Kelly Hilliard Roush, Artistic & Executive Director, Departs The Classic Theatre of San Antonio

The Board of The Classic Theatre of San Antonio announces the departure of Artistic and Executive Director, Kelly Hilliard Roush. She will be leaving The Classic Theatre of San Antonio effective June 1, 2021 and will be moving to the Twin Cities in Minnesota with her family.

Kelly joined The Classic Theatre as Executive Director in June of 2015, and in 2018, she was named as the Executive and Artistic Director. During her six-year-tenure, she worked on six seasons of plays, directed quite a few productions herself - and acted in some as well. She also took the company out-of-doors for shows at the San Antonio Botanical Garden in the fall of 2020 to keep working and presenting plays during the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Some other achievements during her tenure are a growing and diverse patron base, increased representation of women artists and playwrights, more diverse casting and play selection, an increase in the number of mainstage productions, a full slate of Second Series productions, new programs like Camp Classic and the Community Conversations series, partnering with other organizations such as the San Antonio Symphony, San Antonio Botanical Garden, Witte Museum, and DreamWeek, as well as holding The Classic Theatre's first three fundraising event dinners and increasing the staff and numbers of interns to support all the wonderful work Classic has accomplished. The Classic Theatre thanks Kelly for all of her hard work and dedication to the company over the last six years. We will miss her and wish her all the best!

During this transition, Ruben Jauregui, Jr. will serve as our Interim Executive Director and Mark Stringham as our Interim Artistic Director, as we begin our search for a new Executive & Artistic Director for The Classic Theatre.

In an interview for Arts Alive San Antonio, Randy Stier, Classic's current Board Chair, states, "Kelly breathes life into everything the theater does"..."The board defined the vision and the mission for The Classic Theatre, but it's her talent and drive that energize that mission. And she does that both on the artistic and management side. She reads lots of plays, pays attention to what's going on in San Antonio and picks the scripts that she feels are relevant to San Antonio audiences. She also hires the directors and the cast members. But she's also our Executive Director who keeps the back shop running extremely well."