Kim Whitener Steps Down as Executive Director of HERE

HERE's Board of Directors announces that long-time Producing/Executive Director Kim Whitener will step down from HERE Art Center this fall to return to creative producing and consulting with her company KiWi Productions, where she will work with a range of US artists and companies primarily in the contemporary opera-theater and music-theater worlds.

Since receiving notice, HERE's Board of Directors has conducted an institutional assessment and is now pleased to announce promotions of two senior staff members. With Founding Artistic Director Kristin Marting at the helm, General Manager Meredith Lynsey Schade will become Producing Director and Director of Advancement Brenna Thomas will become HERE's Director of External Affairs beginning September 1, 2018.

"HERE has benefited enormously from Kim's vision and leadership," says HERE Board Chair Bethany Haynes. "The Board of Directors extends its deep gratitude and appreciation to Kim for her all of her work and support of HERE over the past decade and wishes her the best as she enters this new chapter."

Ms. Whitener joined HERE as Producing Director in February 2007 and became Executive Director earlier this year. Working in partnership with Founding Artistic Director Kristin Marting, she co-curated and co-produced HERE's producing and presenting programs, as well as other special projects. During her tenure, she was instrumental in the launching of two major HERE initiatives - the MADE HERE online video documentary series and PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now, an annual festival of opera-theater and music-theater.

Ms. Whitener's tenure has been defined by growth and a consolidation of HERE's mission and stature as a now 25-year-old arts anchor in the burgeoning downtown Manhattan/Hudson Square neighborhood, where she served on the board of the Hudson Square BID. From 2007 to 2018, HERE more than doubled its annual budget to $2.5 million, grew its staff and Board of Directors, and established important co-producing partnerships.

"The development of artists to their full potential is my great passion," says Ms. Whitener. "It has been a huge honor to be part of these extraordinary years of accomplishment and growth at HERE - to work with Kristin and an amazing dedicated staff and Board, and foremost to watch with joy the advancement of the artists who have come through HERE and launched their careers during my tenure."

Ms. Whitener's final day at HERE is September 30, 2018.

Prior to joining HERE in February 2007, Kim Whitener spent six years as an independent producer and consultant with her company, KiWi Productions, executive producing for and consulting to artists and companies such as The Builders Association (Alladeen, Super Vision, and Continuous City), Big Dance Theater, Martha Clarke, Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theater, 33 Fainting Spells, Double Edge Theatre, and The Actor's Gang, among others. Prior to that she served as Managing Director of the ensemble theater company The Wooster Group for four years, and previously was Marketing Director for Playwrights Horizons. She held theatre management and producing positions in Boston (Boston Music Theater Project) and Philadelphia (American Music Theater Festival) over the previous five years, with a specialty in new music-theater. She has served on many grant panels, including as 2015 Lead Program Consultant for Creative Capital, Performing Arts, the NEA Multi-disciplinary & Presenting Panel, the Fort Worth Opera Frontiers Panel 2013-15, The Pew Foundation Theatre Initiative, and the TCG New Generations Future Audiences Panel. She has taught seminars nationally and internationally on production, management, and development of projects for touring.

Meredith Lynsey Schade has been General Manager at HERE since 2015 and has a long history of producing in both the non-profit and commercial sectors, both domestically and internationally. The former Executive Director of ArtWallah, she also founded the e-play periodical StageReads and the devised theatre company The Vicious Circle, where she produced Erik Ehn's Soulographie (La Mama) and Gun Control Theatre Action Week (International). Recent projects include Broadway productions of The Front Page, A Doll's House Part II, Glass Menagerie, Hello Dolly, Spring Awakening; Bridges of Madison County; and Vanya & Sonia and Masha and Spike (Tony Award). Additional Credits include Venus in Fur, Uncle Vanya (CSC); Passing Strange (Sundance); Macbeth (A Modern Ecstasy (Center for New Performance); and numerous productions at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She sits on a variety of grant-making panels and consults with non-profit start-ups. She is currently co-producing the upcoming production of Anais Mitchell's Hadestown, set to open at The National Theatre in London in December. Meredith holds a MFA in Producing from CalArts and a BFA in Design and Technical Theatre from the University of Connecticut.

Brenna Thomas, HERE's Director of Institutional Advancement and Major Gifts, has led the Development Department at HERE since fall of 2011. In this role, she supervises a department of four, and has managed the organization's increases in Foundation, Government, and Individual contributed income. Since arriving at HERE, she has overseen the creation of major gifts and membership programs, Board development, larger annual Galas, and the fundraising efforts associated with HERE's special projects, such as PROTOTYPE. Prior to this position, she served for three years as Associate Director of Development and Manager of Institutional and Government Relations at New York Theatre Workshop, overseeing the organization's foundation, corporate and government relationships; and for four years, as Executive Assistant to Cora Cahan, President of The New 42nd Street. Her resume also includes managing her own independent theatre company in New York and earning an M.A. from NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where she wrote a thesis on small theatre companies and audience engagement. She is the recipient of a TCG LeadershipU Cont Ed Award.

The OBIE-winning HERE was named a Top Ten Off-Off Broadway Theatre by Time Out New York, is a leader in the field of producing and presenting new, hybrid performance viewed as a seamless integration of artistic disciplines-theater, dance, music and opera, puppetry, media, visual and installation, spoken word and performance art.

Standout productions include Eve Ensler'sThe Vagina Monologues, Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique and Arias with a Twist, Trey Lyford & Geoff Sobelle's all wear bowlers, Young Jean Lee's Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, James Scruggs' Disposable Men, Corey Dargel's Removable Parts, Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge, Kamala Sankaram's Miranda and Robin Frohardt's The Pigeoning, and original works by Founding Artistic Director Kristin Marting, among many others. In 2008, following an extensive renovation, HERE re-opened the doors to its long-time downtown home for the arts, where it continues as a vibrant, welcoming haven for artists and audiences alike.