TheatreWorks director Tim Bond leaving post to lead Oregon Shakespeare Fest

Tim Bond, who in 2020 became only the second artistic director in TheatreWorks Silicon Valley history, announced today, July 6, he is stepping down from the post to lead the famed Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

The move is scheduled to take place later this month. Stepping in as interim TheatreWorks artistic director is Giovanna Sardelli, an award-winning stage director who’s been affiliated with the company for more than 15 years. She most recently had been the troupe’s artistic associate and director of new works.

The move will reunite Bond with the 88-year-old Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, a company that draws theater fans and tourists from around the world. Bond worked there for 11 years as associate artistic director and, as he notes, “it is a place my family thinks of as home.”

But Oregon Shakespeare, like many performing arts companies in the post-COVID landscape, is facing financial difficulties and an uncertain future. The company, citing poor ticket sales, has said it needs to raise several million dollars to finish its 2023 season.

“It is with a heavy heart that I leave the TheatreWorks community that I have come to know and love,” said Bond in a statement. “I had hoped to serve here longer, continuing to expand the legacy of founder Robert Kelley. But my former artistic home has asked if I can return to support it during a critical period, and I am compelled to return there.”

At TheatreWorks, Bond replaced founding director and Bay Area stage icon Robert Kelley, who had led the company since its 1970 inception. Besides his previous term at Oregon Shakespeare, Bond has worked at Syracuse Stage in New York and the Seattle Group Theatre, and has won acclaim as stage director with a deep knowledge of and affinity for the works of legendary playwright August Wilson. Bond directed a TheatreWorks production of Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean” in 2022, and is scheduled to return to TheatreWorks in January to help a revival of Wilson’s “How I Learned What I Learned.”

In a statement, incoming TheatreWorks board chair Mark Greenstein and outgoing board chair Holly Ward expressed gratitude for Bond’s relatively short but impactful tenure, noting that he “took the helm at TheatreWorks in March 2020, and was immediately subsumed by the pandemic. He spent the next three years keeping the company together, artistically, emotionally, spiritually.” The statement credited Bond with helping create streaming presentations while theaters were dark and mastering “the complexities of scheduling and re-scheduling multiple shows while the world came to terms with COVID safety precautions.”

Sardelli has won national acclaim for her work as a stage director and champion of new works, something TheatreWorks has specialized in.

She worked closely with Tony Award-winning playwright Mathew Lopez as well as Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph to develop new shows that saw their world premiere at TheatreWorks. She has also helmed productions at The Mark Taper Forum and Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles and the Atlantic Theater Company in New York, among other companies.

“I have loved TheatreWorks from the very first work I directed here and consider it my theatrical home,” Sardelli said. She is currently helping the company prepare for its 20th Anniversary New Works Festival, slated for Aug. 11-20 at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto.