Arizona Theatre Company hires new artistic director

David Ivers has been named Arizona Theatre Company’s new artistic director.

Ivers, who succeeds 25-year ATC veteran David Ira Goldstein, comes to the company with impressive bona fides:

He has been artistic director of the Tony-winning Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City since 2011, was associate artistic director at Portland Repertory Theatre, and has directed plays at such prestigious companies as The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, South Coast Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre and The Guthrie Theatre.

He has had a long association with Utah Shakespeare; he first worked there as an actor in 1992.

“He came as an intern actor,” recalled Fred Adams, who founded the company in 1961. “David is a phenomenal actor, but he’s also a very sensitive and alert director. He has a wonderful communicative skill with casts and crews. I think that’s a strength. We are sorry to lose him.”

Several good candidates were interviewed, said Lynne Wood Dusenberry, the chair of ATC’s board. The company’s Tucson-Phoenix operation — it is the only regional theater to stage full seasons in two cities — can present unique challenges.

“We felt David Ivers was the one who got a sense of ATC the best,” she said in a phone interview.

“We feel we’ve found someone who will be a leader. David Ira is finishing a remarkable career, and this season has made us all happy and proud as a board and a theater company. We just believe that’s what we will continue to do. We believe (Ivers) has the same hopes and goals and can help us get there.”

He does have big plans: He wants to see the theater more fully represent the Tucson and Phoenix communities with diverse programming, casts and theater staff. He hopes to engage families, up the profile of the theater in the communities and across the state, partner with other theaters in and out of Arizona and cultivate new works.

But first, he said, he wants to look and listen.

“I have a lot to learn,” he said in a phone interview from Cedar City. “The first order of business for me is to listen. I plan to do a listening tour with the staff, constituents and audiences.”

That is necessary before anything else, he said.

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“Coming into any community and mandating things is the opposite of community.”

ATC, like many professional theater companies in this country, has struggled financially. In June of last year the company announced it would suspend operations if it didn’t raise $2 million by July 1. That did not give him pause.

“I was aware of the challenges,” he says. “But what I think is so extraordinary and made me want to walk through the door is ATC’s limitless potential.”

And he isn’t intimidated by fundraising — he was key in raising $40 million for the new multi-theater Utah Shakespeare complex, which opened last year.

That was another reason he won over the board, said Dusenberry.

“We are looking much better fiscally,” said Dusenberry. “We are moving toward a sustainable working model, and that was important to David Ivers. ... We know he can help us continue with fundraising.”

ATC is now on a hunt for a managing director, which shares equal billing with the artistic director. The two will work closely together so the board decided to hire the artistic director first, allowing that person to weigh in on the selection. “It’s almost a marriage, really,” said Dusenberry.

Goldstein, who tried to step down four years ago but remained at the board’s request while the financial crisis was weathered, will be with ATC through June 30. Ivers begins July 1.

He plans to settle in Tucson with his wife and two children, who are 5 and 8. He will be in and out of town for the rest of the year, as he has directing commitments to fill.

“I really am excited about the theater’s next chapter,” said Ivers, 47.

“I think it’s about protecting the legacy and making certain to make great theater and great connectivity. If we are relevant to Arizona, the theater will find a way to continued success.”