NEW YORK, March 29 (UPI) -- James Lipton has retired as dean of the Actors Studio Drama School of New School University in New York.
Lipton will continue to host "Inside the Actors Studio," a popular hour-long interview program on the Bravo cable television station, according to university president Bob Kerrey.
Kerrey said last weekend that Lipton will be succeeded by Sam Schacht, a member of the Actors Studio since 1964, former chairman of its acting department, and a full-time faculty member in the acting program of the drama school's Master of Fine Arts program. Schacht will oversee the school's move to a new home in Manhattan's Westbeth neighborhood from its current location near the Broadway theater district.
Lipton also began his career as an actor and has been a faculty member of the Actors Studio founded in 1947 by Cheryl Crawford, Elia Kazan, and Robert Lewis and later headed by Lee Strasberg. Lipton will now have the title of dean emeritus, Kerrey said.
