AMERICAN THEATRE | Suzanne Appel Named Managing Director of South Coast Rep

COSTA MESA, CALIF.: South Coast Repertory and its board of trustees have introduced that Suzanne Appel would be the theatre’s new managing director. The appointment follows a nationwide search. Appel, who will depart her present job as managing director of New York Metropolis’s Winery Theatre, will be part of creative director David Ivers as co-chief govt officer of the Tony-winning theatre, now celebrating its sixtieth season, in September. Appel succeeds Paula Tomei, who introduced her departure final November after 30 years within the place. That makes Appel solely the second managing director in SCR’s historical past.

“The search generated a pool of uniquely skilled, various candidates, amongst whom Suzanne was distinctive,” stated Talya Nevo-Hacohen, president of SCR’s board of trustees and chair of the search committee, in an announcement. “She brings a powerful monitor report of strategic management, fiscal duty, and fund-raising to SCR. We sought somebody who might construct on SCR’s robust basis with creativity and innovation. With Ivers and Appel main, we’re expertly positioned to embrace the long run.”

Working in partnership with Ivers, Appel will probably be accountable for offering strategic management for SCR’s long-term sustainability and progress, and can oversee SCR’s enterprise operations, together with fund-raising, advertising, and neighborhood relations for the theatre, which has an annual working finances of $12.6 million and property of $74.7 million.

“It is a thrilling second for South Coast Repertory,” stated Ivers in an announcement. “The appointment of Suzanne Appel as managing director reinforces our place as a driving pressure within the panorama of the American theatre. I’m honored to be in partnership with such an completed and invigorating chief. Suzanne brings together with her a wealth of expertise, accomplishments, and imaginative and prescient. Her pure charisma and ambition are matched solely by her curiosity and love of theatre. I’m assured ours will probably be a profitable partnership for SCR.”

Stated Appel in an announcement, “I’m humbled by the chance to proceed Paula’s unimaginable work offering Orange County audiences with entry to theatre that has a nationwide impression far past Southern California. David Ivers’s dedication to supporting voices representing a broad range of American cultural expertise, notably by way of the Pacific Playwrights Pageant, is just inspiring. I’m wanting ahead to becoming a member of David, the board, and the unimaginable crew at SCR in welcoming audiences to share within the awe-inspiring theatre that awaits them at South Coast Repertory.”

Of her seven-plus on the Winery, Appel added, “Working with creative administrators Sarah Stern and Douglas Aibel and the entire crew at Winery Theatre has been a real honor. The Winery’s ongoing dedication to artists and innovation, and the creative crew’s extraordinary expertise in shepherding groundbreaking new work, are perennially gorgeous.”

At Winery Theatre, Appel navigated the group financially by way of the Covid pandemic, maintaining the complete full-time workers employed, and establishing a four-year plan (2022-2026) to boost all arts employee wages greater than 30 %. Appel partnered with consultants and the Winery’s creative administrators to create their first strategic growth and Fairness, Range, and Inclusion plans. Over the previous seven seasons, the Winery’s management crew’s accomplishments included 12 world premieres, transferring 4 Tony-nominated reveals to Broadway (Paula Vogel’s Indecent and How I Discovered to Drive, Tina Satter’s Is This A Room and Lucas Hnath’s Dana H.), and constructing an industry-first partnership with Audible to launch the audiobook and podcast firm’s theatre program with two Winery Theatre performs (Harry Clarke by David Cale in 2017 and Good Grief by Ngozi Anyanwu in 2018).

Earlier than coming to Winery, Appel was the director of exterior affairs at Hubbard Road Dance Chicago and managing director of the Reducing Ball Theater in San Francisco. She holds an MBA from Yale College’s College of Administration and an MFA from Yale College of Drama, and he or she obtained her BA from Wesleyan College in Connecticut.

South Coast Repertory, based in 1964, is likely one of the main skilled theatres in the USA. Whereas its productions symbolize a steadiness of traditional and trendy performs and musicals, SCR is famend for its intensive new-play growth program, The Lab@SCR, which incorporates one of many nation’s largest commissioning applications for rising, mid-career and established writers.

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