Bundy: Reached high, took risks.
James Bundy, a guiding force of adventurous and cutting-edge theater in New Haven for decades, announced Thursday that he’s stepping down from his post as artistic director of Yale Repertory Theatre.
Bundy made the announcement in a community-wide email. He has served as the Chapel and York Street theater’s artistic director for 23 years.
The announcement comes at a time of transition, as the Rep-connected Yale School of Drama — now the David Geffen School of Drama – undertakes an expansion and begins a new era.
Following is the text of Bundy’s email message:
Dear David Geffen School of Drama/Yale Repertory Theatre Community,
Earlier today, Yale University President McInnis and Provost Strobel shared the news that I will be stepping down as Elizabeth Parker Ware Dean and Artistic Director on June 30, 2026, and continuing to teach at DGSD and in Yale College thereafter.
In arriving at this decision, I weighed many factors, most of all the joy I have felt working in this community since my first day as a student here in the fall of 1992. As many of you have heard me say, my three years of training at Yale completely changed the course of my life. On top of that, I’ve been fortunate to have my dream job right here for nearly 23 years. It’s no small thing to walk away from the uplift of this enterprise, and especially from the exhilaration of shared experience with you in a mission about which we care deeply.
I am wisely advised to note here, given my health history, that everything is in fine working order and my pacemaker still has 14 years of battery charge left. (It’s also replaceable!) In all seriousness, my challenge has not been my health: it has been to sort out the timing that works best for my family and the School and the Rep.
Graduation for the Class of 2024 — the last to spend four pandemic-inflected years here — seemed like an important milestone. So do the completion of construction documents and the upcoming groundbreaking for the Dramatic Arts Building (DAB); the Geffen School’s 100th Anniversary in 2025 – 26; and the conclusion of Yale’s For Humanity capital campaign in June 2026. July of 2026 seems like a good time to absent myself from the day to day of our mission, making way for a successor who can build on all that the School and the Rep have accomplished to date, with several years to ramp up to the occupation of the DAB in 2029 or so.
As much as I have been taking stock of these initiatives and the rhythms of DGSD/YRT life, I have been thinking about enhancing the amount and quality of time I might have to spend with my nuclear and extended family and friends. In that beloved cohort of kindred and solicitous spirits, no one has done more to change my life for the better, than my wife, Anne Tofflemire, whom I thank for the love, support, and sense of humor that have made all good things in my life possible for the past 39 years. More fun with Anne and our adult children, Nora and Mary, is at the top of my next agenda.
When I started in this job, mentors assured me that the greatest reward of teaching was learning from students. Those mentors were right as far as they went, but few of them could anticipate the scope of the Geffen School and Yale Rep and their attendant learning opportunities.
That scope stays with me: I feel a near-overwhelming sense of gratitude to all of the students, interns, faculty, staff, alumni, friends, members of the Board of Advisors, guest artists and artisans, donors, audience members, critics and reporters, university colleagues and professional colleagues, in Connecticut, across the United States, and internationally, who have enriched my life over many years.
I thank you for all you mean and will mean to me, and I look forward to all that we will share in the next 16 months, and beyond.
Very truly yours,
James Bundy