Producing Director Mara Isaacs to Step Down at McCarter Theatre After 2012-13 Season

After eighteen seasons as McCarter's Producing Director, Mara Isaacs will be stepping down from her position this June. Isaacs, who has enjoyed a varied career as an educator and freelance producer while maintaining her position as Producing Director, will end her successful tenure with the Princeton-based McCarter Theatre at the conclusion of the 2012-2013 season. She will remain affiliated with McCarter as a consultant for the coming season.

In a letter to McCarter Trustees, Artistic Director/Resident Playwright Emily Mann wrote, "It is with a mixture of joy and sorrow that I bring you the news that Mara Isaacs will be leaving her post at McCarter. It is with sorrow that I see our daily partnership coming to an end, but it is with great joy that I watch Mara make a choice to pursue exciting creative opportunities as an independent producer."

Tim Shields, McCarter's Managing Director commented on Isaacs' departure by saying, "Everyone that Mara comes in contact with is made better in their life in theater by that interaction. Hew quick and savvy mind, her incredible good taste as an artist, and most of all her generosity of spirit have served McCarter so very well. We'll miss her, and wish her all the very best."

Board of Trustees President BrIan McDonald added, "Over the past eighteen seasons, Mara Isaacs has made extraordinary contributions to McCarter Theatre. Her accomplishments have left an indelible mark on the organization and the artists who have graced our stage. She is deeply committed to the work, to the talented individuals who create the art, and to the staff who make it all happen. On behalf of the entire Board, I want to offer heartfelt thanks to Mara and wish her great success in the next stage of her career."

Ms. Isaacs is launching her new company, Octopus Theatricals LLC, which is dedicated to producing and consulting in the performing arts. "The impulse for this change comes out of a desire to expand the range and nature of the work that I do. There is no existing institution that I know of that can contain the breadth of what interests me. I have a number of personal projects that have been brewing for some time - a commercial musical, an experimental international collaboration and independent consulting, to name a few - and it's time for me to make a go of it as an independent entity," Isaacs explains. "My time at McCarter, and my relationships with the extraordinary artists and staff with whom I've had the privilege of collaborating, is what has prepared me for this next chapter. I have never been more proud than I am of the many amazing theatrical events that we have made together over the last eighteen years. I am incredibly grateful to the staff, artists and Board for their inventiveness, trust and wisdom, and to our audiences for embracing the work." Octopus Theatricals will operate offices in Princeton, NJ and New York.

Playwright Christopher Durang noted, "I have had two playwriting commissions (Miss Witherspoon, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike) at McCarter, and with both worked closely with Emily Mann and Mara Isaacs. I grew to value Mara so much - her feedback on my writing, her supportiveness, and also I started to realized what an exceptional "problem solver" Mara was. She was never interested in being "right," she simply analyzed the situation and thought of constructive and diplomatic ways to solve it. I love working with her. McCarter will miss her, but I believe and hope she will come back with specific projects, and that would be great."

Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney (The Brother/Sister Plays) said, "I met Mara at Yale, while still in studies. She changed my idea of what a producer does in the theater. I knew I had to continue to engage with someone who made the work of collaboration a part of her title."

Playwright Lydia Diamond (Stick Fly) stated, "Mara has a special gift for appreciating a playwright's process, understanding what a work that has not yet been born wants to be, growing it, and then putting it into the world with exactly the kind of support it will need to flourish. It is a smart, selfless, and incredibly skilled contribution that Mara has made to the American Theater. We are so lucky to have her."

Director Rebecca Taichman (Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale) raved, "Mara is one of the truly great theater makers. I am blessed, indeed, to know and work with her and am grateful for all that she's taught me over many years: about producing, about the power of love and compassion, about art making, about life."

With over twenty years of producing experience at flagship theaters in the United States, Mara Isaacs is recognized as a field leader in new play and musical development and production as well as non-profit organizational leadership. She began her professional career at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, where she produced new play development programs and productions from 1990-1995. During that time, she developed a reputation as an advocate for artists and honed her ability to identify and nurture emerging plays and playwrights.

In 1995, Mara joined the McCarter Theatre Center staff, first as Resident Producer and then as Producing Director. For eighteen seasons, she produced McCarter's theater series and play development programs including numerous commissions and productions of new plays and musicals (by Christopher Durang, Edward Albee, Athol Fugard, Emily Mann, ReGina Taylor, Nilo Cruz, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Lydia Diamond, Eric Bogosian, Danai Gurira, Sarah Treem, Will Power and others) and transfers to Broadway (Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Translations, Anna in the Tropics, Electra) and off-Broadway (The Brother/Sister Plays, Miss Witherspoon, Crowns), to theaters around the country (Goodman Theatre, Center Theatre Group, La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Rep and others) and internationally (South Africa's Market Theatre). She has collaborated with many directors on new and classic works, including Mary Zimmerman, Des McAnuff, Sam Buntrock, Rebecca Taichman, Lisa Peterson, Emily Mann, Stephen Wadsworth, Gary Griffin, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Mark Lamos, Nicholas Martin, Tina Landau, Garry Hynes, John Doyle and many others. During her tenure, she solidified McCarter's relationship with Princeton University's Lewis Center for the Arts, where she will continue to teach courses in creative producing and related topics. Her new company, Octopus Theatricals LLC, will operate offices in Princeton, NJ and New York.

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