Michael Stotts, who has been the managing director of Hartford Stage since 2006, is leaving the theater at the end of January for a similar post at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse, the theater announced Tuesday morning.
In a phone interview with The Courant shortly before the official announcement, Stotts said the Paper Mill position “wasn’t a job I was actively looking for. A search committee called me late in the summer. It was such a good opportunity that I had to consider it.”
“I lived in New Jersey and worked in New Jersey before I came to Connecticut. I was a consultant at Paper Mill Playhouse before I came to Hartford Stage. Paper Mill is a company I have long admired.
“At the same time, I have had an absolutely spectacular time here at Hartford Stage.”
Asked to list some of his personal favorite accomplishments at Hartford Stage, Stotts mentions the epic nine-hour production of the “Orphans’ Home Cycle” plays by Horton Foote in 2009 and “the musicals we did with Darko, which were an important milestone for me.” Stotts also notes that several major renovations to the theater building took place under his watch.
During Stotts’ tenure as managing director, Hartford Stage sent the musicals “Anastasia” and “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” to Broadway, premiered the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Water by the Spoonful” and lured stars such as Kevin Bacon and Mikhail Baryshnikov to its stage.
Under Stotts Hartford Stage also started some important community outreach initiatives, recently including free tickets that can be “checked out” through Hartford Public Library and a Community Access Program which targets “Hartford residents who traditionally have been unable to attend … due to a variety of economic and social barriers.”
Hartford Stage board President David Jimenez said that Paper Mill is “a larger theater” than Hartford Stage, and that when “talent continues to grow and develop, you expect they will find other opportunities.”
Hartford Stage is already in the midst of a search to fill its other top leadership position. Artistic director Darko Tresnjak announced in March that he will be leaving the theater when his contract expires at the end of the current season. Jimenez says Albert Hall & Associates, the firm retained to conduct the search for the artistic director, will also now conduct the search for a managing director.
If his position is not filled by the time of Stotts’ departure, the theater will be managed by “senior staff,” Jimenez said, “with Mike and Darko’s support.”
Jimenez says that Stotts’ contract required giving six months notice. Since January is just four months away, Jimenez expects that they will arrange to have Stotts serve in a consultant position for the remaining two months while he transitions to the New Jersey job. Stotts confirmed that he will be consulting with the theater and helping effect a smooth transition.
At Hartford Stage, as at many regional theaters throughout the U.S., a managing director works in tandem with an artistic director to run the organization. When Stotts joined Hartford Stage, Michael Wilson had been the theater’s artistic director for seven seasons. Wilson left in June 2011 and was succeeded by Tresnjak.
Despite having the two top positions at the theater open at the same time, Jimenez does not foresee changes in the theater’s management structure, expressing “confidence in the model that we have. The co-CEO model has worked well.”
He says the search for the artistic director is well underway, and that “four finalists are coming back for interviews. We should have identified the lead candidate for artistic director by December. It should be three or four months before we know who the next managing director will be.”
Jimenez says he was informed of Stotts’ decision last week. Hartford Stage staff was informed Monday afternoon in a special meeting at the theater. The announcement went “as well as can be hoped for. There were some hugs, a few tears, mostly congratulations,” Jimenez said.
The Paper Mill Playhouse, founded in 1938, is a 1200-seat theater in Milburn, N.J., that specializes in musicals. In recent years, the musicals “Newsies,” “Bandstand” and “A Bronx Tale” all premiered at Paper Mill before moving to Broadway. “One of Paper Mill’s former artistic directors, Michael Gennaro, is now the executive director of Goodspeed Musicals in East Haddam. Stotts worked for Paper Mill as a consultant shortly before he came to Hartford Stage.
From 2003 through 2005, Stotts was the managing director of the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven. Before that he was the managing director of New Jersey’s George Street Playhouse for three years and the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival for nine.
Does Stotts have any advice for his successor?
“Not advice — the search is just starting. But I do want to say [to candidates] that this is an important cultural organization both locally and nationally. It’s a plum opportunity. For me, it has been an amazing ride.”
