Kate Warner, artistic director of Dad's Garage theater in Inman Park for the last four years, is leaving to run the Boston region's third-largest theater: the New Repertory Theatre of Watertown, Mass.
New Rep is a 25-year-old company with a $2.1 million annual operating budget and a 4-year-old, $7.5 million space. Dad's is a scrappy 14-year-old comedy group with a national reputation for tapping young audiences and a yearly budget of $640,000.
"I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish for Dad's," Warner said Friday. "And lo and behold, I got to the end of the list. They called with this wonderful opportunity, and I couldn't think of a reason to say 'no.' "
Warner, 38, sits on the executive board of Theatre Communications Group, the industry service organization, and was managing director of Atlanta's Theatrical Outfit for nine years. At Dad's, she hired a strong managing director, expanded the education program and secured a full-time marketing director.
"I just was so impressed by what she had done with Dad's Garage and what she's done with the national scene," New Rep managing director Harriet Sheets said of Warner. "It sounds like she's ready to expand what she can do artistically, and this is a perfect place for her to do that."
Warner is not the first Dad's artistic chief to move on. Sean Daniels, a Dad's co-founder, left in 2004 to become associate artistic director of California Shakespeare Theatre and is now associate artistic director of the prestigious Actors Theatre of Louisville, Ky. At New Rep, Warner succeeds Rick Lombardo, the new artistic director of San Jose Repertory Theatre.
On a financial note, Dad's managing director Lena Carstens says the theater recently retired its accumulated deficit, signed a 10-year lease on its Elizabeth Street space and is playing to 95 percent capacity, bucking the local trend.
The theater will conduct a national search to replace Warner.
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