Playwrights Horizons, the longstanding and outstanding Off Broadway theater firm that launched the Tony Award-winning Broadway hit Stereophonic, has appointed a brand new managing director because it steers its method by 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 position because the Off Broadway establishment enjoys considered one of 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 primarily based on the 2007 cult horror movie, will obtain a industrial switch to Off Broadway’s New World Levels 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 Photos and Mickey Liddell & Pete Shilaimon.
Regardless of its current renewed visibility, although, the 53-year-old Playwrights isn’t resistant to the continuing harsh economics of the non-profit world: As reported by the Broadway World web site this week, the corporate just lately 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.
Casey York
Brittany Anikka Liu
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 assist 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 best candidate would have clear philosophies round main change in an evolving discipline, and revolutionary fascinated by participating 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 Basic Supervisor then as Managing Director “serving to maintain the group by the tumult of the pandemic and the business’s ensuing struggles.”
The appointment marks a homecoming for York, whose administrative work within the theater business started at Playwrights in 2010, first as a Advertising and marketing Resident after which, from 2011 to 2014, as Affiliate Basic 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 throughout the group and within the larger off-Broadway theatrical neighborhood. The Playwrights Horizons board of trustees and employees are trying ahead to having Casey re-join our crew as we adapt to supply new performs and musicals regardless of the headwinds dealing with 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 Reside Efficiency Business Council, wherein she serves on the Workforce/Accessibility/Fairness subcommittee.
“I’m humbled and delighted to hitch the management of Playwrights Horizons, considered one of 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 residence to Playwrights, as the following Managing Director, on this pivotal second for our business, is an honor past phrases.”
Mentioned Creative Director Greenfield, “On this time of seismic change within the economic 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 position that theater performs in a vibrant and wholesome metropolis. On a extra private observe, I’m delighted by Casey’s return to Playwrights. She and I began up right here across the identical time, some fifteen years in the past, each originally 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 energy and solidity of Leslie Marcus’s longtime management—and with the creativity and may of Casey York’s.”