The leading candidates for the job are director Doug Hughes, director of Frozen, Engaged, The Beard of Avon and the current Last Easter, and Mark Russell, until recently the artistic director of P.S. 122, the daily said. Another possible contender is Oskar Eustis, artistic director of Rhode Island's Trinity Rep. The names of all three have been mentioned in previous new reports speculating on Wolfe's replacement.

The Public has made no official announcement about its new producer (the title Wolfe holds). The company is expected to make a decision by the end of the month.

Russell was artistic director of the downtown presenting house P.S. 122 until last year, when he unexpectedly resigned. The decision, which surprised many and unsettled the Off-Off-Broadway theatre scene, was apparently brought on by the arrival of a new board president with a differing vision of the nonprofit's future.

Hughes, meanwhile, lately concluded a season which saw him direct three well-received Off-Broadway productions, including Frozen, which transferred to Broadway and earned the director a Tony nomination. He recently piloted Bryony Lavery's Last Easter at MCC and is currently working on John Patrick Shanley's Doubt at Manhattan Theatre Club. This coming spring he will direct Jon Robin Baitz's The Paris Letter at the Roundabout Theatre Company.