Provincetown Theater Names Gary Garrison as New Managing Director

On the cusp of its 60th Anniversary Season, the Provincetown Theater in Provincetown, Massachusetts has announced that Gary Garrison has joined the Cape Cod nonprofit institution as managing director, effective April 1, 2023. Among many distinctions in his remarkable career, Garrison is a best-selling author, playwright, and educator with long-standing positions at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, the Dramatist Guild of America (Executive Director of Creative Affairs), as well as being the Director of the Dramatist Guild Institute.

"I'm delighted to welcome Gary to our Provincetown Theater community," states David Wilson, Board of Directors chairperson. "Likewise," says artistic director David Drake, "having known and revered Gary for many years, I'm honored to be working alongside him every day in continuing to grow our shared mission in creating thrilling theater in Provincetown."

Upon his appointment, Garrison says, "I have long admired the work produced at The Provincetown Theater. Whether you are watching a hilariously touching You Can't Take It with You or grandly theatrical Sweeny Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, or the new work of a playwright in our community such as The Lady Hamlet by Sarah Schulman, you are guaranteed fresh, exciting theatrical work that touches on the most important aspects of our lives. I'm thrilled to bring my thirty-five years of experience working in the theater industry to this notable institution and to help shape and guide what will satisfy our most loyal audiences."

Aside from the day to day needs of the theater's administration, Garrison will oversee audience development, strategic planning, donor development, educational outreach, grants and fellowships, relationships within the Provincetown community, developing a more national presence in the industry, and new play development alongside Drake.

"We are delighted to have Gary join our organization at this critical time," says Steven Fossella, president of The Provincetown Theater Board of Directors. "Gary brings long experience in management, fundraising, and strategic planning to the Provincetown Theater in our 60th year as we continue to enrich, entertain, and educate by providing high-quality theater, events, and special programming celebrating American voices."

For further information and updates, please follow ptowntheater on Facebook and Instagram, or visit provincetowntheater.org. Box Office: 508.487.7487.

BIO: Gary Garrison

For the last thirty years, Mr. Garrison's professional work and creative life have centered on being a playwright, educating and nurturing playwrights, and administrating a variety of playwriting organizations, educational programs, and theater companies that promote dramatists and the development of new plays.

Before his work at the Guild, Mr. Garrison filled the posts as associate chair, artistic director, and master teacher of Playwriting in the Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where he produced over forty-five different festivals of new work, collaborating with hundreds of playwrights, directors, and actors.

As a playwright, Mr. Garrison's plays include The Mayworkers, The Unexpected Light On Azadeh Medusa, Too Quick to Pick, Ties That Bind, Skirting the Issue, Caught Without Candy, Game On, The Sweep, Verticals and Horizontals, Storm on Storm, Crater, Old Soles, Padding The Wagon, Rug Store Cowboy, Cherry Reds, Gawk, Oh Messiah Me, We Make A Wall, The Big Fat Naked Truth, Scream With Laughter, Smoothness With Cool, Empty Rooms, Does Anybody Want A Miss Cow Bayou? and When A Diva Dreams. This work has been commissioned by or featured at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, City Theatre of Miami, Boston Theatre Marathon, Primary Stages, The Directors Company, The Theresa Rebeck Writers Residency (through The Lark), Manhattan Theatre Source, StageWorks, Open Door Theatre, Pulse Ensemble Theatre, Expanded Arts and New York Rep.

His recent work as a guest artist or master teacher of playwriting involves such institutions as the Marfa Intensives, Convivio Writer's Conference (Postignano, Italy), Sewanee Writer's Conference, The Kennedy Center Summer Playwriting Intensive, CityWrights of Miami, The Inkwell, Source Theatre in D.C., Baltimore Playwrights Festival, New Hampshire Playwrights Festival, Last Frontier Theatre Conference, Southeast Theatre Conference, Northwest Theatre Conference, Alaska World Arts Festival, Boston Playwrights and has taught at New York University, Boston University, University of Oklahoma, The University of Texas, Hollins University, Goddard College, Texas State University, Texas Tech, University of Southern Mississippi, West Georgia College and the Dramatists Guild Institute.

He is the author of the critically acclaimed, The Playwright's Survival Guide: Keeping the Drama in Your Work and Out of Your Life, Perfect Ten: Writing and Producing the Ten Minute Play, A More Perfect Ten, and two volumes of Monologues for Men by Men.

In April 2014, The Kennedy Center instituted the National Gary Garrison Ten-Minute Play Award for the best ten-minute play written by a university dramatist. In the spring of 2016, he was awarded the Milan Stitt Outstanding Teacher of Playwriting in the country. In July of this year, he was featured in American Theatre Magazine's The Subtext podcast with Brian James Polk under the title, More Than Ten Minutes, with Gary Garrison.

ABOUT THE PROVINCETOWN THEATER:

The Provincetown Theater is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization whose mission is to enrich, entertain, and educate by providing quality theater, events, and programming celebrating our historic legacy in the birthplace of American theater. We are a safe and creative outlet for illuminating our common humanity on Outer Cape Cod and beyond.

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