This week, we feature the roles of the Executive Director (ED, Barbara Weinberger) and the Producing Director (PD, Phillip Allen)! These two positions report to the Artistic Director, and they are the hardest to write a job description for. That’s because our job is to do whatever it takes to ensure that all resources needed to produce the show and run the theatre are available when and where they are needed. We are also ultimately responsible for the efficient use of those resources. And while we have teams of people who report up through us, the proverbial buck stops here.
Delegation and follow-up become critically important in the world of the ED and PD, including knowing when NOT to delegate. One year we had an unethical set designer who ignored the budget he was given and ended up going over budget without authorization by a factor of three. While the designers report up through the Production Manager, we knew this problem was too big to delegate to the PM. We and the Artistic Director handled it.
The decisions we make tend to have money tied to them. Should we approve hiring an additional person backstage? Is it worth investing money in certain forms of advertising, and if so, how much? Depending on how much money is at stake, we may make a recommendation to the Artistic Director, who has the final say.
Our direct reports are the Managing Director (MD) and the Production Manager (PM). You’ll hear more about them in future blog entries, so for now think of them as the yin and yang of running a theatre! There are artistic (PM) and non-artistic (MD) factors to running a live stage theatre. We couldn’t do our jobs without these people, and you’ll learn why next week!