Director of Marketing Jim Royce to Exit Center Theatre Group

Jim Royce, Center Theatre Group's longtime Director of Marketing, Communications and Sales, will be leaving his position with the Los Angeles theatre company in February 2014 to further expand his arts consulting business.

In his more than 17 years with CTG, Royce has supervised a 65-member staff and all the activities related to marketing, advertising, press, graphics and ticket sales for the Mark Taper Forum and Ahmanson Theatre at the Music Center in downtown Los Angeles and for CTG's Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City.

Under Royce, CTG has achieved a combined season ticket base of close to 50,000 members, which is one of the largest in the country, and a combined annual audience of nearly 700,000 (single ticket buyers and season members).

Royce has developed marketing strategies for nearly 300 CTG productions, ranging from Broadway blockbusters to groundbreaking new work to explosive productions of the classics. These productions include the introduction of Matthew Bourne to the U.S. with his dazzling "Swan Lake"; the West Coast premiere of Tony Kushner's "Caroline, Or Change"; the U.S. premiere of "The Drowsy Chaperone" and world premiere musicals "Curtains" and "9 to 5: The Musical," all three of which moved to Broadway.

"Jim has been an important member of our staff for many years. He has been at the marketing helm through some crucial moments of this company's history, and we are grateful for his guidance and his expertise," said Michael Ritchie, CTG Artistic Director.

In 2005, Royce enacted new branding guidelines for CTG, securing a smooth transition when Ritchie took over the artistic leadership of CTG from Founding Artistic Director Gordon Davidson. In 2004, he helped launch CTG's newest theatre, the Kirk Douglas Theatre, with a very successful inaugural season membership campaign. Over the years he introduced dynamic pricing initiatives to CTG, developed a comprehensive social media integration for the company, and implemented digital marketing strategies and extensive, on-going audience research.

Royce is considered a leading marketing specialist and is often a guest speaker at National Theatre and arts marketing seminars. He is currently a consultant with several regional theatres, and after leaving CTG he will expand this work for his company, Jim Royce & Associates.

Royce began his 43-year theatrical career in Seattle as an actor and co-founder of The Empty Space and worked with A Contemporary Theatre and Seattle Rep. He was the Executive Producer for the Seattle Arts Festival, more popularly known as "Bumbershoot." In the San Francisco Bay area he was Marketing Director for Berkeley Repertory Theatre and San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T).

Prior to joining CTG, Royce's diverse arts clientele included the celebrated opening of San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Cirque du Soleil, San Francisco Jazz Festival, Minnesota Orchestra, popular musical theatre, contemporary dance, emerging visual artists and the American premiere of Lucasfilm's "The Art of Star Wars," an exhibition of the drawings, props, costumes and models created for the original films. He is a graduate of the University of Washington in Seattle.

A nationwide search for a new CTG marketing director will begin shortly.

Photo by Craig Schwartz