TheatreWorks leader to exit after 15 years
TheatreWorks Executive Director Phil Santora plans to step down from his role in June, the Silicon Valley company announced last week.
The move concludes a 15-year tenure with the Tony Award-winning theater, and it closely follows the departure of Robert Kelley, the founding artistic director.
Santora plans to move to Portland, Ore., where the company of his husband, Cristian Asher, is headquartered.
In a statement, Santora tied the timing of his departure to getting Kelley’s successor, Tim Bond, firmly established at the helm.
“We’ve found an amazing artist and remarkable leader in Tim, who is the perfect person to help guide TheatreWorks through the next phase of its remarkable journey,” he said.
TheatreWorks reopened for inperson performances in October, with the musical “Lizard Boy,” and in a statement Board Chair Holly Ward credited the theater’s solid latepandemic financial position to Bond and Santora.
“After 18 months without live performances on our stages,” she said, “it is thanks to Phil and Tim’s robust leadership and the support of our loyal donors and devoted audiences that TheatreWorks has come out of this uncertain period strong and ready to share remarkable new work with our diverse Silicon Valley audiences.”
TheatreWorks, like many nonprofit theaters, uses a dual leadership structure, with an artistic director making artistic decisions and an executive or managing director running the financial side. Among Santora’s many accomplishments are more than doubling the company’s endowment, from $2.1 million to $5 million, and building the company’s national and international reputation for new plays that go on to have long life elsewhere.
TheatreWorks’ 2019 Regional Theatre Tony Award win made it just the fourth Bay Area theater to receive the honor, after American Conservatory Theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
As of September, the organization’s annual budget was $10.3 million.
Santora’s departure opens a major leadership opportunity; his successor will co-lead the Bay Area’s thirdlargest nonprofit theater. That transition comes at a time of leadership upheaval nationwide. Locally, companies from American Conservatory Theater to Aurora Theatre Company, from Marin Theatre Company to Berkeley Rep, from TheatreFirst to Magic Theatre, all have relative newcomers in charge.
TheatreWorks plans to begin an executive search shortly.