Apr. 2, 2025 By sobrien
The Chocolate Factory Theater announced the departure of its Co-Founder and Executive Director Sheila Lewandowski. Photo: The Chocolate Factory Theater
April 2, 2025 By Shane O’Brien
Sheila Lewandowski, co-founder and executive director of the Chocolate Factory Theater, has announced that she will step down after more than 20 years of service with the Queens-based Center for Experimental Artistic Performances.
Lewandowski, who co-founded the Chocolate Factory in 2004 alongside her former life and artistic partner Brian Rogers, will step down as executive director on June 30.
Rogers, who currently serves as the theater’s artistic director, will assume the role of artistic executive director following Lewandowski’s departure, while long-time team members Madeline Best and Regine Pieters will take on new leadership responsibilities.
Lewandowski said her departure from the Chocolate Factory would be “bittersweet,” noting that she had helped “build and nurture” the theater from a small volunteer-led operation with an annual budget of $25,000 when it was founded in 2004 to an established center for experimental arts with five full-time staff members and an annual budget of over $1 million.
State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez presented the Chocolate Factory Theater with $1 million grant. Photo: Office of State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez
She also noted how she helped lead the theater to five different venues before eventually finding its permanent home at 38-29 24th St. in Long Island City in 2017. The theater is currently sourcing around $13 million to renovate the venue completely, and it received a $1 million grant from State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez in February. Rogers said at the time that the theater has now sourced the majority of its funding needs.
Lewandowski said she never imagined the theater growing from a small volunteer-led operation into a major performing arts space in the Long Island City community.
“It was a real labor of love,” Lewandowski said. “And you just invest your heart and your soul and your hard work, blood, sweat and money into it.”
Sheila Lewandowski at a “Taste of LIC,” a project that ran at the Chocolate Factory Theater from 2004-2019. Photo: Sheila Lewandowski
Lewandowski said her departure will not be a clean break and looks forward to returning to the theater as a spectator in the near future. She outlined her hope that the theater will continue to support artists making experimental work for as long as it exists.
“(Experimental work) means really challenging our ideas of live performance and includes works that aren’t afraid to make us ask questions about life in the world,” Lewandowski said.
She described the Chocolate Factory as a laboratory, providing experimental artists with a platform to develop and fine-tune their works.
“That often means taking the pressure off of artists to have some finished product.”
She also noted that the theater has always paid artists who have performed there and underlined the importance of paying artists for their work.
“That’s really an important part – valuing their labor.”
Lewandowski said her feelings are “all over the place” as her departure from the Chocolate Factory looms but stated that the time was right for her to move on.
“People can overstay,” Lewandowski said. “Anybody can be guilty of it. I didn’t want to overstay. I was trying to find the right time to go when it would still be supportive of staff who are there now.”
She said she is confident that she is leaving the theater in good hands with Rogers as the new artistic executive director and accepted that new leaders at the Chocolate Factory may “do things differently.”
“That’s part of what departing leaders need to accept,” she said. “I may or may not agree with everything they do, but that’s okay. They may or may not have agreed with everything I’ve done for the past few decades.”
Lewandowski also paid tribute to the Long Island City community for supporting the theater since its foundation in 2004, stating that it was of critical importance for both her and Rogers to recognize the health of the neighborhood.
“Long Island City is where we live, and we feel responsible for our neighbors,” she said. “Right now, all around our space, there’s a lot of people who are temporarily housed, and so we think finding ways to be in community with those neighbors is critically important and will continue to be so.”
Lewandowski will be the honoree at the Chocolate Factory’s annual gala this September.