After the April 1998 exit of its founding artistic director and producer, the husband-and-wife team of Ron Ritchell and Polly Hogan, The Lyric Stage Company of Boston has a formal management team in place.
Spiro Veloudos has been named producing artistic director and chief executive officer of The Lyric Stage. Veloudos formally assumes the role he previously held in an interim capacity since April, when Ritchell and Hogan parted company with the Equity nonprofit's board, who wanted "new blood" in the 25-year-old organization.
Veloudos' stagings of Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers and Stephen Sondheim's Assassins (Boston professional premiere) opened the 25th season of the Lyric in September and October, respectively, earning solid reviews and enthusiastic audiences. Later this season, Veloudos will stage the New England professional premiere of Never the Sinner for the Lyric.
Meanwhile, interim managing director Mort Kaplan is leaving the company after taking on many roles there since 1982. He had been retired from the company when he was asked back in April as managing director, to work during the new management transition. He has served on the board of directors, as board president and as general manager.
The role of managing director will be downsized to a full-time business/financial manager position, working less on artistic and development issues and concentrating on accounting and contracts, according to new marketing and public relations manager Maryann Zschau. Publicist Zschau is former marketing and PR director of Seacoast Repertory Theatre in Portsmouth, NH. The Lyric board is searching for a candidate for the business manager position.
A. Stanley Gurczak has been appointed technical director and operations manager for the Lyric.
Zschau told Playbill On-Line that the company has reconsidered itself and will begin a marketing campaign to assert itself as Boston's Off Broadway address, presenting a seven-play mix of contemporary and classic works in its 236-seat, three-quarter space.
Rob Ruggiero (OB's All Under Heaven and the Tovah Feldshuh Full Gallop at TheaterWorks in Hartford) will direct When Pigs Fly in the spring.
On 1998-99 season:
Through Dec. 20 A Christmas Carol & The Night Before Christmas
Jan. 8- Feb. 7, 1999 The Miser
Feb. 12-March 14 The Baltimore Waltz
March 19-April 18 Never the Sinner
April 23-May 23 When Pigs Fly
Call (617) 437-7172 for Lyric information.
-- By Kenneth Jones
