South Coast Repertory announced today, July 23, that Suzanne Appel, managing director of the off-Broadway Vineyard Theatre in New York, will be the theater’s new managing director, only the second person in that role in the 60-year-old organization’s history. Appel succeeds Paula Tomei, who announced last year that she is stepping down after 30 years in the job. Appel is expected to start at the Costa Mesa regional theater in early September.
In a phone interview Monday from New York, Appel was enthusiastic about the opportunity: “I’m very excited about this! “I interviewed with the board in June, and they offered me the role shortly thereafter. I’m thrilled it can finally be public.” The feeling would appear to be mutual.
“This is a thrilling moment for South Coast Repertory,” the theater’s artistic director, David Ivers, said in a statement. In an interview, Ivers was eager to talk about his new professional partner. “She embodies, it feels to me — and I love this — ambition for SCR here and now and ahead.
I am equally ambitious for SCR, to put some huge wins up. She gives off both big-time experience and is absolutely a theater person in her core. “I also felt that this is a really decent and vigorous human being, and that is meaningful to me.
I had a really genuine and open connection with her that was equal to my excitement about her acumen for the job.” Talya Nevo-Hacochen, president of SCR’s Board of Trustees, chaired the search committe.