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ABOUT US:
Syracuse Stage is Central New York’s premier professional theatre. Founded in 1974, Stage has produced more than 300 plays in 44 seasons including a number of world, American, and East Coast premieres. Each season 65,000 patrons enjoy an adventurous mix of new plays and bold interpretations of classics and musicals featuring the finest theatre artists. In addition, Stage maintains a vital educational outreach program that annually serves over 30,000 students from 24 counties.Syracuse Stage is a member of The League of Resident Theatres (LORT), the largest professional theatre association in the country. America’s leading actors, directors and designers work and/or have worked at Stage including: Tony Award-winners Lillias White, Chuck Cooper and Elizabeth Franz, Emmy recipients Jean Stapleton, Sam Waterston, John Cullum, James Whitmore, and Ben Gazzara. These visiting artists are supported by a staff of artisans, technicians, educators and administrators who are responsible for all facets of the theatre from building sets, props and costumes to marketing, development and box office.
A solid core of subscribers and supporters helps keep Syracuse Stage a vibrant artistic presence in Central New York. Year after year their support and patronage contribute to the success of the theatre. Additional support from government, foundations, corporations and SyracuseUniversity helps to ensure the continued role of Syracuse Stage as a valued cultural resource for the community.
Syracuse Stage is a constituent of the Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre, and a member of the Syracuse Chamber of Commerce, the Arts and Cultural Leadership Alliance (ACLA), the University Hill Corporation and the East Genesee Regent Association.
LEADERSHIP
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, Robert Hupp
Robert Hupp is in his fourth season as artistic director of Syracuse Stage. He recently directed Noises Off, Next to Normal, and The Three Musketeers for Stage. Prior to coming to central New York, Robert spent seventeen seasons as the producing artistic director of Arkansas Repertory Theatre in Little Rock. He directed over 30 productions for Arkansas Rep ranging from Hamlet to Les Miserables to The Grapes of Wrath. In New York City, Robert directed the American premieres of Glyn Maxwell’s The Lifeblood and Wolfpit for the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble. He also served for nine seasons as the artistic director of the Obie Award-winning Jean Cocteau Repertory. At the Cocteau, Robert’s directing credits include works by Buchner, Wilder, Cocteau, Shaw, Wedekind and the premieres of the Bentley/Milhaud version of Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, Seamus Heaney’s The Cure at Troy, and Eduardo de Filippo’s Napoli Millionaria. He has held faculty positions at Pennsylvania’s Dickinson College and, in Arkansas, at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Hendrix College. Robert served as vice president of the Board of Directors of the Theatre Communications Group and has served on funding panels for the New York State Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, the Theatre Communications Group, the New Jersey State Council of the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. While in Arkansas, Robert was named both Non-Profit Executive of the Year by the Arkansas Business Publishing Group, and Individual Artist of the year by the Arkansas Arts Council. He and his wife Clea ride herd over a blended family of five children, one dog, and two cats.
MANAGING DIRECTOR, Jill A. Anderson
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Jill A. Anderson has served as managing director of Syracuse Stage since 2016. Jill is responsible for Stage’s nearly $6.5 million operating budget and has oversight of fundraising, marketing, and operational matters within the organization. Prior to joining Stage, Jill spent a decade as general manager at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, CT. During her tenure, the O’Neill completed a $7 million capital campaign and campus expansion, doubled its operating budget, and was honored with a 2015 National Medal of Arts and the 2010 Regional Theatre Tony Award. Under the O’Neill’s aegis, Jill also developed the Baltic Playwrights Conference, an annual international new play development retreat held in Hiiumaa, Estonia. Previously, Jill spent five years in the production office at Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage, after working as a stage manager in Minnesota, New Mexico, and Massachusetts. In addition to her work at Stage, Jill is an instructor in the Theater Management program of the Syracuse University Department of Drama, building on her work with high school and college students elsewhere, including at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. Jill was recognized as part of the Central New York Business Journal’s “40 Under Forty” awards in 2017 and has served on numerous municipal and non-profit boards. Jill is a proud cheesehead, hailing from Marshfield, Wisconsin. She and her husband Dave Anderson, along with their daughter, are pleased to call Central New York home.
ASSOCIATE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, Kyle Bass
Kyle Bass is the author of Possessing Harriet, which received its world premiere at Syracuse Stage last season, was produced last summer at Franklin Stage Company, and will be produced at the East Lynn Theater Company in New Jersey this summer and in Connecticut at Hartbeat Ensemble this fall. Kyle was script consultant on Thoughts of a Colored Man and is a two-time recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (for fiction in 1998 and playwriting in 2010), a finalist for the Princess Grace Playwriting Award, and Pushcart Prize nominee. His other full-length plays include Tender Rain, Baldwin vs. Buckley: The Faith of Our Fathers, Bleecker Street, and Separated, a piece of documentary theatre about the student military veterans at Syracuse University, which was presented at Syracuse Stage and at the Paley Center in New York, directed by Robert Hupp. Kyle is the co-author (with Ping Chong) of Cry for Peace: Voices from the Congo, which had its world premiere at Syracuse Stage and was subsequently produced at La MaMaExperimental Theatre in New York. His current projects include a new play titled salt/city/blues, which will have its world premiere in Syracuse Stage’s 20/21 season, and the libretto for an opera based on the life and music of legendary folk singer and guitarist Libba Cotten, commissioned by the Society for New Music. As dramaturg, Kyle worked with acclaimed visual artist Carrie Mae Weems on her theatre piece Grace Notes: Reflections for Now, which had its world premiere at the 2016 Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, subsequently produced at Yale Rep and the Kennedy Center. As a screenwriter, Kyle is the co-author of the original screenplay for the film Day of Days (Broad Green Pictures, 2017), which stars award-winning veteran actor Tom Skerritt, and he is the author of the screenplay adaptation of the novel Milk by Darcy Steinke. His plays and other writings have appeared in the journals Callaloo, Folio, and Stone Canoe, among others, and in the essay anthology Alchemy of the Word: Writers Talk about Writing. He is also the drama editor for the journal Stone Canoe. Kyle has taught in the Colgate Writers Conference, has been guest lecturer in playwriting at Hobart & William Smith Colleges, was faculty in the M.F.A. Creative Writing program at Goddard College from 2006 to 2018, and from 2005 to 2018 he taught playwriting in Syracuse University’s Department of Drama and theatre courses in the Department of African American Studies. Kyle is now full-time faculty as assistant professor in the Department of Theater at Colgate University where he previously served as the Burke Endowed Chair for Regional Studies, and is the 2019/20 Susan P. Stroman Visiting Playwright at the University of Delaware. Kyle holds an M.F.A. in playwriting from Goddard College, is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America, and is represented by The Barbara Hogenson Agency.