In the coming weeks we’ll be posting profiles of our staff members. The first one was last Friday, when you got some insight into our Artistic Director, Kurt Kleinmann. So you might also be interested in the bigger picture: who does what?
As a non-profit organization, Pegasus is ultimately led by its Board of Directors. The board is responsible for hiring the highest ranking staff member, the Artistic Director (AD), who then hires or appoints the rest of the staff. I say “hires or appoints” because a large portion of our staff is volunteer and unpaid. Those who are paid generally work directly on a show and receive a per-show fee. So although there are quite a few staff members, we run on a very lean budget.
It isn’t a stretch to say that the Artistic Director (AD) holds the future of the theatre in his hands! The AD selects plays and directors for each season. Sometimes there is a special theme to the season, such as the year we produced plays written only by local playwrights, or the year 2000 when we produced plays with a futuristic theme. Our mission statement dictates that the plays will generally be new or original comedies, and the cast will largely consist of North Texas talent.
Two of the AD’s appointees are:
- Executive Director (Barbara Weinberger), and
- Producing Director (Phillip Allen).
Together with the AD, these three form a producing team that oversees all of Pegasus Theatre’s activities. They make sure that all resources (money, people, time, facilities) are available for the show to be successfully produced. Some key responsibilities are:
- Hire production and administrative staff,
- Identify facilities for rehearsals, performances, storage, and other needs,
- Create schedules and milestones so that all work is completed on time, and
- Ensure funds will be available when needed to produce each play and meet other obligations of the theatre.
Completing the high level staff of the theatre (and also appointed/hired by the AD) are:
- Managing Director (Art Kedzierski), and
- Production Manager (Michelle Foster).
The MD and PM represent the yin and yang of the theatre world. There is the production side, which is concerned with putting on plays. That is the purview of the PM. The MD’s world is the operational/administrative side, which is concerned with the effective and efficient operation of the theatre.
All of this may sound very corporate, and I suppose it is. Our goal is to have enough structure to hold things together but not so much that it constrains initiative and creativity. More on that next week, as we peel back the onion a bit and talk about what the MD and PM do with their staffs!