Managing Director

Compensation

$110,000 to $140,000

Virginia Repertory Theatre (Va Rep) is the largest nonprofit performing arts organization in Central Virginia. Driven by the mission to entertain, challenge, and uplift communities through the power of live theatre, Va Rep presents a wide range of live productions, including comedies, dramas, and musicals for audiences of all ages.

Va Rep was established in 2012 by the merger of two theatre companies: Barksdale Theatre and Theatre IV. Barksdale Theatre was founded in 1953 on the site of the historic Hanover Tavern, which is now recognized as a national landmark. Over the years, Barksdale Theatre made significant contributions to the Greater Richmond community by producing the region’s first professional productions of plays by Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, George Bernard Shaw, Noel Coward, and other renowned authors. The theater was also Virginia’s pioneering performing arts organization that welcomed integrated audiences, and, in 1973, staged Virginia’s first professional play based on African American experiences, Lorraine Hansberry’s To Be Young, Gifted and Black. Theatre IV was founded in 1975 as Virginia’s first professional theater for youth. It toured extensively, performing in every school district in Virginia, and regularly visiting major performing arts centers across 32 states in the eastern United States. Today, Va Rep continues this tradition under the name Virginia Rep on Tour and provides the highest quality children’s shows and educational programming to schools throughout Virginia and major performing arts centers across the country.

Va Rep currently operates across four major venues: the Sara Belle and Neil November Theatre, a 553-seat historic theatre that serves as the home of the Signature Season; Hanover Tavern, which is now the home of the Barksdale Season; Theatre Gym, an intimate 81-seat space allows Va Rep space to experiment with a broader range of scripts and serves as a playground for small Richmond theaters to produce in a cost-effective manner. The newest addition to Va Rep’s venues is the Virginia Rep Center for Arts and Education. This center is a dedicated space for the Family Season, offering a vibrant program of theater productions, aimed at young audiences. Additionally, the center is a hub for educational activities, including touring, camps, classes, and workshops, fostering artistic development and community engagement.

Va Rep’s 2023-2024 season features: POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, directed by Dorothy Holland; The Silver Belles, directed by Susan Sanford; Satchmo at the Waldorf, directed by Rick Hammerly; 9 to 5, The Musical, directed by Debra Clinton; Martha Mitchell Calling, directed by Rick Hammerly, five productions geared for kids and families, and Baskerville and On Air in Hanover (with Margaret Mitchell). The programming also includes educational workshops, day camps, and in-school performances for children and families.

Va Rep has a 16-member board of directors led by Chair Martha Quinn. There are three artistic directors: Rick Hammerly, Artistic Director of Programming, Todd D. Norris, Artistic Director of Education, and Desirée Roots, Artistic Director of Community. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023, Va Rep saw total revenues of $7.8 million with $5 million from contributions and grants ($2 million capital), $2.7 million from program service revenue, and $103,000 from investment income and other revenues.

Community
Richmond is a historically significant city with cosmopolitan flair and a thriving community located at the James River’s fall line, 92 miles south of Washington, DC. Founded in 1737, it replaced Williamsburg as the capital of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia in 1780. During the Revolutionary War period, several notable events occurred in the city, including Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty, or give me death!” speech in 1775 at St. John’s Church and the passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, written by Thomas Jefferson. The Jackson Ward neighborhood is the city’s traditional hub of African American commerce and culture, once known as the “Black Wall Street of America” and the “Harlem of the South.”

Present-day Richmond’s economy is based on a diverse set of industries, including financial, medical, biotechnology, knowledge-based services, manufacturing, and transportation industries. Among those, the largest are health care and social assistance, education services, and retail trade. At the same time, the city of Richmond has a deep and rich culture, informed and shaped by its history, art, community diversity, and creativity earning its place as one of the most artistic mid-sized city in the United States and attracting visual and performance artists, dancers, designers, and musicians who draw crowds from around the world.

Richmond is home to the Virginia Museum of History and Culture and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, with barrier-breaking work such as Kehinde Wiley’s Rumors of War. Other museums include the Children’s Museum of Richmond, the Edgar Allen Poe Museum, the Black History Museum, the Science Museum of Virginia, and The Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University. Richmond boasts over 70 galleries, a monthly First Fridays art walk, and more than 100 murals. The Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen offers art exhibitions, concerts, plays and musicals, modern and classic dance performances. The Dominion Energy Center, The Henrico Theater, 5th Wall Theatre, Richmond Triangle Players, and the iconic Altria Theater present Broadway shows, as well as an array of seasonal concerts, festivals, and works by local, national, and international writers, making Richmond a choice destination with art at its epicenter.

The area has several major institutions of higher education, including Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Richmond, and HBCU Virginia Union University, as well as two dynamic community colleges in the metro area. The city is passionate about college sports, with top teams in basketball, football, and tennis. The Richmond Raceway has hosted NASCAR Cup Series races since 1953, and Southside Speedway has seen many NASCAR champions, including Richard Petty, Bobby Allison, and more. The James River offers 52 miles of the Capital Trail for biking and urban class IV rapids for kayaking, along with rafting, swimming, tubing, and guided tours. The International Folk Festival has brought audiences of up to 30,000 to the riverfront on an October weekend every year since 2008.

As of 2023, the population of the City of Richmond was approximately 229,395 and growing with an influx of thousands of young people in a diverse array of downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. The population of the total metro region—including the counties of Henrico, Chesterfield, and Hanover—was 1.14 million. The city and region have a diverse demographic profile with 56% white, 28% Black or African American, 7% Hispanic or Latino, 5% other, and 4% Asian.

Position Summary
The Managing Director will be Va Rep’s strategic, financial, and operational leader, balancing the areas of season programming, education, fundraising, ticket sales, and community engagement. Reporting to the Board of Directors, they will partner with the three Artistic Directors to plan, organize, motivate, direct, and manage Va Rep in collectively fulfilling the organization’s mission. The Managing Director will serve as the producer of all Va Rep performances and have responsibility for and oversight of all administrative operations, including fundraising, marketing, and finance departments, as well as human resources, facilities, and information technology. This individual will be an engaged member of the community, creating and growing partnerships with philanthropic supporters, theater professionals, stakeholders, and audience members. The Managing Director will use their knowledge and skills in the arts, education, community health, and social equity to strengthen programmatic initiatives and build an enduring institutional legacy.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Strategic Engagement and Board Governance

• Lead the organization’s efforts, in collaboration with Board and Artistic Directors, in formulating, monitoring, and implementing the organization’s long-term strategic plan.
• Maintain open and active communication with the board of directors and board committees.
• Steward and develop board relationships to leverage skills and talents for the organization, in addition to board member recruitment.
• Partner with the board to cultivate financial resources and support board members as fundraisers and community ambassadors.
• Ensure that board and staff leadership roles and responsibilities are clearly defined, appropriate, familiar to all, and followed.
• Embrace other strategic engagement and board governance responsibilities, as needed.

Operations and Finance

• Develop and manage organizational policies in key areas, including operations, fundraising, communications, human resources, and finance.
• Manage and monitor overall financial operations, in collaboration with the Director of Finance, including budgeting, strategies for financial stability, and audit oversight, reporting and analysis.
• Engage in ongoing review and improvement of the organization’s policies and practices, including those which ensure and communicate a commitment to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access.
• Direct administrative operations including hiring, supervision, and management of administrative department heads, and general oversight of the entire administrative staff.
• Supervise the facilities staff in guaranteeing proper maintenance, upkeep, safety, and accessibility at all locations and supervise facility rentals.
• Embrace other operations and finance responsibilities, as needed.

Audience Development and Revenue Enhancement

• Cultivate governmental, community, and business partners to attract new supporters, reach new and more diverse audiences, and increase revenue.
• Manage partnerships with local universities and the state funding related to those partnerships.
• Guide staff and board fundraising initiatives to create strategies for growing contributed revenue with an emphasis on solicitation, stewardship, and cultivation of existing and new funders.
• Support and collaborate with the development department to ensure success in annual fundraising efforts and capital fundraising goals.
• Provide guidance and work collaboratively with the sales and marketing department to ensure effective messaging and promotion of ticket sales and other revenue sources, including rentals.
• Embrace other audience development and revenue enhancement responsibilities, as needed.

Community Interactions and Connections

• Serve as an ambassador of the theater in Richmond and the surrounding counties, in partnership with the artistic directors.
• Create and maintain ongoing relationships with local arts organizations, fostering mutual support and collaboration.
• Encourage and support the development of a local talent pool through increased outreach and hiring in the community in all departments.
• Re-energize and expand the theater’s connection to the community, including community leaders and businesses.
• Embrace other community interactions and connections responsibilities, as needed.

TRAITS AND CHARACTERISTIC
The Managing Director will be a collaborative leader who balances the value of building consensus and inviting input with the responsibilities of decision making, problem solving, and leadership. Transparency and open communication will be key tenets of their leadership style, and they will recognize challenges without allowing them to become obstacles to forward movement and growth. A goal- and people-oriented executive, the Managing Director will guide the organization with warmth, respect, and professionalism in their actions, setting the tone and direction on how employees interact with each other and with the diverse communities that Va Rep serves. With the goal of building a shared culture of openness and collaboration, they will engage the Board and staff in the decision-making process, while taking responsibility for outcomes, and build an organizational culture of teamwork, accountability, and trust, characterized by proactive decision making, open communication, and strategic fiscal management.

Other key competencies include:

• Leadership and Personal Accountability – The ability to organize and influence people to believe in a shared vision and sense of purpose and direction, while also being answerable for personal actions.
• Conflict Management and Resiliency – The integrity to understand, address, and resolve conflict constructively and quickly recover from adversity to adjust to changing circumstances in the industry and environment.
• Time and Priority Management, Planning, and Organizing – The capacity to manage, prioritize, and complete multiple complex tasks to deliver desired outcomes within allotted time frames, while establishing courses of action that ensure work is routinely completed effectively.
• Decision Making and Teamwork – The dexterity to analyze all aspects of a situation to make consistently sound and timely decisions and the ability to cooperate with others to meet the objectives.

Qualifications
Demonstrable, significant, and progressive professional experience in leadership roles and in managing and supervising teams is required. A successful track record working within complex and dynamic organizations, as well as skills in financial management, fundraising, and relationship building is needed. Strong business acumen and communication skills are needed. A record of commitment to the principles of inclusion, equity, diversity, and access is essential. Prior experience in the performing arts sector is appreciated, and a strong passion for theater and knowledge of the field are expected. The Managing Director will have demonstrated, and measurable success in managing complex financial pathways and funding streams, and have a proven track record in audience development, fundraising, and guiding and establishing organizational policies. If you do not meet all the qualifications but possess transferable or equivalent skills, we encourage you to apply and highlight them in your cover letter and resume.

Compensation and Benefits
Va Rep provides a competitive and equitable compensation package in the range of $110,000 to $140,000, with benefits that include paid time off and holidays; health insurance; long-term disability and life insurance; and an employer matched 403(b) retirement plan.

Applications and Inquiries
To submit a cover letter and resume with a summary of demonstrable accomplishments (electronic submissions preferred), please click or visit artsconsulting.com/opensearches. For questions or general inquiries about this job opportunity, please contact: Flora Stamatiades, Associate Vice President at VirginiaRep@ArtsConsulting.com