LOUISVILLE, KY.: Actors Theatre of Louisville has announced that Amelia Acosta Powell will be its new artistic director and Emily Tarquin will be its new managing director. The pair steps into leadership after executive artistic director Robert Barry Fleming departed Actors Theatre earlier this year. Acosta Powell and Tarquin plan to honor the organization’s legacy and build upon the momentum of the current season. Both have previously worked at Actors Theatre: Acosta Powell was its impact producer and directed multiple productions, shaping artistic programming while supporting civic and community initiatives, and Tarquin has worked in finance, development, external relations, and operational strategy. Acosta Powell previously served as associate artistic director of the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, held leadership roles at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Arena Stage, and created and produced the 2022 Latinx Theatre Commons Comedy Carnaval, a national convening of theatremakers and performances. Tarquin co-founded Off-Center, the immersive theatre arm of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, played key roles in producing the Colorado New Play Summit and Festival, and served as Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School’s director of theatre. Targuin will strengthen the theatre’s sustainability and community impact through a strategic planning process with cultural strategist Christen Boone and the DeVos Institute of Arts Management, led by Michael Kaiser.
NEW YORK CITY: Manhattan Theatre Club has announced that Nicki Hunter has been appointed as the company’s new artistic director. As previously reported, Lynne Meadow, who has served as MTC’s artistic director for more than five decades, will assume a new role as artistic advisor when Hunter steps into the artistic director position on Dec. 1. Hunter, who presently serves as MTC’s associate artistic director, first joined MTC in 2009 as an intern. In the 16 years since, she has served as artistic associate, line producer, and artistic producer, before being promoted to associate artistic director, and worked with MTC to further Meadow’s mission. Among other responsibilities, she championed a directing fellowship with the Drama League and oversaw the Beyond the Stage program, which she helped establish.
SAN FRANCISCO: American Conservatory Theater has announced that David Schmitz will be its interim executive director while the theatre continues its search for a permanent executive director since the departure of Jennifer Bielstein. Schmitz is a nonprofit leader with experience in strategic financial management, and serves as the lead advisor for Amplify Leadership Advisors, a consulting firm providing interim executive and managing director services that strategically evolve arts organizations in changing times and leadership transitions. His clients have included Stages Theatre, People’s Light, Kansas City Repertory, Geva Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Center Theatre Group, Living Arts Detroit, the Midwest Tennis Association, McCarter Theatre Center, National Housing Trust, Producers Association of Chicago Area Theatres, and TheatreSquared. Schmitz was the fourth executive director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), where he helped usher the 86-year-old organization through the Covid-19 pandemic and the Almeda wildfire, and reimagined OSF’s season model. He spent 15 years at Steppenwolf Theatre as director of finance and administration, general manager, managing director, and, in his last five years there, executive director.
WASHINGTON, D.C.: Since artistic director Maria Manuela Goyanes left Woolly Mammoth in September, a new core collective of existing Woolly leaders has taken up the charge to lead the company’s artistic efforts during a transitional period. The Interim Artistic Collective includes Kristen B. Jackson (associate artistic director and director of connectivity), Mina Morita (BOLD resident director and creative producer), Sonia Fernandez (director of new work), and Ben Levine (director of production). They will support the producing of the current season of plays, stewarding the 2025-26 season that Goyanes curated, and programming the 2026-27 season alongside managing director Kimberly Douglas during Woolly’s artistic leadership transition. In a collective statement, they shared that they are “leveraging our combined years of experience at Woolly and our deep knowledge of season planning to guide the organization through this transition, maintaining Woolly’s high artistic standards, and ensuring our provocative, challenging work continues to flourish. This collective structure plays to our individual strengths across artistic planning, production, connectivity, and development, and strongly positions Woolly for our incoming artistic director.”
NEW HAVEN, CONN.: Long Wharf Theatre has announced that Meredith Suttles will be its new managing director, replacing Kit Ingui. An arts executive with more than two decades of leadership across theatre management, fundraising, and organizational strategy, she brings a track record of guiding institutions through moments of transformation and growth. Suttles previously served as managing director of the Bay Area’s Marin Theatre, shepherding the organization through the pandemic and strengthening its administrative and financial operations, strategic planning, and community partnerships. Most recently, she served as an associate consultant with A.D. Hamingson and Associates, where she led advancement strategy for Williamstown Theatre Festival, guided long-term planning for Mid Atlantic Arts, and advanced capital campaign efforts for multiple organizations. Other theatre senior management experience includes work with TheatreWorks USA, Soho Repertory Theatre, Theatre Communications Group, New York City Opera, and the Public Theater.
NEW YORK CITY: The Acting Company has announced that after four years as artistic director, Kent Gash is stepping into the new role of director of special projects to serve as an artistic advisor to the company. Devin Brain, a member of the artistic leadership team for the past three years, has been selected to succeed Gash with the title of producing artistic director. The staff change is designed to set the stage for the next chapter of the company’s national tours, New York performances, and education initiatives. Brain was the producing director alongside Gash as artistic director and Erik Schroeder as managing director. He began his time with the Acting Company as a staff director on the 2012 national tour of As You Like It and Of Mice and Men. Since then, he has directed several national tours, including Macbeth, Julius Caesar (also Off-Broadway at the New Victory Theatre), and The Comedy of Errors, and served as line producer and associate artistic director.
MILWAUKEE: Renaissance TheaterWorks (RTW), Milwaukee’s only professional theatre company dedicated to gender equity, has announced that co-founding artistic director Suzan Fete will retire at the conclusion of the 2025-26 season. Fete, who co-founded RTW in 1993, shaped the company into a nationally recognized artistic force known for bold storytelling, championing women’s voices, and presenting thought-provoking theatre in Milwaukee. Throughout her 33 seasons, Fete guided RTW with an artistic philosophy rooted in collaboration, curiosity, and equity. Together with the company’s founding artists, she built a home for courageous work, shepherded RTW through the pandemic, and led the organization’s successful move to a permanent home in Milwaukee’s Harbor District. The company will launch a national search in mid-October to find a new artistic director.
SAN DIEGO, CALIF.: Director Des McAnuff has joined UC San Diego’s Department of Theatre and Dance as the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Professor of Practice in Theatre and Dance, beginning in the fall 2025 semester. McAnuff is a two-time Tony Award-winning director, former artistic director of Canada’s Stratford Festival, and director emeritus of La Jolla Playhouse, located on the UC San Diego campus, where he staged over 30 productions of classics, new plays and musicals as artistic director. This fall, he will teach two graduate courses, one focusing on the collaborative process between directors and designers and the other an advanced acting class. He will lead a lecture series in the spring. The position was established with philanthropic support from Irwin Jacobs. The new professorship was created to attract faculty, enhance the university’s program, and provide training.
NEW YORK CITY: HB Studio has announced a new shared leadership structure, with the addition of Francesca Ferrara as co-executive director of programs. She joins interim co-executive director of strategy and operations Christopher Hibma, who served as interim chief operations officer. In her new role, Ferrara will lead HB Studio’s artistic, pedagogical, and community-facing programs, directly working with faculty and students. The daughter of HB’s resident architect, Richard Ferrara, Francesca has been part of HB’s artistic ecosystem as a student, performer, stage manager, and, since 2019, a member of the teaching faculty. Her classes center on Uta Hagen’s exercises and methodology, and she has brought this work to diverse communities locally and internationally. Hibma, in his continuing role, will provide leadership across operations, institutional strategy, and external partnerships, grounding HB’s infrastructure in thoughtful, sustainable practices. Hibma was previously the global director for Videos for Change and the director of Sundance Institute’s Theatre Program. They follow in the footsteps of the organization’s long-time executive and artistic director Edith Meeks, who served in that capacity for 19 years in 2006-2025.
LAGUNA BEACH, CALIF.: The Laguna Playhouse has announced that artistic director David Ellenstein has resigned, effective November 16, in an amicable departure from the company. Ellenstein joined the Playhouse as the organization’s interim artistic director in 2022 when he filled the post vacated by Anne E. Wareham, and has been its artistic director since 2023. Ellenstein will remain the artistic director for North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach, where he has worked since 2003.
WEST PALM BEACH, FLA.: Palm Beach Dramaworks (PBD) has named Rudina Toro its executive director, effective Sept. 1, succeeding Sue Ellen Beryl, who has taken on the title of founder-in-residence. Toro became PBD’s first chief financial and operating officer in March 2023. Her association with the company dates back to its early years, when she was an audit manager with Nowlen, Holt, and Miner, P.A. She collaborated with Beryl on PBD’s inaugural audit, and remained audit manager for the next 12 years. The two women became friends, and Toro regularly assisted PBD on projects over the years, working closely with Beryl on operational and financial structures. When Toro was hired two years ago, it was with the knowledge that she would become Beryl’s successor. Beryl, a co-founder of PBD with producing artistic director William Hayes, who remains in his position, has been preparing to step down and spend more time with her children and grandchildren.
CORAL GABLES, FLA.: Rachel Burttram Powers has joined GableStage as interim managing director, succeeding Jeff Potts in the role. She will work alongside Bari Newport, GableStage’s producing artistic director. She previously performed in the company’s Appropriate and A Doll’s House, Part 2, and is an accomplished arts leader with decades of experience across the theatre field. A digital theatre expert and a builder of systems, Burttram Powers has produced work ranging from intimate productions to large-scale events.
