Curtain Rises on Oak Park Festival Theatre's New Director

A new face with the hopes to take the 35-year old organization to the next level.

Marissa McKown, 31, an Indiana native, has just been appointed its managing director. She replaces Brianne Wilson, who had been the group's interim managing director.

McKown has worked behind the scenes with many organizations including the vaunted Steppenwolf theater group in Chicago. She has directed plays, including Gidget, a stage adaptation of the book about a surfer girl (yes, that Gidget) in Southern California, which was a 2008 Jeff Award nominee for best adaptation.

In a sit-down with Oak Park-River Forest Patch, McKown talked about her background, the work she’ll be doing and her hopes for the organization.  

What does a managing director do?

It varies from organization to organization. I’ll be in the business end negotiating contracts with the venue, scripts for licensing rights and contracts with Actor’s Equity. I will be shouldering some of the budgeting (work). I also will be the face within the community. And I will be refining the organization's mission statement.

Why the Oak Park Festival Theatre?

It’s been on my radar screen. I’ve heard great things about their productions. Ann Filmer, the artistic director of [Berwyn's]  16th Street Theater and I spoke about my next career step, and while discussing it OPFT came up. She could not sing their praises enough; she knew all of them [the theater group] to be good people. From talking with her, and knowing its mission, their offering Shakespeare under the stars, and with all of my experiences, I thought why not.

What are your hopes for OPFT?

I’d like to see it run a little more smoothly, the day-to-day stuff. I’d like to make sure that the Jeff Awards Committee gets an invitation to opening night so our shows can be eligible for their adjudication process. I’d like to bring Oak Park Festival Theater up another notch – polish the star.

What would you like to tackle here?

I’d like to work on the diversity of the theater both in casting and the artistic staff and work with the community as a whole. I’d like to reach out to other organizations and build some partnerships. It’s hard to speak to strategy. But I know there will be lots of meetings and planning with the board as far as laying the groundwork.

Ideally, I’d like to deepen the theater’s relationship with the village of Oak Park. I’d like to see us integrating with the village and being a more viable 501c3 in getting grants. I’d like more in exposing children to the theater. Exposure to the arts is huge and I’d like to make it even more meaningful than busing kids into shows. I'd like to make it about allowing them to see working artists. Exposure to theater and art stirs the creative juices. It’s wonderful to have a communal experience together. There’s more visceral connection with the audience. Ultimately you develop the ability to empathize. And some young people fall in love with the theater.

When did you get the theater bug?

I remember seeing a production of Peter Pan at Indiana Repertory. I didn’t have an epiphany moment, the whole medium just felt right. I went to Broadway camp (part of the summer camping programming at the Indianapolis JCC. I continued dabbling through high school at Carmel High School.

I found out that I hated acting. I love actors, but I’m a director through and through. I did not need to be the one performing. In high school I stumbled upon stage managing and directing and that was the magic Cinderella shoe.

Tell me about college.

I went to Columbia College. I started out at the Herron School of Art and Design to study sculpture and realized that was not what I wanted to be doing. My mom heard about Columbia, so I scheduled a visit and talked with a couple of students. I realized it was perfect for me. I went to my first orientation and met Sheldon Patinkin [former chair of the Theater Dept. and now the artistic consultant with Steppenwolf]; I felt it was like home." [She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater, Directing, in 2004].

You were with Steppenwolf. What did you do?

I started at the call center to get a foot in the door; I did direct fundraising. It was an awful, but good, experience. I’ve become a braver fundraiser for it. I got exposure to development and marketing. I also did the ticketing and answered patrons' questions. I had to be up on all the programming and speak to whatever was going on. I learned a lot from [Audience Services Subscription Manager] Stephanie Heller, bent a lot of ears and acted like a sponge.

Did that experience give you something that you can use here?

Steppenwolf has a reputation as an edgy professional theater that takes artistic risks, which I respect. Martha Lavey is a brilliant artistic director in the way she views the art world and the world as a whole and where and how they intersect. I have learned by her example that the arts and the real world can comingle and come out bringing more appreciation to people. Steppenwolf likes to say "why not." Let’s present an idea and try it. The worst that can happen is that you fail. You’ll only be the better for it.

Can you describe an experience that you’ve had like that?

In the first professional show I directed everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I’d like to call it ‘a show that cannot be named.’ It was White Hot Black Comedy. [The play ran Studio Two of the Athenaeum Theatre in 2006]. There were issues with casting, a scene was added after the show opened. The guy who ran the venue died. The playwrights were novices. The reviews were not kind. I am absolutely a better woman and artist from it.

Who do you want to emulate?

Someone who’s touched my life is Sheldon Patinkin. He’s so highly intelligent, so fundamentally respectful of people and their time. He has a nice phrase embroidered in his office at Columbia, ‘Better to be an ass**** than a chicken****. I totally agree with that. I’d like to fold that, along with being deeply collaborative and respectful, into a blender – that’s what I’d like to be. Another person I respect and admire is Al Franklin, the production manager at Steppenwolf. He strikes a nice balance between tone, respect, understanding a person’s art and getting the job done and sticking to a budget.

How do you view this challenge?

It’s not, not scary. It’s exciting and I realize I have a big job in front of me. I’m looking forward to the theater. It needs to grow and move forward. I cannot be happier and luckier to be in a better organization to help it grow and grow myself. I feel like I’m in the right place in the right time.