SAN ANTONIO: The Public Theater of San Antonio has announced a new leadership structure, with two new positions. As part of the new structure, the theatre has named Asia Ciaravino their new president and CEO. Recently appointed producing artistic director Jimmy Moore, who holds the same title with the Classic Theatre of San Antonio (now a resident company at the Public), will continue to lead the company along with Rick Sanchez, the director of marketing and audience experience, and Christina Casella has returned to the theatre as its new managing director.
The executive team will work with Ciaravino to oversee the direction and vision of the theatre, focusing on three priorities: artistic experience, audience experience, and sound business practices.
“I am honored to have the opportunity to return to my home in the theatre,” Ciaravino said in a statement. “Our theatre needs to continue focusing on inclusion, communication, transparency, and creating art that tells everyone’s stories. The Public Theater has a unique opportunity to build community and create a safe artistic space for all.”
The news comes after a series of artistic leadership changes at the Public. In April, the theatre announced that executive artistic director Claudia de Vasco would leave the company this month, in the middle of the ongoing summer season. De Vasco, a Texas native, was the first Latina woman to lead the Public Theater and produced José Cruz González’s American Mariachi in 2022, which was also the first time the theatre had produced a play by a Latinx playwright, despite San Antonio’s predominantly Hispanic or Latino population.
The Public Theater hired de Vasco after artistic director and CEO George Green left in the fall of 2020 after he was placed on Actors’ Equity Association’s (AEA) Do Not Work list. Staff and actors accused Green of creating a toxic work environment and of flouting safety regulations for the theatre’s reopening.
Under the Public’s new partnership with the Classic Theatre of San Antonio, the Classic’s 2023–24 season productions will be produced in the Cellar Theater, a 60-seat theatre in the San Pedro Playhouse, which is also home to and operated by the Public Theater. And Classic Theatre leader J. Robert “Jimmy” Moore will share his decades of experience in musical theatre by taking the additional role of producing artistic
director for the Public Theater’s upcoming productions, to be performed in the Playhouse’s larger
350-seat Russell Rogers Theater.
The Public Theater of San Antonio aims to create dynamic professional theatre and arts programming to unite the diverse communities of San Antonio through transformative storytelling. The company was previously referred to as the San Pedro Playhouse and as the Playhouse San Antonio. As of 2022, the theatre had a budget of approximately $1.5 million.
