Skylight Opera Theatre's managing director, Joan Lounsberry, has resigned from the Equity musical theatre company in Milwaukee to accept the position of executive director of the Santa Rosa Symphony Orchestra in California.

The board of directors announced that Christopher Libby will replace her.

Lounsberry was part of the team when the Skylight moved into the new Broadway Theatre Center in 1993. She leaves at the end of the most successful box office season in the history of the Skylight.

Libby returns to the Skylight, where he previously served as artistic administrator 1995-98. In that position he oversaw artistic programming and budgeting and the commissioning and pre-production of the 1999 world premiere, Ballymore.

After Skylight, Libby served as managing director of Trinity Irish Dance Company and general manager of Court Theater at the University of Chicago. He begins again at Skylight July 6.

-- By Kenneth Jones