Timothy Douglas, a veteran actor, producer and director with extensive regional theatre credits, has been named the new Remy Bumppo artistic director. Douglas will formally take the reins of the company in July of 2011, but will spend the next year working with the company, and current artistic director James Bohnen, who is leaving after 14 years.

Douglas lived in Chicago in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and has since worked at such diverse theatres at Shakespeare and Company and Actors Theatre of Louisville. He is equally versed in classics and new work, and was in charge of play development at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

He is currently directing one of Steppenwolf’s First Look plays, Robert O’Hara’s The Etiquette of Vigilance.

Douglas said he applied for the Remy Bumppo position because “people in Chicago who know me as a director and who love Remy Bumppo kept telling me that your sensibility will match,” he said in a phone interview before rehearsal. “From the time the process started, it just worked out so smoothly until I was offered the job.”

He intends to continue Remy Bumppo ’s tradition of interpreting classics, but will emphasize the feelings along with the ideas. His approach will be to “get the inherent vitality of the language and its relevance today, [in] a visceral sense” by “honoring the language first, but somehow infusing that sense of immediacy.”

He also says he’s not planning on wearing his new work hat—at least not right away, though the theatre will look at “new translations and adaptations of established pieces.”

He will spend this year—when he’s not directing around the country—to familiarize himself with the budget process and making decisions based on an entire season within the current economic realities. “That kind of compromise in logistics is not foreign to me, but I’ve never been in charge of it,” he said. “This is going to be a learning curve, but I enjoy the challenge.”