LOS ANGELES — Jessica Stone, a Tony-nominated director ("Kimberly Akimbo," "Water for Elephants"), has been named the new artistic director of La Jolla Playhouse, succeeding Christopher Ashley at the helm of one of the nation's preeminent regional theaters. The Board of Trustees of La Jolla Playhouse made the announcement on Tuesday.

Her appointment ends the monopoly of male artistic directors at peer institutions in Southern California. In a region that boasts some of the country's most important nonprofit theaters (the Old Globe, South Coast Repertory, Center Theatre Group, Pasadena Playhouse and the Geffen Playhouse), La Jolla Playhouse will be the only one of this elite group with a woman calling the artistic shots.

Stone had a flourishing career as an actor, racking up numerous Broadway credits before she transitioned to directing. Her last outing on a Broadway stage as a performer came in Kathleen Marshall's 2011 Tony-winning revival of "Anything Goes," starring Sutton Foster.

The next time Stone worked on Broadway was in 2022 as the director of the Tony-winning musical "Kimberly Akimbo." The show is based on David Lindsay-Abaire's 2000 offbeat play about a teenager with a condition that causes rapid aging. While still in high school, she transforms physically into an elderly woman.

Not the stuff of ordinary musicals, but Lindsay-Abaire, who wrote the book and lyrics, and Jeanine Tesori, who wrote the score, nailed the eccentric humor along with the lyrical poignancy. And Stone seamlessly balanced these elements in a production that was as tonally assured as a John Ashbery poem.

"Kimberly Akimbo" has no connection to La Jolla Playhouse. It began at New York's Atlantic Theater Company before moving to Broadway. But this quirky musical with a dramatic soul might serve as the platonic ideal of a La Jolla Playhouse show.

The official mission of the theater is to tell "stories that inspire empathy and create dialogue toward a more just future" by cultivating "a local, national and global following with an insatiable appetite for audacious work." In a video call interview that included managing director Debby Buchholz, Stone seized on the word "audacious" as a key reason for her interest in the job.

Stone admitted that she was initially resistant. "It wasn't necessarily something that I had on a bucket list," she said. "I'm a creature of habit. And a mother and a daughter and a wife. I had worked all over the country as a director, but I had been working in New York for quite a few years, and that was my artistic home."

She credits her friend, "Jersey Boys" book writer Rick Elice, who also wrote the book for the musical "Water for Elephants," with opening her eyes. He asked her if she ever had an artistic home. Stone thought back to her formative period at Williamstown Theatre Festival, and Elice's words about not dismissing such a gift stayed with her.

But what really turned things around, she said, was "the opportunity to be a part of making an artistic home for others." In doing her due diligence, she discovered that audacious creativity really does lie at the core of La Jolla Playhouse's commitment to new work. And she felt confident it was a match of sensibilities.

In describing her aesthetic, Stone said, "I love a bold choice and a big swing, and I want to push the boundaries." She compared her work in "Kimberly Akimbo," an intimate scale musical, and "Water for Elephants," a grander offering with epic themes and circus-style theatrics, and concluded: "I like to zoom in and I like to zoom out."

Buchholz shared that in the course of the search process, a number of trustees saw "Kimberly Akimbo" when it was on tour in Southern California. "And the whole conversation afterwards was why didn't that start with us?" she said.

Mindful of her Playhouse predecessors, Stone said she wants to continue to build on their legacy. She's worked as an actor for Des McAnuff, whose tenure as artistic director transformed the Playhouse into a Tony-winning regional theater powerhouse. And she's collaborated with Ashley, both as a performer and as an associate director. ("I think I was a terrible associate director," she said with self-deprecating humor, "but I have a long history with Chris.")

Stone is not the first woman artistic director in La Jolla Playhouse's history. Anne Hamburger, who succeeded Michael Greif in the role in 1999, served little more than a year before leaving to become an executive vice president of creative entertainment at the Walt Disney Co. But Stone's appointment is nonetheless noteworthy for the region. Women artistic directors are not uncommon elsewhere. The two leading regional theaters in the Bay Area, American Conservatory Theater and Berkeley Rep, are led by women. But Southern California, which has made headway in other areas of leadership diversity, has lagged behind.

When asked to comment on the significance, Stone said that she hopes it was her bold aesthetic that was the determining factor in her appointment and not her gender. Buchholz confirmed that indeed was the case: "I can tell you absolutely that it was the bold choices and big swings that made Jessica absolutely the hands-down choice of our search committee."

Buchholz added that she appreciated that the board had her on the search committee, "because this is a little bit of a marriage, a co-leadership. I do not work for Jessica and Jessica does not work for me. Both of us report directly to the board."

Stone added: "I love to have a partner in crime. Our skill sets complement each other's well and I believe this scaffolding is necessary for any institution. I feel really lucky to have Debby's expertise to lean on as well as her generosity with regard to my own spreading of wings."

Last year, the Playhouse appointed Eric Keen-Louie as artistic producing director. Buchholz explained that the position came about in recognition that, given the amount of time Ashley was away with projects that were developed at La Jolla Playhouse, there was a need for "someone in place who stays and doesn't direct elsewhere."

"Our expectation is that Jessica will develop work here and that whether it's a co-production or something moving to Broadway or commercially that she'll need to continue to work on it," Buchholz said. "And now we have a very strong structure in place that supports the continuing work at the Playhouse."

"I've known Eric for a long time," Stone said, "and the thing that I'm excited about is he and I run in some of the same circles, but we also have different relationships with different artists. I'm really excited to meet his folks and introduce him to mine. He has impeccable taste, and it's really fun already to read scripts and listen to scores together and spitball with each other. I think it's going to be a really rich partnership."

Who will be determining the programming? Stone confirmed that the artistic buck will stop with her.

Regional theaters have been fighting for their survival since the COVID-19 pandemic. Budgets have been slashed, layoffs have been rampant, production costs have soared and morale has plummeted as audiences have been recalibrating their entertainment options.

La Jolla Playhouse isn't impervious to these headwinds, but Buchholz said that the theater is in a relatively healthy position. Both Stone and Buchholz acknowledged the benefits of a strong, supportive board, and that support is indicative that something has been working.

"We have a pretty clear mission and we have an audience that understands what that mission is and we've largely stuck to it," Buchholz said. "And so our audiences came back pretty much as soon as they could come back. As a matter of fact, our subscription and single ticket numbers have grown."

Has the changing political landscape had any impact on programming or on equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives? The conversation has changed and perhaps grown more intense, Buchholz acknowledged, but the values and priorities of the Playhouse remain the same.

"Right now politics is front of consciousness for everyone, but we've always been a company that has prided itself on people seeing themselves on stage and represented," she said. "But we've never programmed on the nose. And once or twice we've accidentally found that our programming was on the nose, and that's when our audiences didn't come. They come for diverse programming, but diverse with a smaller 'd' rather than a big 'D.'"

"It seems to me that the most exciting theater comes from a multitude of voices but involves universal themes," Stone added. "To me, that is always the organizing principle."

La Jolla Playhouse has a reputation for being a luxurious Broadway launching pad. The complex, which includes three primary venues (each under 500 seats) and a black box that's used mainly for readings and workshops, occupies a serene corner of UC San Diego's scenic campus. The Playhouse has not only cachet but geography. (Who wouldn't want to spend a winter developing a new show in this sun-drenched, seaside San Diego community?)

During Ashley's tenure, "Memphis" and "The Outsiders" won Tony Awards for best musical and "Come From Away" earned Ashley a directing Tony. But there has also been a good deal of commercial dross. There are conspicuous downsides for a nonprofit company getting accustomed to enhancement money from outside producers.

"The risks are that we start to feel like a rental house and don't have our fingerprints on something that we stand by that goes to New York," Stone said. "The goal is for that not to be the case. There are benefits to the enhancement that comes with these shows that move to New York, but the goal has to first be what's right for San Diego."

The producing environment has grown more challenging for serious drama. It's easier to sell tickets to a new musical than a new play. The same holds true for revivals. But Stone, who pointed to Kimberly Belflower's "John Proctor Is the Villain" as a contemporary drama that can galvanize an audience, said that she's interested in "deepening the resources for being an incubator for new voices.

"I'm also interested in expanding possibilities for later stage playwrights to develop their new work," she added, in a refreshing nod to an often overlooked area of inclusiveness.

Stone is no stranger to San Diego, having directed comedies by Shakespeare, Shaw, Neil Simon and Christopher Durang (among others) at the Old Globe. In a text exchange, Old Globe artistic director Barry Edelstein described Stone as "witty, sharp and rich in imagination." He called her "a great hire, wonderful for the La Jolla Playhouse and San Diego for sure, but also for the American theater at large."

Unstinting in his praise, Edelstein wrote, "I've had the privilege of producing her at The Old Globe, and she's become a friend. I know her to be warm and open, passionate, fiercely committed to artists, and also — and this really matters — truly funny. Chris Ashley did great work at the Playhouse and leaves huge shoes to fill, but Jess is poised (together with Debby, who is also brilliant) to lead the place on a huge leap forward."

Ashley, who has been named artistic director of Roundabout Theatre Company, leaves his post at the end of the year. Stone, who is married to Tony-nominated actor Christopher Fitzgerald and has two children, will be dividing her time between New York and La Jolla when she takes the reins in early 2026.

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