Managing Director

Long Wharf Theatre Managing Director
Co-Executive with the Artistic Director, reporting jointly to the Board of Directors

Classification: This is a full-time, exempt position
Compensation: $150,000 annual plus benefits
Location: Greater New Haven, CT
Work Structure: Hybrid, in-office multiple days a week, resident in Greater New Haven
Preferred Starting Date: August-September 2025
How to Apply:
Please submit your application to human.resources@longwharf.org. Please include “Managing Director Application” in the subject line.

Attach your resume and a cover letter that includes content that addresses the following questions:
+ What personal strengths and traits do you feel you bring to teams or organizations as a human being?
+ What about the combination of Long Wharf’s 60-year legacy and bold new direction over the last decade appeals to you most as an exciting opportunity?
+ In a role where one of your largest responsibilities is fundraising, how do you approach planning your work and time management over a given day, week, or month?
+ How have you navigated setting and delivering on detailed priorities for a small team on a daily basis?
+What are the essential elements you have brought to your work to build organizational stability and confidence?

The preferred application period is April 24 to May 16, 2025.

The Invitation:
For 60 years, Long Wharf Theatre has been producing boundary-breaking theatre for New Haven and beyond.
We are committed to revolutionizing the power and possibility of live theatre as a catalyst to bring people together and fulfill our promise of “theatre for everyone.”

Join us for this new chapter! As our Path Forward has become our ongoing reality, our team is seeking a full-time Managing Director who can join our board, Artistic Director Jacob G. Padrón, and other staff and artistic partners to co-lead with drive, vision, insight, inspiration, and a deft handling of the practical tasks of uplifting a stable foundation for our relationships and artistic vibrancy to break boundaries for the future.
Established in 1965 at the start of the regional theatre movement, Long Wharf Theatre was born on the notion that New Haven deserves an active arts culture that is locally created. Our founders shared the dream of starting a professional theatre company in Connecticut, built with the aid of community leaders and supporters of the arts. We are recognized for a historic commitment to commissioning, developing, and producing new work and serving as a beloved artistic home for playwrights, directors, designers, and performers of national and international renown.

In 2022, we announced the departure from our longtime space at Sargent Drive to begin a new Path Forward — the start of an exciting next chapter of bringing theatre to spaces and stages across Greater New Haven. Since then, we have produced over a dozen dynamic artistic works throughout the region. We are committed to this model and our organizational values: Artistic Innovation, Radical Inclusion, and Kaleidoscopic Partnerships.
We are serious when we talk about breaking boundaries. This means that we do not hesitate to try things that have not been the traditional ways theatre is made in this country. It means we will make bold choices and see where they take us. It means that our communities, artists, supporters, staff, and board are the kinds of people inspired and activated by curiosity, learning, growth, connection, and having memorable experiences that may not be the same as what they have come to expect in the past.

Our communities and our team are kaleidoscopic – many vibrant colors combining and reforming into beautiful new combinations without losing their own individuality. This reflects how we see our vision of ‘Theatre for everyone’ – it is not just that everyone gets their ‘own’ theatre, but that there can be theatre experiences that bring together people who our society has habitually separated. Very different people can experience the same moment, find their own connections to that moment, and then witness how those connections are different for the person next to them and grow as a result.

The Work Environment and Culture:
The leadership at Long Wharf cares deeply about organizational culture and development, including throughout the staff and the board. Members of the Long Wharf Theatre team are encouraged to engage in courageous conversations within departments and interdepartmentally. There is a belief within the organization that great art comes from great relationships. Long Wharf Theatre supports and cares for team members as a reflection of the quality of artistic exploration on our stages. The board and staff leadership of Long Wharf Theatre actively consider organizational culture regularly and embrace discomfort in identifying behaviors that can support our unifying core value of Radical Inclusion.

The Duties (including, but not limited to):
The Managing Director will be a prominent co-leader of Long Wharf Theatre, alongside the Artistic Director and the board. As a co-executive leader, they are responsible for the success of the organization on all fronts, including developing and executing strategies to continue the growth of the organization. Within the top-line responsibility, we expect their daily efforts will show up primarily in these areas where they will hold direct functional responsibility.

Fundraising (~35%)
+ Lead the development team to create, manage, and execute fundraising strategies, work plans, annual appeals, and campaign calendars to achieve an annual contributed revenue goal of over $2 million.
+ Conduct personal major gift solicitations, either solo or as a partner with other staff and the board.
+ Ensure the diversification of fundraising approaches to activate donors at all financial levels, and donors with a variety of personal interests that may connect to Long Wharf Theatre in different ways.
+ Envision and participate in the development, planning, and execution of special events (e.g. open rehearsals, season events, member events, annual gala, and donor receptions).
+ Create or revise donor cultivation, solicitation, and acknowledgement correspondence.
+ Manage the development activities overall of the staff, board partners, and volunteers.

Strategic Collaboration (~10%)
+ Co-lead with the Artistic Director the overall organizational strategy, including providing support to the Artistic Director in active forward planning around production seasons and access-oriented artistic events.
+ Nurture a continual strategic conversation with the staff and board around how immediate decisions relate to medium and long-term intentions.
+ Invest time and energy into contingency preparations and long-range plans for unexpected disruptions, fundamental shifts in revenues or expenses, changes in organizational culture, and regular changes of board and staff personnel.

Finance and Operations (~30%)
+ Hold the financial narrative of Long Wharf Theatre, with an intimate understanding of all revenues and expenses and all financial reports.
+ Lead the budgeting process, including revisions and adjustments throughout the year.
+ Embrace a spirit of proactive financial transparency, especially with the Artistic Director, staff Directors, and the board.
+ Follow a process of continuous improvement on operational structures and functions, including physical operations, financial operations, and logistical operations for production.
+ Understand the value and targeted uses of organizational data, and set priorities for investment in systems, gathering and cleaning data, and how that data is used by the team in practical ways.
+ Manage the finance, accounting, operations team, board partners, and volunteers.

Team Building and Leadership with Board and Staff (~15%)
+ Embrace that as a co-executive with significant hierarchical power, you hold the responsibility to be uncomfortable by proactively seeking where behaviors throughout the organization (including your own) need to be clarified or adjusted to fully realize Long Wharf Theatre’s values. This includes proactively dealing with internal or external conflicts as they arise.
+ Assertively continue personal growth in human-centered behaviors and modeling for others around healthy ways to build the practical relationship between personal values and organizational values.
+ Work closely with board leadership to support the continued development and strengthened connections of board members (past and present) to Long Wharf Theatre and to one another.
+ Operate as the primary HR officer of the organization, and intentionally support both the legal and technical HR requirements and the human realities and culture priorities of the organization.
+ Hold primary responsibility for bringing people into or out of the organization effectively through actions such as hiring, firing, recruitment, layoffs, onboarding, training, evaluations, exit processes, and revising roles annually.

External Engagement and Organizational Representation (~10%)
+ Personally represent the organization in the Greater New Haven area and nationally, including by acting as a leader and member of the local and national civic communities.
+ Support the Artistic Director in their efforts to continually refine and build Long Wharf Theatre’s brand and reputation.
+ Work closely with the Artistic Director (who leads the marketing staff) to align communications, particularly between development-oriented materials and marketing-oriented materials.

The Skills and Experience Needed:
+ Strategizing the direction for a professional nonprofit theatre or performing arts organization.
+ Knowledge, interest, passion, and/or understanding of the creation of site-specific theater, or other community and performance events outside of a traditional theater building.
+ Navigating organizations through periods of change, transformation, and disruption.
+ Leading fundraising efforts, including coordinating fundraising teams and personal major gifts activities.
+ Engaging with people of varying lived experiences and personal identities across multiple power dynamics.
+ Building cohesion, effectively supporting, and being responsible for the work of a team.
+ Communicating effectively in a variety of mediums, from live speaking to formal written materials to text/email/social media.
+ Reading, building, maintaining, and navigating complex financial statements, including budgets, audits, cash flow statements, profit & loss statements, balance sheets, payroll, and production financials.

Physical/Other Requirements:
+ Provable eligibility to work in the US.
+ Residence or relocation to Greater New Haven.
+ Weekend and evening work will be required, including expected attendance at all fundraising events, opening nights, closing nights, major community events, and at many Long Wharf Theatre performances.
+ Participate and cooperate in all training efforts as requested and required by Long Wharf Theatre, including but not limited to yearly Sexual Harassment Prevention Training, and other trainings in safety and administrative procedures.
+ Maintain compliance with all company policies and procedures.
+ Ability to perform the essential job functions consistently, safely and successfully with the ADA, FMLA and other federal, state, and local standards, including meeting qualitative and/or quantitative productivity standards. Ability to maintain regular, punctual attendance consistent with the ADA, FMLA, and other federal, state and local standards.

Thank you for your interest!

The preferred application period is April 24 to May 16, 2025.

If you have questions, please contact human.resources@longwharf.org.