DTC goes in new direction

From The Dallas Morning News:

Theater Center gets a versatile director

Exclusive: Moriarty will help transition to downtown venue


07:28 AM CDT on Wednesday, June 6, 2007

By LAWSON TAITTE / The Dallas Morning News
ltaitte@dallasnews.com


Kevin Moriarty
The Dallas Theater Center today will announce a new artistic director who will lead its 2009 move into the new Dallas Center for the Performing Arts.

Kevin Moriarty, who will be creative boss of Dallas' leading resident theater, is known for his versatility, with his energies divided equally among Shakespeare and the classics, popular musical comedies and world-premiere dramas.

Mr. Moriarty, 40, currently holds three jobs: associate director of Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, R.I.; head of a Brown University-Trinity Rep directors training program; and artistic director of the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, N.Y.

Hangar, a summer company, mirrors its boss's diverse interests; the two shows he's directing there this summer, for instance, are the rock musical Hair and the premiere of a play about pre-Civil War homesteaders, Bleeding Kansas.

The Indiana native also has worked in New York City, both on and off Broadway.

If nothing else, Mr. Moriarty's new job will give him a chance to concentrate his energies.

The Theater Center is one of the city's top cultural institutions, with an annual budget of about $5 million.

"One of the great things for me personally is that this fall I'm going to be able to buy a home and dig deep roots in this community," Mr. Moriarty said Tuesday. "I've been nomadic now for many years. I'm ready to settle in."

Shortly after the announcement last fall that Richard Hamburger would leave the Theater Center when his contract expired this year, the company organized a search committee and hired national consultants Albert Hall Associates to assist. The theater brought in five semifinalists for interviews last month; three finalists, including Mr. Moriarty, came back for longer visits.

"Any one of the three would probably have been great for us, but Kevin was super-great from the beginning," search chairwoman Bess Enloe said Monday. "He's so warm and embracing and articulate. He's very extroverted, he loves to make speeches and talk, and he's a great advocate of his work."

Unlike the search that led to Mr. Hamburger 15 years ago, this one didn't entail bringing in candidates to direct productions at the Theater Center. In fact, no one on the committee has seen any of Mr. Moriarty's work, except perhaps the national tour of Jesus Christ Superstar that played at the Dallas Summer Musicals and Casa Mañana in 2003 and 2004.

Highly recommended
"We talked ad infinitum to people who have seen it. Anyhow, if you see just one play, it's not a fair test," Ms. Enloe said. "Kevin's name kept coming up around the country, and not just because of his personality and his skills as an institutional leader. His work has won great critical acclaim."

One national figure recommending Mr. Moriarty was Oskar Eustis, the new artistic director of the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theatre, who had hired Mr. Moriarty in Providence.

"You're in for a great run of years," Mr. Eustis said in a phone call Tuesday. "Kevin combines to a degree almost unique in my experience artistic ability and the ability to reach an audience and create work they'll respond to. My only regret is that if this hadn't happened, I'd have offered him a staff position at the Public. But this is better for him right now."

After the second round of Theater Center interviews, the decision apparently seemed obvious.

"This choice was extremely unanimous. We hardly had a vote," Ms. Enloe said.

As the Theater Center's fifth artistic director, Mr. Moriarty will take overall responsibility for productions -- casting and directing some, selecting guest directors for others, and casting the most influential vote on what plays to produce.

Mark Hadley, who as the Theater Center's managing director is primarily responsible for the group's financial and administrative operations, seemed jubilant about his new business partner.

"When we set out, there were three things we were looking for," Mr. Hadley said. "We definitely wanted and needed an artist of the highest quality to build on the work that Richard has done. We wanted a leader for our staff who would inspire us in the transition to our new facility," the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre now under construction in the Arts District.

"And we needed someone who could connect to the other arts leaders in town, to our board, to the theatrical community and to the public. Kevin is completely impressive on all these fronts," Mr. Hadley said.

At Trinity Rep -- founded by Adrian Hall, the Theater Center's artistic director in the 1980s -- Mr. Moriarty's current boss is Curt Columbus, who also thinks the fit between man and job is a good one.

"The biggest asset you're getting with Kevin is that he's a terrific community leader," Mr. Columbus said. "In our training program, the kids also find him indispensable. He's a mentor."

The Theater Center's board of directors confirmed the decision Tuesday afternoon, after which Theater Center staff members -- almost all of whom were out of the loop on the search -- met their new boss.

Artistic expression
The new artistic director plans to move to Dallas and assume his duties at the Theater Center in early fall. He won't direct a show for his new company until fall 2008. But he'll still have plenty to keep him busy. He plans to make the rounds of Dallas arts leaders, Theater Center supporters and local theatrical artists to get acquainted. He'll also be planning the Theater Center's 2009 move into the Wyly Theatre -- a prospect that seems to excite him.

"I have the feeling that when the Wyly Theatre gets up, it will be given all the attention in the world," Mr. Moriarty said.

Technological innovations planned for the Wyly, such as a reconfigurable performance space and walls that can be blacked out or transparent, might intimidate some directors.

"Certainly not someone like Kevin," Mr. Columbus said. "He brought us a project last year that involved videography created simultaneously with the movement of the actors. He's a real innovative guy in a lot of ways."