Appointments and Executive Changes

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      Alan Horn, a top creative executive, is the latest high-ranking Disney departure.

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      One of Hollywood’s senior statesmen announced his retirement on Monday, adding to a startling changing of the guard at the Walt Disney Company.Alan F. Horn, 78, will step down on Dec. 31 as chief creative officer of Disney Studios Content, a division that includes Marvel, Lucasfilm, Searchlight Pictures, Pixar, 20th Century Studios and Disney’s traditional animation and live-action movie operations. His position is not expected to be filled.“It’s never easy to say goodbye to a place you love, which is why I’ve done it slowly,” Mr. Horn said in a statement. “But with Alan Bergman leading the way, I’m confident the incredible Studios team will keep putting magic out there for years to come.” Mr. Bergman, a steady hand at Disney’s movie division since 1996, succeeded Mr. Horn as chairman of Disney Studios Content last year.Mr. Bergman, 55, called Mr. Horn “one of the most important mentors I’ve ever had.”Mr. Horn’s retirement adds to brain drain at the world’s largest entertainment company as a new generation of executives rise to power — led by Bob Chapek, who became chief executive last year. While not unexpected, the parade of retirements has contributed to an unsettled feeling inside the conglomerate, which is still recovering from an almost complete shutdown during the early part of the pandemic.Robert A. Iger, the executive chairman, is decamping in December. Alan N. Braverman, Disney’s top lawyer, and Zenia B. Mucha, its chief communications officer, plan to leave around the same time. Other departures have included Jayne Parker, who led human resources; Steve Gilula and Nancy Utley, who ran Searchlight, Disney’s art film studio; and Gary Marsh, a longtime Disney-branded television executive.Mr. Horn’s entertainment career has spanned nearly 50 years. He joined Disney in 2012 after being squeezed out of a senior role at Warner Bros. to make room for a new generation of managers. At Warner, where he expertly steered the Harry Potter and Batman franchises, he forged a strategy that ultimately swept through Hollywood — focusing on effects-filled franchise pictures, or “tent poles,” that resonate overseas.The growth at Disney’s movie division under his tenure was jaw-dropping. In 2012, Disney-distributed movies collected about $3.3 billion at the global box office. In 2019, the studio generated $9 billion in ticket sales. More

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      Head of Paramount Pictures is ousted as ViacomCBS focuses on streaming.

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      In 2017, Viacom turned to one of Hollywood’s most seasoned and respected executives, James N. Gianopulos, to revive its flatlining Paramount Pictures operation. Mr. Gianopulos quickly stabilized the 1910s-era studio — repairing relationships with filmmakers and producers, building a thriving television division from near-scratch, and restoring Paramount to profitability.He was ousted on Monday, with his status as the consummate Hollywood insider having curdled into a liability, at least to ViacomCBS, the conglomerate that owns Paramount, where streaming, streaming, streaming is the new currency of the realm.Brian Robbins, 58, who runs Viacom’s children’s television business, will succeed Mr. Gianopulos, 69, as chief executive of Paramount Pictures, ViacomCBS said. Emma Watts, 51, the president of Paramount’s Motion Picture Group, was notably passed over for the job.The reversal of fortune for Mr. Gianopulos, who had two years left on his contract, did not shock the movie capital, where speculation about his standing inside ViacomCBS had been gossiped about for months. Shari Redstone, who controls the company, had signaled in private that Mr. Gianopulos had become a frustration. In particular, he had, at times, resisted a ViacomCBS effort to prioritize the Paramount+ streaming service at the expense of ticket sales and theaters. Big-screen releases remain of crucial importance to studio partners like Tom Cruise, who stars in Paramount’s “Mission: Impossible” series and coming “Top Gun” sequel.Shari Redstone, the chair of ViacomCBS, in July. She has been pushing the company to prioritize streaming.Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesBut the ouster rattled the film business nonetheless. It was seen by some as barbarous — tradition holds that senior statesmen get to write their own endings. And it added to a changing of the guard: Ron Meyer, a longtime film power at Universal, left last year amid a sex scandal, and Alan F. Horn, the chief creative officer at Walt Disney Studios, is widely expected to retire in the coming months.Bob Bakish, the chief executive of ViacomCBS, said in a statement that the leadership change would “build on Paramount’s strong momentum, ensuring it continues to engage audiences at scale while embracing viewers’ evolving tastes and habits.” He said Mr. Robbins was an “expert” at developing franchises by “leaning into the unique strengths of new and established platforms.”Mr. Bakish called Mr. Gianopulos “a towering figure in Hollywood” and thanked him for revitalizing Paramount. In the same statement, Mr. Gianopulos recounted a list of major changes he had successfully navigated over his nearly 40-year career — such as the introduction of VCRs and online film rentals — and wished Mr. Robbins “all the very best success.”For many film industry stalwarts, Mr. Robbins is an affront to their identities; he comes from television, said while holding one’s nose. Mr. Robbins has experience as a movie producer and director. But much of the Hollywood establishment also looks down on that part of his résumé, which includes “Norbit,” a commercially successful but critically reviled Eddie Murphy vehicle from 2007. Not exactly Oscar bait.Mr. Robbins gained fame as a young actor in the 1980s by playing a mulleted rebel on the ABC sitcom “Head of the Class.” In the 1990s and 2000s he worked as a television producer (“Kenan & Kel” on Nickelodeon, “Smallville” on the WB) and a film director (“Norbit,” “Varsity Blues”).By 2009, however, Mr. Robbins started to become disillusioned with Hollywood. Younger audiences — his specialty — were living online. He began experimenting with low-budget films starring YouTube personalities like Lucas Cruikshank (a.k.a. Fred Figgelhorn) and started a YouTube channel, AwesomenessTV, aimed at teenage girls. In 2013, Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was then running DreamWorks Animation, bought AwesomenessTV for about $33 million. (Mr. Katzenberg remains a mentor.)“There is no movie business anymore!” Mr. Robbins was quoted by Fast Company as saying in 2013. “The model’s broken, and I see that as an opportunity.”Mr. Robbins was named president of Nickelodeon, which is also owned by ViacomCBS, in 2018. He has become known inside Viacom as a plain-spoken, never-say-die futurist who believes that Paramount+, the company’s relatively small streaming service, must be supercharged. Mr. Robbins has eagerly rerouted new children’s programming toward Paramount+ and away from Nickelodeon’s traditional cable channels. One such show, a reboot of “iCarly,” has been a hit for the streaming service.Mr. Gianopulos, or “Jim G” as everyone in Hollywood refers to him, will remain a consultant until the end of the year, ViacomCBS said. “Jim is nothing less than legendary in this business, and I am humbled and grateful to him for his years of mentorship and friendship,” Mr. Robbins said in a statement.Mr. Robbins will continue to lead Nickelodeon, ViacomCBS said. But he will not get all of Mr. Gianopulos’s portfolio; Paramount Television Studios will now report to David Nevins, the chairman and chief executive of Showtime Networks. More

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      in Theater

      Theater Director With Exaggerated Résumé Quits, Citing Mental Illness

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      Christopher Massimine found success as a theater executive in New York and Utah, but resigned after facing questions about errors on his résumé, saying he had mental illness.Christopher Massimine, whose job as the managing director of the Pioneer Theater Company in Salt Lake City was thrown into doubt after a local television affiliate found that he had embellished his résumé with untrue claims, announced Monday that he would resign his post and said that he had long struggled with mental illness.Massimine announced his resignation shortly after The New York Times published an article about his career, and the discrepancies and errors on the résumé that had helped him win the position at the Pioneer, the largest professional theater company in Salt Lake City. “Despite many good things that have happened over the last two years under my direction, effective Aug. 20, 2021, I will resign my position at Pioneer Theater Company in order to address issues in my personal and professional life, stemming from untreated and at times an incorrectly treated mental health condition,” he said in a statement. Massimine, who said that he had battled with mental illness for his entire life, and that most of his friends and colleagues had not known of his condition, had come to the Pioneer Theater from the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene in New York. Massimine was something of an unusual choice to lead the Folksbiene, a small nonprofit with a niche audience. In 2012, when he became an executive with the century-old theater that produces shows for a largely older audience, he was a 26-year-old Italian American Catholic with limited experience as a theatrical administrator and even less with Yiddish.But when he left seven years later, the Folksbiene’s “Fiddler on the Roof,” directed by Joel Grey, was moving from its own theater, within the Museum of Jewish Heritage, to Stage 42, one of Off Broadway’s largest venues. The show had already enjoyed a sold-out run at the museum, and the theater’s revenue had more than doubled in a year to nearly $5 million.“He was smart, dedicated, motivated, professional and always a pleasure to deal with,” said Ron Lasko, a publicist who worked with Massimine at the Folksbiene.To the surprise of many, though, Massimine did not stick around to celebrate the successful transfer of “Fiddler” to a new theater. He instead left the Folksbiene in early 2019 and soon accepted a job as the managing director of the Pioneer Theater Company.“Chris has a proven track record of success,” Dan Reed, a vice president with the University of Utah, which oversees the professional theater on its campus, said at the time of Massimine’s appointment.But two years into his tenure there, Massimine was accused of embellishing his life story with wildly inaccurate depictions of his theatrical pursuits and side gigs.“Fiddler on the Roof” in Yiddish was so popular at its home theater, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, that it later transferred to an Off Broadway theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWorking from public records and tips, Salt Lake City’s Fox affiliate KSTU-TV reported earlier this year that Massimine did not have a master’s degree from New York University, as asserted on his résumé. The station said his claims to have helped develop popular video games and some major advertising campaigns did not check out.And, though he said he had received a national arts advocacy award — and released a picture of himself wearing the medal — the bestowing organization does not appear to exist.Adam Herbets, a reporter for the television station, said his sources included people who had seen Massimine’s résumé and found it “unbelievable.”“And, you know,” he continued, “unbelievable sometimes has a positive connotation and sometimes has a negative connotation. In this case it’s literally not believable.”Massimine, whose representatives had denied some of the accusations that he had misrepresented his accomplishments, acknowledged Monday night that there had been “errors” in his résumé. “Local and national news outlets have reported this year that I misrepresented my work history on my résumé, in press releases and interviews, both prior to accepting the P.T.C. position and during my tenure here,” he said in the statement. “There is a fair amount of truth within the reporting, withstanding discrepancies. Regardless, I take responsibility for errors in my résumé but stand by my work product throughout my career.”As it turns out, Massimine’s embellishments extended beyond what the TV station had reported, to include claims that he was born in Italy and was once a full-time employee of the Dramatists Guild.Before the resignation, Chris Nelson, the Utah university’s director of communications, had acknowledged that some “misinformation” had been found on Massimine’s résumé and that his position was put “under review.”Massimine was credited with raising the profile of the Folksbiene, and its revenue doubled in his last year as its chief executive. Richard Drew/Associated PressIn prior remarks, his wife, Maggie Massimine, had said that her husband was on family medical leave and not available for interviews. A spokesman for Massimine, Michael Deaver, had said that some of the discrepancies might have been attributable to misunderstandings on matters such as his client’s work on ad campaigns, where he had been employed by a subcontractor.Maggie Massimine had denied that her husband had exaggerated or misled people, but she did not directly discuss his mental state and said she could not address some of the discrepancies. “Our side of the story has not been told,” she said in an interview several weeks ago. “I really wish I could say more.”At N.Y.U., Massimine earned a bachelor’s degree in dramatic literature in 2007, a university spokesman said, after three years of study. Maggie Massimine said her husband thought he had earned both a master’s and a bachelor’s degree, until KSTU reported he had not. “He was as surprised as everyone else,” she said.A photograph appears to show Massimine at the White House during a 2020 trip to Washington to pick up an award. But the organization said to have taken the photo and bestowed the award does not appear to exist.Massimine’s profile on LinkedIn, the professional networking site, reports that during his college years he also served for more than 18 months as “publications manager and creative affairs coordinator” for the Dramatists Guild, the national trade association for playwrights, composers and others.However, Tari Stratton, director of education for the guild, said it seems Massimine spent only four months there as an unpaid intern. “We do not have any records indicating Mr. Massimine held any paid positions with the guild or had any title other than intern,” she wrote in an email.Massimine did serve in a number of roles with theatrical organizations before joining the staff of the Flea, a small, scrappy New York theater, in 2011. The following year he was hired by the Folksbiene and was promoted to chief executive in 2016.At the Yiddish theater, framed letters from Hal Prince, the legendary Broadway producer and director, hung in Massimine’s office. He counted Manny Azenberg, a producer and eight-time Tony Award winner, among his mentors, and appeared poised to continue advancing through the ranks of Manhattan’s theater ecosystem.Bruce Cohen, a retired publicist who worked with the Folksbiene to promote its Drama Desk-nominated operetta “The Golden Bride,” said Massimine was “a very sweet man” capable of deftly navigating tempestuous artist egos.Beck Lee, who served as a publicist for the Folksbiene during much of Massimine’s tenure, described him as an ambitious hard worker.“He did a great deal to raise the profile of the company,” Lee said, “and was sometimes prone to exaggeration, which I have learned is typically a tool of impresarios and showmen. If anything I thought he was a 21st-century version of a David Merrick, happily pushing his shows to the public and the press with bluster.”Certainly there were issues with a 2018 profile of Massimine that ran in The Daily Beast under the headline, “Meet Christopher Massimine, the ‘Nice Goy’ Running the National Yiddish Theatre.”The piece, based on an interview with Massimine, reported he had come to the United States as an infant from Italy and had appeared on Broadway as a child in shows like “Beauty and the Beast” and “Les Misérables.” But he was born in New Jersey and there are no records of him performing in either show, according to the Broadway League’s database, which is widely viewed as authoritative.Maggie Massimine said her husband had not been born in Italy and had requested a correction from The Daily Beast, a contention that the website recently took issue with.“Our editorial staff has no record of any request from Mr. Massimine for a correction to his profile,” a Daily Beast spokesman said.Despite his success in leading the Folksbiene, the circumstances under which Massimine left the theater are not clear, and its executive director declined to comment. Beck Lee, the former publicist for the theater, said that he was told by theater officials that Massimine was asked to leave after having invested theater funds in an unrelated production without authorization.“He was given the opportunity to admit his behavior, and leave without further incident,” Lee said.A second person with knowledge of the dispute agreed that Massimine had left after an issue over an investment.But Maggie Massimine denied there had been any problem like that, and noted that her husband had been invited back to attend the opening of “Fiddler” at Stage 42 in February 2019.The Pioneer Theater at the University of Utah.Robert ClaytonIn Utah, Massimine was hired at a salary of $152,000 to run a theater with nearly a $5 million operating budget. The school had paid a search firm, Management Consultants for the Arts, nearly $36,000 to recommend candidates.“That résumé was so extraordinary that it probably intoxicated people,” said Brant Pope, chair of the drama department at the University of Texas at Austin and past president of the University Resident Theater Association. “It probably blurred their vision.”Maggie Massimine said her husband had heard of the Utah job through his relationship with Azenberg, the producer who has been an influential backer of the Yiddish theater. Azenberg’s daughter, Karen, a former Broadway stage manager, has served as the artistic director of the Pioneer Theater since 2012.“The search committee was looking for a managing director who would help this theater grow and would support my desire to develop new musicals,” Karen Azenberg wrote in an email.In Utah, Massimine continued to promote his own accomplishments. Two years ago, using information he provided, his new theater put out a news release stating he had been named “Humanitarian of the Year” by the National Performing Arts Action Association and would be honored at a reception in Washington.Jenny Thomas, a spokesman for the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, a Washington-based advocacy group, said that neither she nor several other colleagues who work for similar nonprofits have heard of the National Performing Arts Action Association.No organization by that name has a website or is mentioned by news outlets aside from those that picked up the news release from the theater.But Massimine traveled to Washington in January 2020, purportedly to pick up the award, and later billed the university nearly $800 for his expenses. An image of him on the trip, supposedly taken at the White House and wearing a medal, was credited to the fictitious National Performing Arts Action Association and appeared two months later on a website with an article about Massimine’s relationship with his mother.The writer of the piece said the photograph, caption and credit information were provided by Massimine.Joseph Berger contributed reporting. More

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      Marcia Nasatir, Who Broke a Glass Ceiling in Hollywood, Dies at 95

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      A former book editor and agent, she got her first movie studio job, at United Artists, when she was 48. She insisted on being hired as a vice president.Marcia Nasatir, who was the first woman to become a vice president of a major Hollywood studio — although, unlike some female executives who followed her, she never got to run one — died on Aug. 3 in Woodland Hills, Calif. She was 95.Her sons, Mark and Seth, confirmed the death, at the Motion Picture & Television Fund’s Country Home and Hospital.Ms. Nasatir — “the first mogulette,” as she called herself in her email address — was a forerunner of female Hollywood executives like Sherry Lansing, who became the first woman to head production for a studio at 20th Century Fox in 1980, and Dawn Steel, who achieved another first when she was named president of Columbia Studios seven years later.“She was a grande dame, our first female elder,” Lucy Fisher, a former vice chairwoman of Columbia TriStar Pictures, said by phone. “She gave me my first job, as a reader, at United Artists. And she helped me get my next job, with Samuel Goldwyn Jr.“She asked me: ‘Do you really want the job? Then go back and put on a pair of hose.’ I said, ‘Marcia, I don’t own a pair of hose,’ and she said, ‘Good luck.’”Ms. Nasatir began her path to Hollywood as a single mother in New York in the 1950s, when she was hired as a secretary at Grey Advertising. After successful stints as an editor at Dell Publishing and Bantam Books, she left for Hollywood to become a literary agent; her clients included the screenwriters Robert Towne and William Goldman.In 1974, she approached Mike Medavoy, a former top agent who had just been named vice president of production at United Artists. “I hear you’re moving to United Artists,” she said, recalling the conversation years later in “A Classy Broad: Marcia’s Adventures in Hollywood” (2016), a documentary directed by Anne Goursaud. “I think he said, ‘I’m going to need a good story editor,’ and I said, ‘How about me?’”They met soon after for breakfast, and he offered her a story editor position, in which she would look for books, scripts and plays to turn into movies. It was a traditional job for women in Hollywood. But, at 48, she wanted more and demanded that she be hired as a vice president. (Her title was vice president of motion picture development.)“It seemed to me,” she told The Arizona Republic in 1985, “that I would be a more effective employee, and my opinions would be more respected by writers and actors, if I had the title of vice president instead of story editor.”Mr. Medavoy, in a phone interview, said that Ms. Nasatir had brought “taste and reach” to United Artists.“She was strong-willed and tough but really fair,” he said, “and she got everybody to sign on to being that way, to being collegial.”Ms. Nasatir with Mike Medavoy, who hired her at United Artists. “She was strong-willed and tough,” Mr. Medavoy recalled, “but really fair.”A Classy Broad/Marcia Nasatir ProductionsMs. Nasatir worked closely with Mr. Medavoy from 1974 to 1978, a fruitful period for United Artists that begot films like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Carrie,” the 1976 remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “Bound for Glory” and “Coming Home” — whose female lead, Jane Fonda, thanked Ms. Nasatir when she accepted her Oscar for best actress.It was Ms. Nasatir who gave Sylvester Stallone’s screenplay for “Rocky” to the producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff. The film won the Oscar for best picture and had a worldwide gross of more than $117 million (nearly $555 million in today’s money).“‘Rocky’ is, of course, the perfect fairy tale,” Ms. Nasatir said in “A Classy Broad.”Her tenure at United Artists did not have a fairy-tale ending. When Mr. Medavoy and four other executives, including the chairman, Arthur Krim, left United Artists to create Orion Pictures in early 1978, they did not ask her to join them as a partner. And she did not get Mr. Medavoy’s job at United Artists, where he had been in charge of worldwide production; it went to a man, Danton Risser.She resigned and joined Orion as a vice president, hoping that her former colleagues would make her a partner. But that did not happen.“They didn’t want to split things six ways, and didn’t value what my contribution was,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.Mr. Medavoy said in the interview that it was “interesting” that Ms. Nasatir had felt disappointed at not being asked to be a partner at Orion. “Was it because she was a woman? No,” he said. “It was the fact that there were five of us already.”Marcia Birenberg was born on May 8, 1926, in Brooklyn and grew up in San Antonio. Her father, Jack, sold cloth for men’s fine woolen apparel; her mother, Sophie (Weprinsky) Birenberg, had been a garment worker in New York City before her wedding and talked about going on strike “as one of the greatest moments in her life,” Ms. Nasatir once said.Wanting to be a newspaperwoman, Ms. Nasatir studied journalism at Northwestern University and the University of Texas, Austin, but did not graduate.In 1947 she married Mort Nasatir, who was later president of MGM Records and publisher of Billboard magazine; the marriage ended in divorce after six years. She joined Grey Advertising in about 1955 and left after a few years for another secretarial job, at Dell, where she worked for the publisher. While there, she became an editor and recommended that Dell buy the paperback rights to “Catch-22,” Joseph Heller’s dark satirical novel about World War II. Within a year of its publication in 1962, it had sold two million copies.Ms. Nasatir in 2017. In recent years she and the screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr. had reviewed movies online as “Reel Geezers.” Richard Shotwell/Invision, via Associated PressMs. Nasatir moved on to Bantam Books, where her biggest coup was suggesting that the company publish the Warren Commission Report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy within days of its release in 1964, kicking off the genre of “instant” books. She also worked on acquiring paperback rights to books that were being adapted for movies, a role that brought her into contact with Evarts Ziegler, a Hollywood agent, who hired her for his agency in 1969.She left after five years because Mr. Ziegler would not raise her $25,000 salary (about $146,000 today).“He said, ‘You don’t have anyone to support; a man has a family support,’” she recalled in “A Classy Broad.” “And I said: ‘Zig, I support myself. Why shouldn’t I make as much as a man?’”United Artists offered her $50,000, and after her four years there and one year at Orion, she was briefly an independent producer before being hired to run the film division of Johnny Carson’s company Carson Productions. While there she agreed to take on, when other studios would not, Lawrence Kasdan’s “The Big Chill” (1983), about former college classmates who gather for the funeral of one from their circle. She became its executive producer, and it proved to be a moderate box office success and an enduring favorite among many baby boomers.From then on, her career toggled between holding executive positions, with Fox and Phoenix Pictures (which Mr. Medavoy co-founded), and producing films, including “Hamburger Hill” and “Ironweed” (both in 1987), “Vertical Limit” (2000) and “Death Defying Acts” (2008).Starting in 2008, Ms. Nasatir and the screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr., who had been a client of hers when she was an agent, reviewed movies online as “Reel Geezers.” Close friends, they were passionate and deeply informed about moviemaking. He could be dyspeptic. She was more laid back. They kibitzed. They squabbled.In addition to her sons, she is survived by two granddaughters and a sister, Rose Spector, the first woman elected to the Texas Supreme Court.Being hired at United Artists had historic significance for Ms. Nasatir, because the studio’s founders had included the actress Mary Pickford. But despite that precedent, she was not destined to run United Artists — or any other studio.“If I had been born 20 years later, I would have been the head of a studio, which I would have liked,” she told Scott Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter in 2013. “But I’m content with how things turned out for me and happy to see other women carry the torch even further.” More

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      in Television

      Chicago Improv Was Dead. Can New Leaders Revive It?

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      The past year left the city’s two most prominent institutions reeling. Now, outsiders are helping to guide the re-emergence of these celebrated comedy centers.CHICAGO — Fourteen months after iO Theater closed its doors because of the pandemic, a move that seemed temporary at the time, the storied improv center looked as though it had been frozen in time, the calendar stuck on March 2020.In front of one stage, chairs were arranged around small round tables covered with a layer of dust. A grocery list in a back room reminded employees to buy more olives and baked potatoes. In the hall, handwritten signs directed audience members where to line up for shows.“This hallway used to be so crowded that I’m sure it was a fire-code disaster,” Charna Halpern, the theater’s co-founder, said as she surveyed the barren corridor recently.In June 2020, Halpern decided that the hallway would stay empty. The theater’s income had plummeted to zero amid the shutdown, bills were piling up and nearly 40 years after she helped start iO, Halpern announced that she was ready to close it permanently.The theater wasn’t the only one in an existential crisis. That same month, performers of color there and at Second City — the two most prominent improv institutions in the city, where the modern version of the art form was born — spoke publicly about their experiences with racism, inequity and a persistent lack of diversity at the theaters.The space at iO Theater is left as it was in March 2020, when it shut down because of the pandemic.Lawrence Agyei for The New York TimesThen, less than a week apart, both iO and Second City were put up for sale, heightening anxiety among performers who were already worried about improv’s post-pandemic future. Could improv be saved in the city where aspiring comedians flock to learn and perform, as stars like Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert and Keegan-Michael Key had?The short answer is yes. Less than a year after the businesses went on the market, buyers who believe in Chicago improv stepped up. Both are industry newcomers: Second City is now owned by a New York-based private equity firm and iO by a pair of local real estate executives.Decades of history and cultural relevance are part of what made these theaters appealing acquisitions, but after calls for transformational change, a new era of leadership is now grappling with how much of the old improv culture they want to preserve and how much they are willing to give up. At iO, criticism of its lack of racial diversity and equity has gone unaddressed during the theater’s year of uncertainty. And although Second City is back with regular shows and a plan to transform itself into an antiracist company, there is some skepticism among performers and students that this effort at reform will be different than previous attempts (a diversity coordinator has been in place since at least 2002, for example, and a revue with a notably diverse cast ran in 2016, though all the performers of color quit before it was over).“We want it to be good; it’s our home,” said Rob Wilson, an improviser who has been in Chicago’s comedy scene for a decade. “You’re going to give them the benefit of the doubt, but you’re also not going to be afraid to leave if it goes south.”Second City’s New BeginningLast fall, when Jon Carr, an improv veteran, was named Second City’s new executive producer — the company’s top creative role — his peers asked him the same question: “Why did you take that job?”The 62-year-old institution had just been the subject of a deluge of complaints from performers of color, who told stories of being demeaned, marginalized, tokenized and cast aside. As a result, the chief executive and executive producer, Andrew Alexander, abruptly resigned that summer.Still, Carr decided to take the offer, making him the second Black executive producer in the company’s history. (The first was Anthony LeBlanc, who had served in the role on an interim basis after Alexander’s resignation.)Carr told the people who had asked about the job that despite the pressure and inevitable stress it would bring, it presented an opportunity to change a company whose leaders had already pledged to “tear it all down and begin again.”“This is the thing that people will be talking about 40, 50 years from now,” he said. “We have the opportunity to shape that history.”Parisa Jalili, Second City’s chief operating officer.Jermaine Jackson Jr. for The New York TimesJon Carr, Second City’s new executive producer, its top creative role.Jermaine Jackson Jr. for The New York TimesSitting in a booth at Second City’s restaurant in Old Town a week after the company reopened in May, Carr and Parisa Jalili, the chief operating officer who had been promoted amid the criticism, ticked off some of the steps the company had taken to meet the calls for change.It documented the complaints and hired a human-resources consulting firm to evaluate them; it re-evaluated the photos in the lobby extolling mainly white performers and labeled offensive sketches and jokes in its expansive archive; it put into writing what the company is looking for in auditions to try to prevent bias in the process.​​“We were able to do it all quickly because we were much smaller and more agile being shut down,” Jalili said.The company also had to ensure that it survived the pandemic. Online improv classes were made permanent, raising revenue by opening up the potential customer base to the entire globe, rather than to only those who could show up to their sites in Chicago, Hollywood and Toronto. Then, in February, Second City was acquired by a private equity group, ZMC.The deal made some performers even more skeptical that Second City could return better than before. What would it mean for the company to be owned by an investment firm with no track record in comedy?Jordan Turkewitz, a managing partner at ZMC, said in an interview that the firm’s role as an investor was not to dictate decisions or get involved in minutiae; it’s to ask questions, offer advice and financially support the company’s growth.iO Theater, ResurrectedSecond City is holding several live shows a week, but for iO, a reopening is much further out.Many employees are desperate to return, said Scott Gendell, a real estate executive who bought iO last month with his longtime friend Larry Weiner. But there is no clear reopening date on the horizon, he said.Right now, the new owners are taking it slow, interviewing operating partners who will help run the theater and control its creative side.“We’re being very delicate and very cautious about reopening because you don’t want to crash and burn,” Gendell said.Gendell is the type of lifelong Chicagoan who can’t stand seeing the city’s trademark businesses shut down (“I’m still ticked off that Marshall Field’s went away,” he said). When he heard that Halpern had put iO up for sale, he and Weiner decided to buy it to preserve what they view as an important cultural institution.But some performers are interested less in an iO preserved in amber from 2020 and more in an iO that embraces radical change when it comes to diversity.The new iO owners are searching for operating partners.Lawrence Agyei for The New York TimesFor now, the theater is dark.Lawrence Agyei for The New York TimesOn June 9, 2020, five improvisers who had taken classes or performed there posted a petition calling on the theater to address entrenched problems of institutional racism. They told The Chicago Tribune of “bungled or inadequate past efforts at diversity, an unwelcoming attitude to performers and students of color, and problematic behavior by staffers.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1jiwgt1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:1.25rem;}.css-8o2i8v{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-8o2i8v p{margin-bottom:0;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The five improvisers pledged not to perform at iO until its management met a series of demands, including hiring a diversity and inclusion coordinator.The next day, Halpern sent a note to the protesters offering a broad and earnest apology for the institution’s “failings.” But just over a week later, Halpern announced that iO was shutting down, frustrating performers who thought the theater was on the verge of substantial change. Halpern said the reason was the financial implications of the pandemic — not the protests.Gendell said he was not ready to outline a plan for addressing these concerns before they brought on an operating partner but said that they were searching for partners in “diverse communities.”“We’re fair-minded people, and I have confidence in my value system,” he said.Performers Choose Their Own PathsIf iO and Second City want to fix the problems that have plagued them for decades, both institutions will need to convince comedians of varied backgrounds that they are places worth returning to.In June 2020, as the stories of discrimination became public, Julia Morales, a Black Puerto Rican comedian who had performed at Second City and iO for years, thought to herself, “These theaters have really disappointed me. Do I want to go back to this?”Her answer was to create something new. She scrounged up less than $2,000 and started Stepping Stone Theater, a nonprofit that she imagined would focus more on supporting performers of color and less on the bottom line. It is one of a few new improv ventures that have sprung up in the city in the past year.So far, Morales has chosen to maintain some ties with Second City. In May, she was onstage improvising in the company’s first post-pandemic program, and next month, her group and Second City are collaborating on a show. Even though the theater had disappointed her, she said, she didn’t think the way forward was to shut it out.Others, like the comedians Shelby Wolstein and Nick Murhling, have left Chicago to find opportunities in Los Angeles or have given up on big comedy institutions altogether. And some who have chosen to stay are unconvinced that there has been substantial change.“I won’t trust it until I see it for myself,” said Kennedy Baldwin, who started last month in a Second City fellowship that offers tuition-free training to a diverse group of actors and improvisers.Second City is now holding several shows a week.Jermaine Jackson Jr. for The New York TimesAmong performers who are intent on seeing the institution change, it is crucial to diversify the audience as well, which tends to skew older and whiter. These performers aren’t thrilled with the new ticket pricing system, which Second City started testing shortly before the pandemic.The system, called dynamic ticket pricing, calculates prices based on the time of the show and number of tickets left. The cheapest tickets cost $25 each, but with growing interest in the return of live theater and lower-than-usual ticket inventory because of the pandemic, they can run much higher. This Saturday, tickets for the 7 p.m. shows are about $90 each.Some performers worry that raising ticket prices will help maintain the status quo.“How can I make this a show that makes people feel included and have an audience that reflects how we look?” asked Terrence Carey, a Second City performer who is Black.A spokeswoman for Second City, Colleen Fahey, said the ticket pricing model is helpful in allowing the company to recoup revenue after a 14-month shutdown. She added that customers still have access to cheaper tickets.At iO, Olivia Jackson, one of the creators of the petition, said she was eager to meet with the new owners to discuss the issues her group raised. After that, she would determine whether to return to iO. If she decided against it, she could always turn to one of the newer, scrappier operations.“There are so many insanely talented people in Chicago who really love improv,” she said. “Chicago improv will be OK.” More

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      Lincoln Center Names Shanta Thake as its New Artistic Leader

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      Shanta Thake, a theater executive, faces challenges that include helping the center embrace new genres and attract virus-wary audiences.Feeling the pressure to attract new audiences and rethink its offerings even before being upended by the coronavirus pandemic, Lincoln Center announced on Tuesday that it had chosen a theater executive with a reputation for working across disciplines as its next artistic leader.Shanta Thake, most recently an associate artistic director at the Public Theater, will assume the role of chief artistic officer at the center, the nation’s largest performing arts complex, as it works to broaden its appeal beyond classical music and ballet into genres such as hip-hop, poetry and songwriting.Thake — who at the Public spent a decade managing Joe’s Pub, a cabaret-style venue, and more recently began overseeing Under the Radar, Public Works and other programs there — said she was eager to bring more popular and world music to Lincoln Center.“The goal is expansive reach,” Thake, 41, said in an interview. “What’s missing? What have we left out? What stories aren’t we telling that feel like they’re demanding to be told in this moment?”Lincoln Center is the landlord of the Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, New York City Ballet and other independent institutions, which are responsible for their own programming. But it is also a presenting organization in its own right, putting on hundreds of events each year and running the Mostly Mozart and White Light festivals, which have been primarily devoted to the classical arts. The center and its constituent organizations have competed, sometimes tensely, for rehearsal and performance space, ticket sales and donations.Thake will oversee the work Lincoln Center presents, and said in the interview that its robust classical offerings would be maintained. “We’re not looking to erase history here,” she said.But center officials say they are still working out the future of Mostly Mozart, which was put on hold amid the pandemic, other than a few small events this week. In 2017, as it grappled with budgetary constraints, the center dissolved the Lincoln Center Festival to focus on reinventing Mostly Mozart, its summertime sibling.Thake, who starts next month, replaces Jane Moss, who played a key role in programming for nearly three decades and stepped down as artistic director last year — and who also came from a theater background. (The chief artistic officer title is a new one.) Thake joins the center at one of the most challenging moments since it opened in 1962. Its woes predate the coronavirus: It struggled for years from leadership churn and money problems.Then the pandemic wiped away tens of millions in revenue and forced the cancellation of hundreds of events. About half of Lincoln Center’s staff of 400 was furloughed or laid off, and its top leaders took pay cuts.While many workers have been rehired and indoor performances are set to resume in the fall, the center will likely be grappling with the financial fallout for years. It remains to be seen whether audiences will return at prepandemic levels, especially given the recent spread of the Delta variant of the virus.Henry Timms, Lincoln Center’s president and chief executive, said the organization had turned to Thake for her experience programming creatively across genres. “We wanted someone who could kind of help us think about some new territory,” he said.Timms said the virus would continue to pose a challenge for the center’s artistic ambitions, but added that he believed audiences were eager to return. “There will be a great deal of demand for what we do and there will be a great deal of re-imagination,” he said.As infections have eased in recent months and vaccines have become widely available, Lincoln Center has started to come back to life, building several outdoor stages and transforming its plaza into a summer gathering place by covering it in a synthetic lawn. When indoor performances resume, the center plans to require vaccines for audience members, production staff and artists. Children under 12 will not be permitted to attend performances since they are currently not eligible for vaccines.Thake said she saw her mission as, in part, to “lift up the city that is still reeling from the ongoing trauma” of the pandemic. She said Lincoln Center could play a role in helping smaller arts organizations, for example by sharing best practices for reopening venues.“Hopefully we can make it to the other side all together,” she said.Thake, whose mother is Indian and whose father is white, said she was committed to presenting artists who represent a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. Cultural institutions have in general been slow to respond to demands for a reckoning over racial justice in the United States. But Lincoln Center is one of the few arts organizations to show substantial progress in bringing more diversity to its upper ranks. People of color now make up about half of its leadership team. More

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      After 40 Years, a Luminary of Theater’s Avant-Garde Departs

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      “I have the energy, I have the interest,” says Blanka Zizka of the Wilma Theater. “But I need to go a different way.”When Blanka Zizka retired from her post as artistic director of the Wilma Theater at the end of July, it was truly the end of an era.“I have been at it for 40 years,” Zizka said in a video interview from Philadelphia, where the company is based. “That’s a long time.”Zizka and her husband, Jiri, were born in Czechoslovakia, where they immersed themselves in the underground scene of late 1960s and early ’70s, notably the work of innovative titans like Jerzy Grotowski and Tadeusz Kantor. The couple eventually emigrated to the United States and then landed at the Wilma Project in 1979, becoming artistic directors in 1981. They divorced in 1995, and she became the sole artistic director of the renamed Wilma Theater in 2010.And now, at 66, she will be its artistic director emeritus.Throughout the Wilma’s history, the Zizkas championed demanding work by directors and playwrights. The theater has had a fruitful association with Tom Stoppard, for example, who described Blanka in an email as “an intellectual steeped in theater language; a ‘writers’ director’ but freethinking in what she wants the audience to see.”The Wilma also often put on visually daring productions that stood out from the comparatively naturalistic fare by many regional companies. In recent years, Blanka also encouraged the resident acting company, the HotHouse, to explore experimental techniques and pushed artists to supersize their ambitions. (She will continue to work 20 hours a month over the next two years, some of which she said she is likely to spend with the HotHouse).“She taught me, as a young, queer, Black artist in the theater, that I could write Black queer stories at the scale that she was directing,” said James Ijames, who is now one of the Wilma’s artistic directors, with Yury Urnov and Morgan Green. “She just really blew open what I thought was possible.”In the video interview, Zizka shared the joys and frustrations of her years running a regional American theater company. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.Keith J. Conallen, a HotHouse company member, in “Don Juan Comes Home from Iraq,” a 2014 production by Paula Vogel.Alexander IziliaevWhy leave the Wilma now?I started to think about it very strongly last August. Suddenly, I was spending some time with my son, who is now 44 and lives in Bellport, N.Y. I was always feeling so guilty about him because I felt I’ve never been a great mom; theater was always my first priority. It’s hard to say, but that was the reality. So it was kind of a reunion, in a beautiful way. I also spent two or three hours a day biking in wetlands and I realized: Oh my God, I’ve been living all my life in a space without windows. I started to feel something that I have not felt since I was about 15 or 16, this sense of freedom and of loving beauty and colors in nature. And I felt I need to experience it more before I kick the bucket [laughs].And yet in a 2015 interview, you said: “I feel that, professionally, if I’m lucky, I have, like, 10 years. There is not a history of old women running theaters.” Did you defiantly plan to stay on for another decade at the time?I said that exactly out of those feelings, but I don’t feel it anymore. I feel like that if I had wanted to stay at the Wilma, I could have. I have the energy, I have the interest. I didn’t lose the love for theater, for sure. But I need to go a different way. And there is also the danger of becoming your own prison for anybody who works in an institution for a long time.What were your earliest memories of American theater, having grown up behind the Iron Curtain?I never studied at university. I was working as a cleaning woman in the library during the day and doing underground theater in the evening. We used to go to Poland for a weekend to just see shows and I was able to see the Living Theater and Bread and Puppet Theater, the experimental-happening scene, Joseph Chaikin — those are my heroes. But that period was over by the time I got here.What were your early years in Philadelphia like?We were taking it step by step. We spoke very bad English — I could not ask for a cup of coffee, basically. For us it was about how do we survive? How do we support ourselves and our child? How do we learn English? I met people and I offered to teach them what I knew from Grotowski. When you are young, you’re audacious about teaching and you know nothing [laughs].Stoppard has played a big role at the Wilma, but what are other artists who have been meaningful to you?Athol Fugard was very important for me in the early days. In 1988, I produced “Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act,” which is about a white librarian and a Black schoolteacher falling in love. And the play is done in the nude, 90 percent of it. That was very daring at the time.Do you think it could be done now?I don’t know. That’s a question. I do want to mention Paula Vogel. She’s an amazing, generous artist who takes care of her colleagues. “I was working as a cleaning woman in the library during the day and doing underground theater in the evening,” Zizka said about her past.Michelle Gustafson for The New York TimesHow so?I had commissioned her to do a play, and she was doing a workshop, and I had to participate. I was terrified because my English is so bad. She said, “You can just write characters the way you speak.” Easy, right? [Laughs] She was constantly on me and said, “You have to keep writing.” So I did. Another person who was very helpful was Stew [of the musical “Passing Strange”]. He was my boyfriend for a moment, about six years ago. Like Paula, he encourages people to try things out and not to be afraid.What do you think are some of the biggest challenges facing American theater?In American theater, the people who are actually creating the work are the only people who are freelancers. How do you run theaters when you are surrounded by administrative staff only? Once foundations are away from the scene, you start pushing toward rich individuals. They can be great people, they can really love you — but something can happen in their life, and they move on. Because of this need to get money from so many different sources, you have to make people feel good; you have to do great parties. So your administrative staff is growing, and you are putting money there instead of into the art.You came of age with avant-garde theater, and at the Wilma you never stopped pushing the intellectual and aesthetic envelope. That’s not the easiest sell.The Wilma has been quite progressive in terms of programming, but it was very difficult for us to retain audiences. In America we are now in the grip of consumerism, where an audience wants theater to be exactly “the way I feel it, the way I want it, and if it’s not that I don’t like it and I will never come back again.” That is a very difficult situation to be in. The only reason I want to do theater is an exploration of life. Entertainment is part of life, but I don’t want the theater to be any escape from reality. Reality is beautiful, and there are multitudes of possibilities. But this consumerism and narcissism I find in American audiences at this time is really detrimental to the theater culture. More

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      Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago Names New Artistic Directors

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      Glenn Davis and Audrey Francis, both ensemble members, will be the first pair to lead the company in its history.Steppenwolf Theater Company, an ensemble in Chicago with a track record of premiering critically acclaimed works that land on Broadway, announced its new artistic leadership on Thursday, and for the first time in the company’s decades-long history, that means two people, not one.The ensemble members Glenn Davis, who is best known in New York for starring in “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo” alongside Robin Williams on Broadway, and Audrey Francis, who co-founded a Chicago acting conservatory, will both serve as artistic directors, the company said. Davis, who is Black, is the first person of color in the company’s history to be in the role.In an unusual process for a theater company, the ensemble voted to appoint Davis and Francis in an election, after the pair put themselves forward as a team.The new leadership structure comes at a transitional time for Steppenwolf: This fall, it plans to open a new $54 million addition to the company’s headquarters in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, which will include a 400-seat theater-in-the-round and a floor dedicated to education. The debut will coincide with the company’s return to live performance — with Tracy Letts’s “Bug” in November — after a 20-month pandemic shutdown.“The ensemble has always been the heart and soul of Steppenwolf,” Davis said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “As the company has grown so, too, has the ensemble, now reflecting a diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and passions.”The current artistic director, Anna D. Shapiro, who has led the ensemble since 2015, announced in May that she would be resigning at the end of August, which coincides with the completion of her second three-year contract. Shapiro’s resignation came shortly after two people of color who have worked with the theater shared grievances about the institution that were published on the website Rescripted.Lowell Thomas, a video producer at Steppenwolf, resigned in April, accusing the company of burying “claims of harassment, racism, and sexism to avoid accountability and real change.” And Isaac Gomez, a playwright who worked with the theater, said he considered pulling one of his plays from the company’s programming because of Thomas’s departure.At the time of her resignation, Shapiro told The Chicago Tribune that the timing of her announcement was unrelated to the published accounts, saying, “There’s not a theater in this country worth its salt that is not dealing with these questions of systemic racism and trying to look at its culture.”In a statement about the new leadership, Eric Lefkofsky, the chairman of Steppenwolf’s board of trustees, said that Davis and Francis’ different backgrounds would lead to a “more comprehensive worldview in decision making.”Steppenwolf — which employs a 49-person ensemble and operates programming for teenagers and educators — has a history of producing works that draw national recognition and transfer to New York stages.In 2007, Shapiro directed the premiere of Letts’s play “August: Osage County.” Letts, who is a Steppenwolf ensemble member, also debuted a recent play, “The Minutes,” at the Chicago theater; the show’s Broadway run was interrupted by the pandemic. And the second Broadway show to reopen this summer, “Pass Over,” a play about two Black men trapped by existential dread, had its premiere at Steppenwolf, and two of the company’s ensemble members will appear in the Broadway version.Davis, an actor and producer, joined the ensemble in 2017, appearing in plays like Bruce Norris’s “Downstate” and Tarell Alvin McCraney’s “The Brother/Sister Plays.” In February, he will star in Steppenwolf’s “King James,” a play by Rajiv Joseph about LeBron James that was scheduled to have its debut in June 2020, then was delayed.Francis, who also joined the ensemble in 2017 after attending its acting residency in 2004, has performed in 10 productions with the company, including Clare Barron’s “You Got Older” and Rory Kinnear’s “The Herd.” Francis co-founded the conservatory Black Box Acting and works as an acting coach for entertainment companies like Showtime and NBC.In a statement, Francis said that one of their objectives as leaders will be to “re-examine how we support artists on and off stage.”“We are inspired by the changes we see in our industry,” she said, “and aim to redefine how artists are valued in America.” More