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Theatre Workshop hires its first-ever producing director
BY MARLI GUZZETTA
After a nationwide, three-monthlong search that reviewed 30 candidates and brought six to the island for a weekend of interviews, Theatre Workshop Nantucket has selected a new Producing Director, Jordana Fleischut, who will oversee the organization's administrative and fundraising operations.
 | | Jordana Fleischut: "The opportunity to produce for such a highly regarded, stellar stage organization, is really a dream come true." |
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"When we met her, her honesty and openness were refreshing and made us all feel great about being able to work really well together. She effervesced with ideas and enthusiasm!" said TWN President Pam Murphy. "Her extensive theatre management, children's programming and directing, marketing, website, leadership, grant writing, promoting and fundraising knowledge and experience made her an extremely attractive candidate."
Fleischut (pronounced FLY-shoot) is currently working through May as a Drama Enrichment Teacher for pre- Kindergarten through eighth grade students at the Brown School in Schenectady, N.Y. She lives in nearby Galway, N.Y., with her husband, Michael, and their two sons, Dylan, 13, and Tyler, 10 - whom she calls her "best works to-date."
Other than her family, Fleischut said her most impressive accomplishment has been the resurrection of the historic Glove Theater in Gloversville, N.Y. In 2000, the dilapidated theater was on the verge of certain condemnation, but a grass roots effort asked Fleischut, who ran a travel business at the time, to spearhead an attempt to save the theater.
"The building was totally dilapidated," Fleischut remembered on first entering the crumbling structure. "There was a piano floating in three feet of water, and the seats had mushrooms growing on them. . . . But I saw what it would be and should be and, in Gloversville, what it needed to be."
Fleischut sold her business to become the General Manager of the Glove Theatre, and launched a massive, Herculean campaign that drew on every ability she had and even required her to learn new ones. She wrote grants, networked with community businesses, recruited volunteers, fund-raised, expanded programming, wrote grant applications and worked hard to "get people in the seats." She even secured New York State Council of the Arts Funding, "which is a big deal," Fleischut said, noting the many specifications a theatre must meet in the long jury process necessary to earn such a distinction, like the inclusion of community educational services and the residency of a professional theater company.
"I knew from the beginning, if we could get people to sit there and see what it could be, we could save it," Fleischut said. "Together, we were able to do some great things. When people are committed to something, it just works. It just does."
When Fleischut left the theater in 2004 and took a job as the Mohawk Valley News Director with Albany Productions, the theater that was once a mushroom farm had become a cultural cornerstone for its community.
"She helped save this historic theater from the wrecking ball and accomplished some pretty amazing things. If it were not for Jordana's positive creative leadership in time of crisis, the Glove would most certainly be closed," said Roberta Esposito, Artistic Producer of the Glove Theatre. "She wrote over $1.5 million dollars in grants to improve the building and worked to increase programming from eight events a year to over 200 events a year with 100 percent hands-on community involvement, connecting to all the businesses in town. Her entire approach to life is very positive, energetic and refreshing; it is contagious and inspirational, and makes you want to be around her, and get involved."
Fleischut has plenty of other feathers in her professional cap - from 2005-06, she worked in TV, radio, theater and film. She hosted a women's talk radio show and got a spot as a "featured improv extra" in the film version of "The Producers."
But it was her ability to dig the Glove Theatre out of its own watery grave that most impressed the selection committee, said Murphy, who added that the TWN board considered on-island candidates throughout all stages of the selection process. Some were phased out in the beginning, others made it all the way through to the final round, and yet others removed themselves from consideration when they learned more about the job.
"Some Nantucket residents considered it because they thought it was artistic programming," Murphy said. "But then when they found out it involved administrative work and computer work, they decided against it."
TWN created the position when Artistic Director Jane Karakula decided to focus specifically on summer main stage programming and follow other non-TWN pursuits as well.
"Jane will be handling everything from the front of the stage to backstage, and Jordana is on everything from the front of the stage forward. In other words, everything that happens behind the curtain is Jane's purview, and Jordana will handle everything else."
If a woman can resurrect a whole theater, she seems more than qualified to improve TWN's box office and administrative functioning with new ideas.
"I feel like she's going to enable us to do a lot of the things that we want to do and improve the efficiency of the way everything functions. . . . I couldn't be more excited about bringing her on. I know I can confidently relinquish the marketing, promoting, off-season programming and more to her and focus on what the president should be doing: fundraising and creating a vision for the future of the organization," said Murphy, who added that Fleischut will be working in the TWN office and costume room at 32 Centre Street. "So we'll actually maintain a TWN administrative office with a phone line that you can call to reach a human. She'll also upgrade the box office procedures, expand fundraising possibilities, bring in more children's theater opportunities and ramp up our offerings year round. I've no doubt she's got a bazillion more things she wants to pursue already."
High on Fleischut's to-do list is expand and strengthen TWN's children's theater offerings. She actually does not consider a theater as successful as it could be until one is able to "go into the classroom of any area kindergarten class and ask them, what are the arts? And if they tell you the Theatre Workshop, you've made it. Because if you get to that audience, you know you've succeeded. They're the toughest critics of all. If you're educating those generations, the arts will not only survive, they'll thrive."
Fleischut said she also wants to "help foster the great things that are happening already."
She called Eric Shultz a "technical genius" and added: "Jane has the excellent reputation of selling out her shows, and I want to implement the technology to help her keep doing that and connect with our audiences," said Fleischut, who added that she'd like to have TWN offer web-based ticketing, so that residents can buy from home and local inns and resorts can print tickets out for visitors.
Fleischut also mentioned the possibility of bringing in a resident company, as well as concessions. "Theater is sweet, so you should have something sweet to eat in the middle," she said.
Fleischut is already acquainted with the personality of the island. Her brother (Tate Keogan, Owner of Nantucket Pure) lives on island now, and she lived here full-time from 1989 through 1992 while working in administration for Continental Airlines. During that time, she said, she also did "just about every job on the island" - including cleaning houses, working at Nantucket Bank, working at the Nantucket Inn and driving a cab.
Continental Airlines relocated her to Albany in 1992. She left the company soon thereafter to start a family. She's been returning to Nantucket in the summers, and attending TWN shows regularly.
"When I used to sit in the theater and look at what TWN actors and production staff did, they'd hold me in the palm of their hands, which is hard to do, because I'm always looking for what's out of place," Fleischut said. "Every time I went, they were trying harder and harder, and that's what makes the theater work. You never stop trying."
She even worked as a Screen Actors Guild Professional Artist in Residency at the Nantucket Boys & Girls Club last summer, producing and teaching a three-week focused Musical Theatre Drama program to 57 young Nantucketers, ages 7-14. "I fell in love with the kids, and inspired me and made me want to return to Nantucket to share my passion for the arts," Fleischut said. "So the opportunity to produce for such highly regarded, stellar stage organization,
is really a dream come true."
It was her Nantucket connection that put her ahead of other equally qualified off-island candidates, according to Murphy.
"She understands the hard work and scope of tasks it takes at all hours of the day to make a theater run well. Combine all this with the fact that she already has family and friends here, her husband and children are dying to move to the island, and they lived here years ago. She's very familiar with island living - and that's always half the risk of hiring a new person. It was a no brainer," Murphy said.
"I'm so looking forward to moving back to Nantucket, where you can live just such a good life. And it's going to be good for my family. . . .My kids are so excited, they already have friends, and my husband, a carpenter and math teacher, toured the schools and was impressed and excited about the potential to teach math and technology to the children of Nantucket," said Fleischut, who has yet to secure yearround housing for her family before her May 10 start date. "I feel like everything I've ever done in my life has lead me to this, which is a dream.
It's amazing." I
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