Rocco Landesman was confirmed by the United States Senate on August 7, 2009 as the tenth chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Prior to joining the NEA, he was a Broadway theater producer.

Mr. Landesman was born (July 20, 1947) and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He pursued his undergraduate education at Colby College and the University of Wisconsin, Madison and earned a doctorate in Dramatic Literature at the Yale School of Drama. At the completion of his course work, he stayed at the school for four years, working as an assistant professor.

Mr. Landesman’s ensuing career has been a hybrid of commercial, philanthropic, and purely artistic engagements. In 1977, he left Yale to start a private investment fund which he ran until his appointment in 1987 as president of Jujamcyn, a company that owns and operates five Broadway theaters; the St. James, Al Hirschfeld, August Wilson, Eugene O’Neill, and Walter Kerr theaters.

Before and after joining Jujamcyn, Mr. Landesman produced Broadway shows, the most notable of which are Big River (1985 Tony, Best Musical), Angels in America, and The Producers (2001 Tony, Best Musical). In 2005, he purchased Jujamcyn and managed it until President Obama announced his intention to nominate him to the NEA chairmanship.

Mr. Landesman has been active on numerous boards, including the Municipal Arts Society; an advocacy organization concerned with New York City’s public spaces and preservation; the Times Square Alliance which has radically changed the heart of the city by improving its safety, sanitation, and aesthetic; and the Educational Foundation of America. In addition and over the years, he returned to the Yale School of Drama and Yale Rep to teach.

Mr. Landesman has also vigorously engaged the ongoing debate about arts policy, speaking at forums and writing numerous articles, focusing mainly on the relationship between the commercial and not-for-profit sectors of the American theater.

Mr. Landesman’s biggest passions are theater, baseball, horse racing, and country music. On any given day he will insist that one of these is the perfect expression of American culture. At one time or another, he owned three minor league baseball teams, various racehorses, and a collection of Roger Miller long-playing records.

Mr. Landesman is married to Debby Landesman, formerly the executive director of the Levi Strauss Foundation and currently a philanthropic advisor to corporations and foundations. Two of his sons are journalists working in New York.