HARTFORD, Conn. — Yale University has named Evan Yionoulis as the new dean of the David Geffen School of Drama and the artistic director of Yale Repertory Theatre, the school announced on Monday. It marks the biggest change in leadership for the university’s theater program in over 20 years.

Yionoulis’ appointment came out of a nationwide search for the successor to James Bundy, who had served in both those roles since 2002. Bundy announced last year that he was stepping down at the end of the current academic year, though he will continue to teach at the school.

The Geffen School and the Yale Rep were already very familiar with Yionoulis, who was part of both institutions for over 20 years before leaving in 2018 to head the drama division at the Juilliard School in New York City. Yionoulis was also a student at Yale, getting her bachelor of arts degree in 1982 and her master of fine arts degree from the drama school in 1985.

Her term as artistic director and dean will start in July, according to the university.

The Yale School of Drama began in 1925, but the Yale Repertory Theatre, a professional regional theater operation intended to provide practical training for theater students while also connecting Yale more deeply to the New Haven arts community, was not founded until 1966. The leadership roles at the school and the theater have been linked since then.

Yionoulis is just the fifth person to hold the dual posts, following Robert Brustein, Lloyd Richards, Stan Wojewodski and Bundy. Before Bundy, who served for nearly a quarter century, the standard tenure in the positions was one decade. While most of the separate programs at the drama school and many leadership positions at the Yale Rep have been held by women over the years, Yionoulis is the first woman to hold the dean/artistic director job.

In Connecticut, Hartford Stage, Goodspeed Musicals and the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center — and now Yale Rep — all now have women as their artistic or executive directors. Five years ago, no major theater in Connecticut had ever had a woman in those roles.

Yionoulis’ time at Juilliard has mirrored some of the changes in theater teaching that have also been seen at Yale. Both the Juillard and Yale graduate theater programs became tuition-free. Both have long been known for classical acting training but in recent decades have expanded their training to better prepare students for film, TV and other acting opportunities. Like Bundy, Yionoulis is known as a teacher and an active director as well as an administrator. Yionoulis published a theater instruction text, “Listening and Talking: A Pathway to Acting,” in 2023.

From 1998 to 2018, Yionoulis was a resident director at Yale Rep, where her productions ranged from Shakespeare’s “Richard II” and “Cymbeline” to Ibsen’s “The Master Builder” to Brecht’s “Galileo” to new adaptations of Russian classics such as “Petersburg” (adapted by C.B. Coleman from the Andrei Belys novel) and “Black Snow” (adapted by Keith Reddin from Mikhail Bulgakov’s short story) to the Irish comedy “Stones in Their Pockets” in 2013 to the world premiere of Kirsten Greenidge’s “Bossa Nova.” Her adventurousness was demonstrated not just in the variety of the classic and contemporary titles she chose to direct, but in the performance styles and other choices Yionoulis brought to these productions. Her 2000 production of George F. Walker’s “Heaven” was stark and terrifying while her take on Carlo Gozzi’s 18th century fantasy “The King Stag” in 2004 was irrepressibly joyous with a 20th-century drag show spin.

Yionoulis has also directed in New York at such prestigious off-Broadway theaters as Manhattan Theatre Club, La Mama, Primary Stages and the Lucille Lortel Theatre. She has directed at regional theaters around the country, including Dallas Theater Center, Lincoln Center Theater and Mark Taper Forum. She has also written for stage and film. One of her regular collaborators is her brother, composer Mike Yionoulis. The siblings are currently developing a multi-platform “transmedia” project titled “Redhand Guitar.” Evan Yionoulis’ husband is the esteemed Broadway and lighting designer Donald Holder, who last year was made the new head of the lighting design concentration at the Geffen School as well as the lighting design adviser at Yale Rep.

The search committee that selected Yionoulis included David Geffen School of Drama faculty members Liz Diamond, Tamilla Woodard, Shamninda Amarakoon, Anna Glover and Riccardo Hernández, as well as José García-Léon from the Yale School of Music, Yale College theater professor Shane Vogel and music professor Konrad Kaczmarek plus Yale’s vice provost of arts and faculty affairs Emily Bakemeier and Yale’s associate dean for the arts Kate Krier.

Yale Rep has been acknowledged one of the major regional theaters in the U.S. for over 50 years and is credited with furthering the careers of such important playwrights as August Wilson, Athol Fugard, Sarah Ruhl and Amy Herzog. Students at the Yale School of Drama, which changed its name to the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale in 2021, who went on to major acting careers include Meryl Streep, Paul Newman, Angela Bassett, Henry Winkler, Sigourney Weaver, Paul Giamatti and Lupita Nyong’o.

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