The Broadway League has some new top brass.
Kristin Caskey, the executive vice president of content and creative at Ambassador Theatre Group, has been elected to serve as the next chairperson of the national trade association. She is expected to start her three-year term after its annual meeting at the end of the year.
“I’m ecstatic she’ll be the League Chair,” commented producer Dori Berinstein. “I’ve truly been in awe of Kristin’s extraordinary wisdom, vision, and leadership ever since our first collaboration in 2001 on Thoroughly Modern Millie,” she continued, adding that “Kristin is one of Broadway’s all-time greats!”
Victoria Booth, the artistic director at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, helped Caskey line up her first job working for Mick Leavitt at Fox Theatricals, and observed that “Kristin has always had an extraordinary capacity to read the moment and know precisely what the most strategic move is to take.”
Caskey will need to make the right moves as Broadway struggles to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Her predecessor, Lauren Reid, who also serves as the president of the touring productions powerhouse Broadway Across America, took over the reins of the organization in 2020 after all of the Broadway theaters had been shut. “We’ve got to approach our challenge ahead with a lot of hard work, determination and compassion together,” she stated shortly after starting her term.
Working alongside the Broadway League’s staff and 42 task forces, Reid coordinated the reopening of shows in the fall of 2021. She also lobbied for theater operators and returning shows to receive federal aid through the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program, and she helped to set up a more favorable tax credit program for new shows in New York.
But, while Broadway has returned, many theatergoers have not.
Last season, the size of the aggregate Broadway audience was almost one-fifth smaller than the size of the aggregate Broadway audience before the pandemic. Nearly 2.5 million prior theatergoers decided not to see Broadway shows.
“The anxiety and the levels of stress are like no other time in my working life,” lamented one Broadway producer.
It is hoped that Caskey, stepping into the scene with decades of experience developing and booking shows at Fox Theatricals and Ambassador Theatre Group, will continue Reid’s efforts to revive the theatre industry, and help steer the ship to shore.
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