This week, The Hub Theatre welcomed Matt Bassett as successor to Helen Murray as Artistic Director, the company announced.
Bassett, an actor, director, and former Helen Hayes judge, first joined the company in 2011, playing a bureaucrat in Hub’s production of Stephen Massicote’s The Clockmakers. He became Associate Artistic Director for the 10-year-old company in 2014.
“The Hub…has redefined my values in craft, storytelling and connectivity in art,” Bassett said. “I am honored to take the reins from my dear friend and valued collaborator, Helen Murray, and I look forward to continuing The Hub’s mission of telling bold, honest stories that connect our audiences to themselves and each other.”
Murray, formerly known as Helen Pafumi, co-founded Hub Theatre and had been its sole Artistic Director to date.
“In an industry where too often we don’t promote from within, it gives me such joy to hand the reins to Matt. Over the years he has become a most trusted colleague, whose artistic eye is impeccable and one on which I have relied. Besides being a phenomenal artist, he’s just the kindest of people,” Murray said. “Having Matt take over fills me with peace, knowing that I am leaving The Hub with him.”
Since becoming Associate Artistic Director, Bassett has directed The Happiest Place on Earth, in a word, The Typographer’s Dream, and Failure: A Love Story, which received six Helen Hayes nominations. His career as a theater artist, however, began in 1992, in a production of Alladin. ” I was 11 years old,” he told Northern Virginia Magazine’s Lynn Norusis in 2014. “I played two completely opposite characters; I was Aladdin’s fellow urchin on the street, but then I also played one of the greedy merchants that they stole from. It was the first in a long line of bad guys I played.”
Bassett officially assumed the reins as Hub Artistic Director on July 1, 2018.
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