David Schmitz.
MALVERN, PA.: David Schmitz has joined Folks’s Mild as interim managing director whereas the corporate initiates a nationwide seek for its subsequent managing director to succeed Erica Ezold, who left the submit after a 12 months to take the identical place at Quintessence Theatre. Because the lead advisor at Amplify Management Advisors, David helps arts organizations via transitions, providing providers in interim government management, administration teaching, and strategic undertaking execution. At Folks’s Mild, Schmitz goals to facilitate a purposeful and methodical transition, making certain Folks’s Mild continues its journey in the direction of transformation and progress.
“All of us at Folks’s Mild are thrilled to have David be part of us on this interim capability at this momentous time in our historical past,” stated producing creative director Zak Berkman in a press release. “As we have a good time our fiftieth anniversary subsequent season, and proceed to evolve as a vacation spot for stay arts in our exceptional area, we look ahead to benefiting from David’s immense perception, care, rigor, and creativeness.”
David brings intensive expertise in arts administration and consulting. His management roles embody interim managing director of Phases Theatre in Houston and government director at Oregon Shakespeare Competition, the place he navigated the group via the challenges of the Covid pandemic and wildfires. Beforehand, David labored on the famed Steppenwolf Theatre Firm in Chicago, the place he served for 15 years within the roles of normal supervisor, managing director, and at last government director.
David serves as a board member of the Oregon Cultural Advocacy Coalition, is the previous vice chairman of the board for the Home Theatre of Chicago, and has served on the boards of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), Ashland and Lincoln Park Chambers of Commerce, Arts Alliance Illinois, and the League of Chicago Theatres. Schmitz was a founding member of the Skilled Nonprofit Theatre Coalition and Enrich Chicago, a cohort of arts organizations working to finish racism in Chicago arts.
“Folks’s Mild is an artist-driven group with a dynamic fame of play manufacturing and an eagerness to evolve that’s fairly thrilling,” stated David Schmitz. “Having the chance to associate with producing creative director Zak Berkman and the Folks’s Mild board, workers, and firm throughout this time of transformation is each humbling and thrilling. I look ahead to increasing on the work that has been completed earlier than my arrival whereas we chart a path ahead in the direction of sustainability and vitality.”
Based in 1974, Folks’s Mild serves as certainly one of Pennsylvania’s most achieved skilled non-profit theatres, identified for its resident firm of artists, a wide selection of productions, and modern work with younger individuals. As of 2022, its funds was round $6.3 million.
Associated
