’s next producing artistic director,” Leak said in a Know news release, “I am ready to collaborate with our local artists and audiences alike. I want to continue the Know’s long legacy of connecting our region to stories risky and beautiful, told both at the cutting edge or too close for comfort. I want to use our talents and resources to lift up our own artists so that their stories can flourish and take root. Cincinnati has a vibrant arts community, full of daring artists and passionate audiences, both hungry for the weird, the wild, the bold. I see The Know as the perfect institution for these two forces to intersect.”

Leak is succeeding Andrew Hungerford, who served as Know’s producing artistic director for 10 years. Leak will be the company’s fifth artistic leader. “I’ve had the pleasure of working with Bridget on a delightful variety of projects at the Know over the last decade,” Hungerford said in the Know news release, “from Serials! to the MainStage and points in between. I’ve watched her spectacular work at the Fringe and theaters around Cincinnati captivate and move audiences, subverting and expanding expectations of what theater can be. I’m thrilled to pass the baton of the Know to an artist of Bridget’s caliber and expect this theatrical playground to thrive under her leadership.”

Know Theatre was formed in 1999. Since 2006 it has operated in a versatile performance space at 1120 Jackson St. in Over-the-Rhine. That same year it became the only regional theater to also produce an annual fringe festival. The 21st annual Cincinnati Fringe begins on May 31 and continues until June 15. More information: knowtheatre.com and cincyfringe.com .