This special section looks behind the curtain at a group of influencers, decision-makers, and facilitators who don’t often get the spotlight. In the commercial theatre they’re called producers, while in the nonprofit arena they typically have the title of managing director (or, increasingly, producing artistic director). They don’t (usually ) originate the art itself; but whether they’re taking risks on new Broadway musicals or managing a small theatre’s leap from small to midsized, producers, managers, and other administrators are the folks who find, furnish, and pay for the rooms where the art happens.