Arts Orange County

MANAGEMENT

CEO/Executive Director

Mr. Richard Stein

CEO/Executive Director Experience

Richard Stein - A nationally-known forty year veteran theatre artist and arts administrator, Rick was on the earliest committee formed to inaugurate an arts council for Orange County, in 1989. Prior to his appointment at Arts Orange County in August, 2008, Rick transformed the Laguna Playhouse in Laguna Beach into a major resident professional theatre over the course of 17 years as its Executive Director, growing it from an annual budget of $700,000 to $7 million, and produced more than 100 plays, including two national touring productions. There he also directed many notable productions, including several premieres. Rick came to Orange County in 1987 to serve as Managing Director of the Grove Shakespeare Festival in Garden Grove following a five year stint as Director of Lincoln Theater at the University of Hartford (Connecticut). He holds degrees from Columbia and Syracuse Universities and returned to Columbia for post-graduate study on a National Endowment for the Humanities summer fellowship. Rick was sent to Korea on a cultural exchange by the International Theatre Institute-US, has served on the executive committee of the League of Resident Theatres, and has been a contributing writer to AMERICAN THEATRE magazine. He’s a past Chair of the John Wayne Airport Arts Commission, past President of the Association of Fund Raising Professionals-Orange County Chapter, and past co-Chair (twice) of National Philanthropy Day-Orange County. He is Immediate Past President of California Arts Advocates and Californians for the Arts, statewide organizations promoting the interests of the arts community. He has been a guest lecturer at University of California, Irvine, California State University, Fullerton, and California State University, Long Beach, and was a commencement keynote speaker at the Laguna College of Art and Design. He has served as a panelist or site visitor for the National Endowment for the Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts, California Arts Council, Western States Arts Federation, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, City of San Diego Arts and Culture Commission, City of Pasadena, Riverside Arts Council, City of Reno, Fund for the Arts of  Louisville, Kentucky, and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, for which he also produced its State Arts Awards. Although his career has largely been in the theatre, Rick’s first post after finishing graduate school was as Executive Director of a local arts agency, Oswego County Council on the Arts, located in Fulton, New York.

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