‘Stereophonic’ Launching Pad Playwrights Horizons Names New Managing Director As Robust Financial system Lashes Nonprofit Theaters

Playwrights Horizons, the longstanding and distinguished Off Broadway theater firm that launched the Tony Award-winning Broadway hit Stereophonic, has appointed a brand new managing director because it steers its means by way of what one exec calls “seismic” financial change for the nonprofit world.

Casey York, Managing Director of the incubator and producer Ars Nova, has been named Playwrights’ new Managing Director. She succeeds Leslie Marcus, who introduced in December that she was stepping down after serving within the place since 1993.

York takes on her new function because the Off Broadway establishment enjoys one in all its highest profile seasons in years. Stereophonic, the David Adjmi play that chronicles the fraught recording session of a Nineteen Seventies Fleetwood Mac-like band, initially opened in 2023 at Playwrights Horizons previous to its industrial switch to Broadway, and Enamel, a darkish musical comedy based mostly on the 2007 cult horror movie, will obtain a industrial switch to Off Broadway’s New World Phases in October following an prolonged run at Playwrights earlier this 12 months.

The Broadway staging of Stereophonic is produced by Sue Wagner, John Johnson, Seaview, Sonia Friedman Productions, Linden Productions, Ashley Melone, Nick Mills and Jillian Robbins. The Off Broadway industrial switch of Enamel is produced by Mark Gordon Footage and Mickey Liddell & Pete Shilaimon.

Regardless of its latest renewed visibility, although, the 53-year-old Playwrights isn’t proof against the continuing harsh economics of the non-profit world: As reported by the Broadway World website this week, the corporate not too long ago laid off a number of junior staffers, with two in-house casting positions to be reduce on the finish of the present season. Further cost-cutting measures reportedly will embody week-long furloughs for division heads and a voluntary pay reduce for Creative Director Adam Greenfield.

Deadline has reached out to Playwrights execs for touch upon the layoffs and cost-cutting measures and can replace this submit with any response.

In its announcement about York’s hiring, Playwrights mentioned a nationwide search had been carried out by Tom O’Connor Consulting Group for candidates “demonstrating a dedication to writers and theater artists and an understanding of how organizations can help them in turbulent instances, and to growing range and fairness within the discipline.”

“The Managing Director wanted to be somebody with impeccable expertise in monetary administration and long-term planning,” the announcement reads. “The perfect candidate would have clear philosophies round main change in an evolving discipline, and modern excited about partaking new audiences and funders in a altering theatrical market.”

York emerged because the main applicant, with Playwrights citing her work at Ars Nova first as Normal Supervisor then as Managing Director “serving to maintain the group by way of the tumult of the pandemic and the trade’s ensuing struggles.”

The appointment marks a homecoming for York, whose administrative work within the theater trade started at Playwrights in 2010, first as a Advertising Resident after which, from 2011 to 2014, as Affiliate Normal Supervisor.

Sam Gonzalez, Co-Chair of the Playwrights Horizons Board of Trustees, mentioned in a press release, “We’re thrilled to welcome Casey again to Playwrights Horizons. Throughout her time at Ars Nova, Casey has confirmed herself to be a frontrunner each inside the group and within the better off-Broadway theatrical group. The Playwrights Horizons board of trustees and workers are trying ahead to having Casey re-join our group as we adapt to supply new performs and musicals regardless of the headwinds going through non-profit theaters.”

Along with her work at Ars Nova and Playwrights, York has served as President of the Off-Broadway League since 2020 and Vice President of the Affiliation of Not For Revenue Theater Firms since 2019. She is a member of New York Mayor Eric Adams’ inaugural Theatre and Stay Efficiency Trade Council, by which she serves on the Workforce/Accessibility/Fairness subcommittee.

“I’m humbled and delighted to hitch the management of Playwrights Horizons, one in all our nation’s cultural treasures, and to construct on Leslie Marcus’ exemplary 30-year legacy,” York mentioned in a press release. “The chance to return house to Playwrights, as the following Managing Director, on this pivotal second for our trade, is an honor past phrases.”

Stated Creative Director Greenfield, “On this time of seismic change within the financial system and tradition of theater, I really feel impressed by Casey York’s imaginative and prescient – not only for the monetary and creative well-being of Playwrights Horizons, however for the function that theater performs in a vibrant and wholesome metropolis. On a extra private word, I’m delighted by Casey’s return to Playwrights. She and I began up right here across the similar time, some fifteen years in the past, each at first of our careers. As Playwrights Horizons faces a brand new chapter, an inflection level each inside and outdoors our theater’s partitions, we’re fortunate to be geared up with the power and solidity of Leslie Marcus’s longtime management—and with the creativity and may of Casey York’s.”