Broadway’s David Binder Takes The Reins at 2018 London Theater Festival

Broadway producer David Binder will serve as guest artistic director for LIFT, the London International Festival of Theater, for the biennial event’s 2018 edition.

Binder, the producer behind the Tony-winning revival of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” with Neil Patrick Harris as well as “Of Mice and Men” with James Franco, has already been affiliated with LIFT as an artistic associate. As part of the 2014 and 2016 festivals, he shepherded LIFT stints for Taylor Mac and for Andrew Schneider’s “YOUARENOWHERE,” as well as shows staged at the Royal Court and in the streets of the Greenwich and Deptford.

In New York, Binder’s activities beyond Broadway have included the High Line Festival of performances, films and other events, as well as the Dutch New Island Festival on Governors Island. Among his more traditional theater credits are “A Raisin in the Sun” with Sean Combs and Off Broadway’s “De La Guarda,” which he first saw at a LIFT festival in 1997. He’s currently co-producing Ivo Van Hove’s production of “Obsession” with Jude Law at the Barbican in London.

Binder temporarily steps into the artistic post at LIFT in the wake of the departure of former a.d. Mark Ball. Meanwhile, Beki Bateson, currently the exec director of LIFT, will become the festival’s CEO.

Next year’s LIFT will run during the month of June 2018, with a slate of titles still to be announced.

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