Who

Gersten is the executive producer of the Lincoln Center Theater, which puts on dozens of plays and musicals every year at venues like Vivian Beaumont Theater and the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. His daughter is Jenny Gersten.

Backstory

Gersten started in theater in the 1950s, toiling as a stage manager at various venues around the country before joining The New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater in 1960, working as associate producer and Joe Papp's right-hand man. He was unceremoniously fired in 1978, but landed as the executive vice president of Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Studios, and served as executive producer of Coppola's 1982 drama One from the Heart. After the studio imploded later that year, Gersten was an executive producer at Radio City Music Hall, then became head of the Lincoln Center Theater when it was re-established in 1985. He's been there ever since and now works closely with Andre Bishop, the Lincoln Center Theater's artistic director.

Of note

As the Lincoln Center Theater's executive producer, Gersten wields more power than pretty much anyone else in non-profit theater in New York. On Gersten's watch, LCT has found major hits in Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel's The Light in the Piazza and Jon Robin Baitz's The Substance of Fire. In 2006, Lincoln Center Theater produced Tom Stoppard's trilogy The Coast of Utopia, which Michael Riedel of the Post called the "hottest ticket in town," but which Charles Isherwood of the Times deemed "boring." Tony voters seemed to side with Riedel—it won best play at the 2007 awards. As for the future, in 2008, sticking to its well-worn revival beat, the Lincoln Center Theater will stage productions of Shakespeare's Cymbeline and Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific.

Personal

Gersten is married to fundraiser (and former professional dancer) Cora Cahan, who is currently president of the New 42nd Street Corporation. The couple lives in the West Village, and have a second home in Katonah. One of their daughters, Jenny Gersten, is the artistic director of Naked Angels Theater Company; another daughter, Jilian Cahan Gersten, works at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.