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Feb. 15, 2001
Q&A Michael Rose BY SANDY SMITH
The stage was dark at the Annenberg Center far too often when Michael Rose arrived at Penn three years ago. Since then, he’s lit up the stage not only at Annenberg, but in Irvine Auditorium and other places on campus. As managing director of the Annenberg Center, Rose has filled the void left by the collapse of the facility’s onetime resident companies, the Philadelphia Drama Guild and the Philadelphia Festival Theater for New Plays. And as managing director of Penn Presents, he has expanded professional performing arts at Penn beyond the physical confines of the Annenberg. He has also stretched the performing arts beyond the traditional boundaries of theater and dance. Rose and his staff now stage events in eight different venues across campus, and are on the lookout for more places to present — like the outdoor ampitheater in Wynn Commons. This year’s ticket revenues are twice what they were last year, and the Penn Presents subscriber base continues to grow, thanks to what Rose calls “an outstanding marketing department — visionary [Marketing Director] Roy Wilbur and an outstanding PR person in Stephanie Grant.” And thanks to this turn in fortunes, Penn’s overall performing arts scene is stronger than ever. We talked about that scene and the state of Penn Presents in an interview late last fall. Q. Where were you working before you came to Penn? Q. Are there any real difference between running those facilities
and this one? Q. Has there been any thought given to re-establishing a resident
theater company here? [We could be like] McCarter Theater at Princeton. It’s a separate [non-profit]. It was spun off by the university, I would guess 20 years ago. And it is primarily a theater and secondarily a presenting house. But it’s also a space which is not used by the university for all sorts of university meetings, for all the student performing arts groups. It’s basically a venue which students don’t attend very often. In terms of the large number of students, the Annenberg Center is pretty different in that regard. Or I want it to be different in that regard. Q. In other words, student performing arts are a central part of the
Annenberg’s reason for being? Our tech staff work very closely with the students, provide them a lot of advice, provide them a lot of professional assistance, and don’t meddle in production but help make it better. So I think that helps to encourage the huge student performing arts scene on campus. But the energy for all that comes from the students. Q. If there were any things you might improve about the current offerings
of Penn Presents, what would they be? My sense is that as a university of such extreme diversity as Penn is, with so many different cultures represented and so many different nationalities, so many different ethnic groups and the rest, that we had a responsibility to be addressing a lot of the interests and representing a lot of the cultures. I think that represents the University very well, and it’s kind of emblematic in a way of what Penn Presents stands for. Q. What’s the most fun part of this job? Over the past two years, we’ve built, I think, a really first-rate staff at Penn Presents across the board. And it’s a very participatory, very supportive, very collaborative kind of working situation which provides a lot of input at many different levels. And I think that’s very energizing. It’s also being part of a major national university [where] there is an understanding and support and an appreciation for the types of programming we’re trying to do. So we’re seeing University audiences growing substantially each season, and that’s great. Q.How are we faring compared to when you took the helm? In addition, what we’ve done over the past two years is we’ve added a whole range of programming and music that hadn’t been presented here before. A large program in jazz, a modest but I would say strong program in classical music, and this year, I think a very solid and very well-received program in world music. To that we’ve also expanded a program of children’s matinees which we call the Children’s Discovery Series, which happens weekdays during school hours. Q. What’s led us into the business of presenting productions
directly as opposed to getting productions arranged by outside organizations?
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