(MILLBURN, NJ) -- Paper Mill Playhouse announced that acclaimed director and longtime Paper Mill collaborator Casey Hushion has been named Associate Artistic Director. Hushion, who was selected by Paper Mill's Producing Artistic Director Mark S. Hoebee following an extensive national search, will begin her new role on September 14, 2026.
Maplewood, New Jersey resident Casey Hushion brings extensive experience spanning Broadway, national tours, regional theater, new work development, and artistic leadership to the position. She previously served for 10 years as Artistic Director of North Carolina Theatre in Raleigh and has deep roots in the New York theater community. She also has a long and wonderful history with Paper Mill Playhouse, having directed six productions at the theater including Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Murder on the Orient Express, Mystic Pizza, Clue, Beehive, and A Jolly Holiday: Celebrating Disney’s Broadway Hits.
“Casey is a gifted director and a generous collaborator,” said Mark S. Hoebee, Paper Mill Playhouse Producing Artistic Director. “She knows Paper Mill and our audiences, and as a member of our community, she understands the important role this theater plays here. I couldn’t be more excited to have her beside me as we shape Paper Mill’s next chapter.”
As Associate Artistic Director, Hushion will work closely with Hoebee on Paper Mill Playhouse’s season planning, creative team development and casting, production oversight, and new work development. She will also collaborate across the organization on education programs, audience engagement, donor initiatives, and special projects.
“Paper Mill Playhouse has been an artistic home for me for many years, and I’m thrilled to be joining as Associate Artistic Director,” said Casey Hushion. “I have enormous respect for Mark Hoebee and the artists and staff that make Paper Mill so special. I’m excited to work alongside this team and help shape what comes next for an institution I love, right here in my own community.”
Casey Hushion is a director whose work spans Broadway, the West End, national tours, major regional theaters, and the development of new work. Her Broadway credits as Associate Director include Mean Girls, Aladdin, The Prom, In the Heights, and The Drowsy Chaperone.
She directed the world premiere of Clue at Cleveland Play House and went on to direct the show’s first national tour. She also directed the world premiere of Mystic Pizza, the national tour of The Cher Show, and Call Me Madam for New York City Center Encores!
Hushion has a longstanding artistic relationship with Paper Mill Playhouse, where her directing credits include Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Murder on the Orient Express, Mystic Pizza, Clue, Beehive, and A Jolly Holiday: Celebrating Disney’s Broadway Hits.
Hushion worked as a New Works Scout for Goodspeed Musicals in East Haddam, CT identifying and evaluating emerging musicals and new theatrical work for potential development and production. She choreographed two episodes of the Netflix series “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” and has contributed creative work for Broadway appearances on “The Tonight Show,” “Good Morning America,” “The View,” “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” NBC’s One Night Only: The Best of Broadway, Celebrating 25 Years of Disney on Broadway at the New Amsterdam Theatre, Broadway in Bryant Park, and concerts with the Boston Pops. She has taught Master Classes in Acting and Audition Technique at New York University, Norwalk Conservatory, The Institute of American Musical Theatre, The Growing Studio, and Save My Audition.
Previously, Hushion served for ten years as Artistic Director of North Carolina Theatre, directing more than twenty productions during her tenure. She was named one of the Broadway Women’s Fund’s Women to Watch on Broadway in 2026.
PAPER MILL PLAYHOUSE, recipient of the Regional Theatre Tony Award, is a nationally renowned not-for-profit theater under the direction of Mark S. Hoebee (Producing Artistic Director) and Michael Stotts (Executive Director). A beloved New Jersey arts institution since 1938, Paper Mill creates and produces groundbreaking new musicals and reimagined classics. Several productions have gone on to Broadway and launched national tours, including The Great Gatsby, Disney’s Newsies, Bandstand, Honeymoon in Vegas, A Bronx Tale, and Les Misérables (25th Anniversary production).
The theater is also the home to an award-winning center for musical theater education and artist training, with outreach programs that impact thousands of students each year. As one of the nation’s premier musical theaters, Paper Mill fosters a creative environment to advance the art form, educate students, develop future theater lovers, nurture inclusion, and provide access for all. Paper Mill Playhouse programs are made possible, in part, by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. Paper Mill Playhouse is a member of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, the Council of Stock Theatres, and the New Jersey Theatre Alliance.
Paper Mill’s upcoming 2026-2027 season will feature Mary Poppins, Ken Ludwig’s Lend Me A Tenor, Million Dollar Quartet, and Dear Evan Hansen.
The legendary Sun Ra Arkestra returns with exuberant cosmic jazz — a stirring blend of big‑band swing, free jazz, bebop, spiritual jazz and Afrofuturist spectacle. Formed in Chicago in the mid‑1950s as the vehicle for the visionary composer Sun Ra, the Arkestra has spanned seven decades, touring the globe and inspiring generations with its bold, otherworldly sound.
A pioneer of early synthesizer use and the free‑jazz movement of the 1960s, Sun Ra combined musical innovation with a spiritual mission—using positive vibrations and music to uplift the universe. The Arkestra’s theatrical live shows fuse space‑age improvisation, singing, dancing, chanting and Afro‑pageantry, and helped define Afrofuturism in music and performance.
A writer and an AI software designer battle to create the next great play in this cautionary tale about the impending intersection of technology and creativity.
Mei Semones is a Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and guitarist crafting jazz-inflected indie pop in both Japanese and English. Drawing on her background in jazz guitar and her Japanese heritage, she blends inventive harmonies, intricate rhythms, and bilingual lyricism into a sound that is both intimate and exploratory.
A young woman is hired by a finance couple to tutor their son at their summer lake house, and finds herself increasingly enmeshed in the undisclosed darkness of their past.
From his childhood in St. Louis to the global blues-rock circuit, Mike Zito has always kept it real. He began playing guitar at age five and by his late teens was a fixture on the St. Louis music scene. For Zito, honesty, authenticity, and integrity aren’t just part of the brand, they’re the foundation. “I have nothing to hide; it seems my honesty is what people relate to most,” he once told Vintage Guitar.
