The Chattanooga Theatre Centre has ended its search for a permanent executive director and named Todd Olson to the position.
He will begin Monday, taking over for the interim executive director and former CTC board president, Kim Jackson, who has led the community theater since the departure of the former executive director, George Quick, in July 2016.
"We could not be more pleased to have Todd coming to Chattanooga to lead the Theatre Centre," said CTC Board President Scott Shaw. "I am extremely excited about what he will bring to us and to this community.
"Todd has a strong history of creating amazing theater, and he has repeatedly shown his ability to build audiences. He has historically done all the things critical to our success at the Theatre Centre. We are thrilled to have him joining our organization."
Olson's career has taken him all over the eastern part of the country in the last 14 years. From 2003-2014, he was the producing artistic director at the American Stage Theatre Company in St. Petersburg, Fla. He also spent three years as associate artistic director and director of education at the Tennessee Repertory Theatre in Nashville.
He most recently served as executive director of the Columbia Festival of the Arts in Columbia, Md., where he produced a variety of classical, theatrical, jazz, educational and community events.
"I have spent the last two years curating and producing arts festivals in Columbia, and I just missed making theatre and being around stage artists," Olson said in a news release. "It was easy to see the CTC staff's love of what they do, and I look forward to serving alongside them.
"I accepted this job for four simple reasons: the building, the staff, the city, and the amount of remarkable theater CTC does," Olson added. "Every arts leader in the country would love a 40,000-square-foot facility with two theatres, playing to 50,000 people of all ages every year, with shops, classrooms, rehearsal studios, and administrative offices right on site, in a downtown location with lots of parking."
Olson and his wife, Charlotte, have three children: Jonas, 18; Corinna, 16; and May, 14.
The Chattanooga Theatre Centre has a full-time staff of 11 people and is funded by ticket sales, private donations, foundation grants, corporate sponsorships, and funding from ArtsBuild, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
For more on upcoming CTC productions, see Page 12 in today's ChattanoogaNow.