BOSTON: The Huntington Theatre Company has announced that managing director Michael Maso will step down at the end of the 2022-23 season, his 41st season in the role. He will remain on as a senior advisor and executive consultant to the company.
“Michael Maso is the only managing director the Huntington has ever known,” Randy Peeler, the chairman of the Huntington’s board of trustees, said in a statement. “He leaves an indelible mark on the Huntington as an organization, the broader arts community, the city of Boston, and the national theatre community.”
Huntington’s board has engaged the consulting firm AlbertHall&Associates to lead a national search for a new executive leader to partner with artistic director Loretta Greco for the Huntington’s future. While Maso had intended to step down at the end of last season, he agreed to extend his tenure for a year at the urging of Greco and the board in order to work with Greco in her first season as artistic director.
“Michael Maso has been the heart and soul of the Huntington for a remarkable 40 years,” Greco said in a statement. “As he passes the baton to a new managing director, I’m delighted that we’ll continue to collaborate after his full-time tenure ends.”
Maso led the successful reopening of the Huntington in October 2022 after a seven-year journey in which the theatre was on the open market and the shutdown of the theatre in 2020 due to the pandemic. He also led the Huntington’s decade-long effort to build the Calderwood Pavilion in Boston’s South End in 2004, establishing a vital creative hub for Boston’s cultural community which provides facilities and services to dozens of local performing arts organizations.
Maso is one of the longest-serving executives in American theatre today as the Huntington’s original and only managing director. Under his leadership, the Huntington has grown from an in-house department at Boston University to the city’s flagship nonprofit theatre with a full-time staff of 125 people. Maso has collaborated with four artistic directors to produce over 260 productions and has served as a trusted mentor and advisor to hundreds of arts administrators in Boston and across the country.
Maso currently serves on the Boston Cultural Planning Steering Committee and previously served as a member of the board for ArtsBoston, Theatre Communications Group, and StageSource. He also previously served as a panel chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts and was the president of the League of Resident Theatres from 1997 to 2005.
“It has been a profound honor and deep privilege to serve as the Huntington’s managing director for over 40 years,” Maso said in a statement. “I can’t overstate how much pleasure I have derived from working with so many to bring such unadulterated joy, such compassion and understanding, to so many for all these years. I’m grateful to the thousands of dedicated artists, staff members, colleagues, and board members who have enriched my life, and to the theatre lovers and generous donors who have sustained the Huntington, as together we have built the Huntington and the broader cultural community we love.”
Maso’s new advisory role will involve special projects and continued fundraising and planning for the second phase of the Huntington’s renovation and expansion.
The Huntington Theatre Company strives to be Boston’s theatrical commons and leading professional theatre company. Committed to welcoming broad and diverse audiences, the Huntington aims to provide life-changing opportunities for students through its robust education and community programs, and is a national leader in the development of playwrights and new plays. It is also the host organization for a multi-year residency at the Black theatre company the Front Porch Arts Collective. As of 2021, the theatre’s budget was approximately $14.5 million.
