Local Nao Tsurumaki gets Garden Theatre gig
He will serve as new executive director
The Garden Theatre’s search for a new executive director extended around the nation, but ended right here in Orange County.
The Winter Garden theater will be led by Nao Tsurumaki, an east Orlando resident who has been waiting for just such an opportunity on the Central Florida arts scene.
“Everything up to this point has prepared me for this role,” Tsurumaki said. On July 10, he will become the Winter Garden Theatre’s second executive director in its 10-year history, replacing Alauna Friskics, who resigned to become executive director of Orlando Fringe.
“I have been following the Garden since the beginning,” said Tsurumaki, who has worked at Orlando Repertory Theatre, as well as in Washington, D.C., and New York. “I always thought how exciting it would be to be part of a community venture like that.”
Tsurumaki, 37, will lead a rapidly growing theater — it attracted 65,000 patrons last year — with an annual operating budget of nearly $1.5 million. He
hopes “achieving a new level of production quality” will fill even more seats at the venue in the west Orange County city.
“No matter what show people see here, I want them to experience the same high quality from beginning to end,” he said. “I want them to trust in us.”
Tsurumaki served as executive director of the Children’s Chorus and worked for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, both in Washington, D.C. In New York, he worked on tour management and marketing for Disney Theatrical Group.
Closer to home, he was a stage manager at Seaside Musical Theater in Daytona Beach and spent years at the Rep, where he was first company manager and then general manager.
“He has really strong leadership skills,” said Gene Columbus, executive director of Orlando Repertory Theatre and a longtime mentor to Tsurumaki. “He has that mentality of supporting the creative process and making the art the best it can be.”
One of Tsurumaki’s strengths, Columbus said, is his ability to build strong partnerships with colleagues and employees.
“He isn’t the kind to stand on the table and shout ‘charge!’ ” Columbus said. “He gets his team on the table with him, and they all shout ‘charge!’ ”
But Tsurumaki is no pushover, Columbus said.
“In a very polite manner, he will point out if you’re wrong,” he said.
Born in Japan, Tsurumaki got his first taste of America as a high school exchange student — in rural Kansas.
“You don’t have to be from Japan to be culture shocked in Kansas,” he joked. “It’s a place where people go to rodeos on Sunday, and if your friend gets into a car accident, it involves a cow.”
He came to Central Florida for college, first at Daytona State and then at the University of Central Florida, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in theater.
Each of his jobs has given him skills needed to run the Garden, Tsurumaki said.
At Disney Theatrical, where he worked on “The Lion King,” Tsurumaki “really got to learn the dayto-day of how a successful brand is created and maintained.”
Leading the Children’s Chorus reinforced his belief that education is a key component of an arts nonprofit. He hopes to establish a yearround education department at the Garden.
A more urgent need is to hire key players for the theater: The top fundraising and marketing jobs are both vacant.
“It’s one of my top priorities to fill those positions,” Tsurumaki said. “What I’m excited about is I get to assemble a new team who will complement the staff ’s existing strengths.”
Paul Oppedisano, president of the theater’s board of directors, said Tsurumaki will “fit in perfectly” at the Garden.
“The board is thrilled to have found someone with Nao’s talent, experience and passion for the arts,” he said. “We concluded our national search to find the ideal candidate right here in Orlando.”
Nao had left Orlando in 2011, when “the Kennedy Center recruited him away,” as Columbus put it. “If we had to lose him, at least we lost him to somewhere prestigious.”
He returned in 2013 and took a job training staff at Nemours Children’s Hospital in electronic record-keeping.
Tsurumaki was willing to work outside the arts field in order to come back to Central Florida, where he and his wife wanted to raise their children. The couple now has a 3-year-old son and newborn daughter.
“When we left Orlando, we knew we would come back when it was time to start a family,” Tsurumaki said. “This is home.”
“He [Tsurumaki] has that mentality of supporting the creative process and making the art the best it can be.” Gene Columbus, executive director of Orlando Repertory Theatre