Chautauqua Institution today announced the forthcoming departures of Chautauqua Theater Company (CTC) Artistic Director Andrew Borba and Managing Director Sarah Clare Corporandy. Borba will step down following completion of the company’s 2022 season in August. Corporandy will depart in the spring of 2022, following the appointment of a new Managing Director. National searches for each leadership role will launch shortly. 

“Andrew and Sarah Clare have led CTC through a period of artistic excellence and company growth that I am incredibly proud of. From their commitment to new work to their nurturing of conservatory actors and both emerging and celebrated playwrights, we celebrate all that they have accomplished in their many years of service to Chautauqua,” said Deborah Sunya Moore, senior vice president and chief program officer for Chautauqua Institution. “They’ve helped build CTC as a first-class summer conservatory program for early-career actors and an innovative laboratory for playwrights and I’m grateful for their relentless commitment. Incoming leadership will be fortunate to be the inheritors of a company that has both an enviable history and exciting future within American theater.” 

Fellowship alumni and conservatory actors who have studied under Borba and Corporandy’s leadership have gone on to work in Hollywood, Broadway, critically acclaimed Netflix series, Hulu Originals, and more. Notable alumni include Jonathan Majors (“Lovecraft Country,” “Loki”), Siddiq Saunderson (“Wu-Tang: An American Saga”), Moses Ingram (“The Queen’s Gambit”) and Whitney White (Obie Award- and Lilly Award-winning director), among others. Additionally, former staff, production, and crew members can be found on playbills for national tours and Broadway shows, as well as staff rosters for notable theater companies such as Second Stage, Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey and ACT. 

Borba has served as CTC’s artistic director since 2016, having previously spent eight seasons as the company’s associate artistic director. A veteran actor in film, on television, and on stage, his tenure has coincided with the rising profile of CTC’s acclaimed New Play Workshop program, which he provided leadership as a director, producer and actor. Borba is also known at Chautauqua for a number of stage appearances, and for directing Commedia, One Man, Two Guvnors, As You Like It, Noises Off and The Taming of the Shrew, among many other productions, as well as the large-scale Amphitheater inter-arts collaborations Mango Suite, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, Ellis Island and Go West! As a director, he has always chosen works that reflected the times, providing a space that gave audience members opportunities to come together, reflect, and laugh. He serves as head of M.F.A. acting and a professor of drama at the University of California, Irvine, where he recently earned tenure. 

“One of our slogans at CTC is ‘We Grow Artists,’ and it is no surprise that so many of our former company members, both behind the scenes and on the stage, have gone on to blossom in their theatrical careers after sharing their talents here,” Borba said. “I am immensely proud of our work and growth these past few years. We have increased community engagement and ticket sales, prioritized opportunities for women and people of color, and we have created new work that has reached beyond the grounds to regional theaters, to off-Broadway and to Broadway, all by this beautiful lake and in conversation with our sister artistic companies and the greater themes and mission of the Chautauqua Institution. And with the help of everyone at Chautauqua, we navigated COVID and produced, first virtually and then in person, the last two remarkable seasons. I have personally grown here as an artist and moving on, I look forward to more acting and directing work, nationally and internationally, and to be of greater service to UC Irvine. It’s time to take the next step.” 

Corporandy joined CTC in 2009 as company manager and became managing director in 2012. She has provided steady strategic and administrative leadership for the company — including through two artistic leadership transitions and the COVID-19 pandemic — with particular care to serve as a mentor to women coming up in the theater world. She served as line producer for two of Chautauqua’s inter-arts collaborations, The Romeo & Juliet Project and Go West! Corporandy is co-founder and co-producing artistic director of the Detroit Public Theatre, which has entered its seventh season this fall. The DPT connection has been fruitful for both companies, who have partnered on the recent production of Thurgood. Corporandy also headed up the CTC and DPT development and production of No Child… and From Broadway to Obscurity in collaboration with WNED Buffalo and Detroit Public Television in 2020; and in 2017 she initiated and conceived of the commission at Detroit Public Theatre of Noah Haidle’s Birthday Candles and secured Chautauqua’s role in the development of the piece, which is on its way to a March 2022 Broadway debut. 

“My experience at Chautauqua has been nothing short of otherworldly. Chautauqua has given me several of the most transcendent, artistically triumphant moments, as a creator, a producer and as a member of this community,” Corporandy said. “The sound of the CSO and MSFO singing through the air, touring the grounds after dark on a golf cart or bicycle, with all the thrilling yet peaceful magic that entails, the perennial first hugs of each summer as colleagues and friends reunite in great anticipation of the possibilities of the next three months, the lakeside parties, the porch banter, and more than anything, watching the joy of my child as he grew up here, progressed through the Children’s School program, his ability to explore, commune with nature and the arts, and be recognized by community members with equal joy every which way he turned. I am grateful for the past 13 years I’ve spent in the community, and am proud of what we as a company and community have contributed to the region and to the national theater scene.”