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 committee. She said the search yielded a pool of experienced and diverse candidates, but that Appel was exceptional.
“She brings an impressive track record of strategic leadership, fiscal responsibility and fund-raising to SCR,” Nevo-Hacochen said in a statement. “We sought someone who could build on SCR’s strong foundation with creativity and innovation. With Ivers and Appel leading, we are expertly positioned to embrace the future.
” In her seven seasons at Vineyard Theatre, Appel oversaw the production of 12 world premieres, four of which transferred to Broadway, including Paula Vogel’s “Indecent” and “How I Learned to Drive,” Tina Satter’s “Is This a Room” and Lucas Hnath’s “Dana H.” Appel acknowledged that as the subscription model for audiences has waned and in the aftermath of COVID-19 shutdowns, arts organizations are under cross-current pressures. She says she is ready to address SCR’s future strategically and thoughtfully.
“There is no magic bullet,” she says. “But the arts have always competed with other interests, causes and nonprofits for the share of somebody’s philanthropic dollar. “Our unique challenge now is to build a connection with an individual or a foundation or a government’s contributions or corporations to an arts organization.
and do our best for the return that that person sees personally for their community.” An equally important quality Appel said she will focus on is how to create loyal patrons. “Both in terms of single ticket buyers or subscriptions, make everyone welcome and realize that their desires for experiences are not the same for all in a modern world dealing with another truth, polarization.
” Appel is passionate about what live theater experience uniquely offers to combat social challenges. “A theater is so often a rare space where we engage with folks we don’t know in person. There’s actually science that shows that our hearts start beating together in an audience, which I find really amazing, the transformational power of experiencing live performance together.
” While Appel was at Vineyard, the theater received the largest gifts in its history from the city and state of New York and private individuals and foundations. Among her accomplishments, Appel guided the company through the pandemic and also established a four-year plan to raise arts worker wages by 30% by 2026. She said she feels this is especially significant for arts organizations in places with a high cost of living.
“New York City, like Orange County, is an expensive place to live,” she said. “And in order to really be able to produce great work, we need to be able to pay great people to be able to support that. “It certainly is a priority for me that the team at South Coast Rep is compensated for their contribution to the work.
” Appel includes a cautionary note. “This is also a business, and we have to make sure that that’s sustainable. I look forward to making sure that our commitments to our artists and staff at South Coast Rep are sustainable as well.
” Appel said for her an allure of being part of a theater, and being at SCR, with its decades-long process of developing new works, is the chance to interact with playwrights. “(In my role) I am also a producer. As a producer I have many playwrights I followed and supported and came to love their work.
David (Ivers) has this same model, playwrights he knows and loves, and we share wanting this to continue SCR’s tradition of fostering great work in new theater development.” She said she is impressed with the youth and adult programs running concurrently to the staged work available at SCR. “Acting classes and performance opportunities are a real strength of SCR as are all of the family programs related to the conservatory.
This is a place not just for parents on their night out, but also for the whole family to both want to attend and experience in a participatory way.” Outside of work, Appels says she is “definitely an outdoorsy type person. I’m a camper.
My husband Ali and I both like to do a lot of hiking. “Growing up in Colorado, the natural beauty of the state was something my family fully engaged in, and I’m really looking forward to having access to all of that.” The couple will relocate from New York in the last week of August.
“We still haven’t figured out exactly where we’ll be living, but my husband — a managing consultant — will be commuting to L.A., so probably the northern part of Orange County.
” It’s clear that Appel’s merging of head and heart will focus on the theater. Her time in New York afforded her the opportunity to experience many shows. One moment, not as a theater professional, but as a theater fan.
sticks with her as something to take to heart. “Years ago (2006), there was a really extraordinary production of the play ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’ as part of The Public Theater’s free ‘Shakespeare in the Park’ series. “It starred Meryl Streep.
I happened to see it on a night when it was her second to last performance.” Due to a late summer squall, she almost didn’t get to see it at all. “It was really pouring down.
They had to stop and start, I think, maybe six, seven times.” But Appel’s takeaway was not the inclement weather. “It was Streep.
She just insisted upon performing it. She was out there in her costume and wiping the stage, you’d see her keep changing her wool socks..
. “You know, it was really sort of a perfect epitome of what Mother Courage would do. “And that kind of commitment by an actor, not stopping, it was clear to me it was all for that audience there in the rain for theater.
“I feel incredibly lucky to have experienced that moment.” Related links.
