Q&A with Windsor Terrace resident Evan Cabnet: New artistic director of LCT3
This past May, Lincoln Center Theater named the director Evan Cabnet to run LCT3, Lincoln Center Theater’s program for producing plays, its program for producing plays by new artists. Cabnet, 38, has an impressive resume: on Broadway he has directed Helen Edmundson’s riveting adaptation of Zola’s “Therese Raquin” starring Keira Knightly and the Superstorm Sandy-cursed “The Performers starring Alicia Silverstone.” His off-Broadway credits include “Gloria” and “Outside People” for the Vineyard Theater; “A Kid Like Jake” and “All-American” for LCT3; and “The Model Apartment” and “Poor Behavior” for Primary Stages. In addition, Cabnet directs often for the Goodman Theater in Chicago, where he will direct “Gloria” in January 2017. Cabnet has also written adaptations of Alfred Jarry’s “Ubu Roi” and Salman Rushdie’s “Haroun and the Sea of Stories.”
Cabnet was born in Philadelphia and raised in the suburbs of South Jersey. He graduated from New York University and currently lives with his family in Windsor Terrace. He started his theater career as an actor but quickly realized he had more interest in directing than performing. He is meticulous in researching the plays he’s going to direct and in fostering a participatory and relaxed atmosphere. Surely this is one explanation for why he is universally liked and respected among his theatrical compatriots. Another could be his calm and disarming manner, which puts one at ease immediately. He also possesses a virtue that, in our social media-saturated world, is at risk of extinction: he’s present. And self-effacing. He’s the anti-Oscar Jaffe.