Portland Center Stage's next artistic director brings with her deep experience in working with emerging, provocative and diverse playwrights who don't hesitate to challenge viewers.

Marissa Wolf, chosen after an eight-month search, will lead the city's largest professional theater company in partnership with Cynthia Fuhrman, Portland Center Stage's managing director. Wolf replaces Chris Coleman, who stepped down as artistic director this spring after 17 years to take a similar position in Denver.

"It is the dream of a lifetime to step into the Artistic Director position at Portland Center Stage at The Armory," Wolf said in a prepared statement. "I am honored to build on Chris Coleman's powerhouse legacy of adventurous theater in the breathtaking, historic Armory, and I am thrilled to lead this extraordinary company into the next chapter of growth and vitality."

Oskar Eustis, artistic director of New York's Public Theater, who's worked with Wolf, called her a "rising star of the American theater. She has a dazzling spirit, spectacular taste, and a fierce vision which she imparts with grace and wit."

Wolf will start at Portland Center Stage Sept. 15. She and Fuhrman will both report to the theater company's board of directors.

The board chair, Ted Austin, said in a press release, "Our search process has brought us to the best possible candidate to lead our theater into its next era. We set out to find someone who would appreciate how hard the staff and board have worked over the past 30 years to bring the theater to its current status as one of the country's top regional theaters, and who would also bring a fresh vision and energy to build upon that strong foundation."

Wolf most recently worked as associate artistic director at Kansas City Repertory Theatre, a five-decade-old professional company in residence at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. While there, she launched OriginKC: New Works Festival, a program that supports new work from a diverse body of national playwrights, much like Portland Center Stage's annual JAW playwrights festival.

Prior to arriving at Kansas City Rep, Wolf was the artistic director of San Francisco's Crowded Fire Theater, where she directed West Coast and world premiere productions of plays by the likes of Thomas Bradshaw, Christopher Chen and Lauren Gunderson. Her credits also include works by Will Eno, Rinne Groff and Taylor Mac.

Wolf has a degree in drama from Vassar College, trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and has held the Bret C. Harte Directing Fellowship at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.