A big change at Berkeley Rep: director Susie Medak will step down

Since she came aboard as managing director in 1990, Susie Medak’s time at Berkeley Repertory Theatre has been defined by big changes for the organization that have made it a power to be reckoned with in the national theater scene.

Now she’s ready for another big change. Berkeley Rep announced today, Jan. 11, that Medak plans to step down in August, at the end of the company’s 53rd season.

Her departure will close an impressive 32-year tenure marked by an almost exhaustingly long list of major accomplishments.

The company won a Tony Award for Regional Theatre in 1997 and went on to premiere a number of productions that went on to Broadway, such as “American Idiot,” a musical built around the songs of East Bay punk stars Green Day; “In the Next Room (or the vibrator play)” and “Ain’t Too Proud.”

Medak oversaw the opening of Berkeley Rep’s new Roda Theatre in 2001 and renovation of its existing Thrust Stage (now called the Peet’s Theatre), as well as the founding of its School of Theatre and a new works program titled the Ground Floor. She secured the company’s pre-production campus in West Berkeley and now an apartment building for guest artists and fellows with a studio space that should be completed this year.

Medak has served as president of the League of Resident Theatres (LORT) and on the board of Theatre Communications Group. A longtime board member and former chair of the Downtown Berkeley Association, she founded the Berkeley Cultural Trust and helped spearhead the creation of city’s Downtown Arts District. A recognized leader among leaders in the arts community both nationally and locally, for many years she’s helped train the arts leaders of tomorrow and says she plans to continue to do so.

“What I care about the most is that we created a theater that is admired, that is a leadership organization in the field — in part because of the really fine work that we’ve made on our stages and the way that we’ve made it, but also because we’ve exhibited leadership in so many other ways as an institution,” Medak said in a phone call.

“Susie has impacted so many people, communities and theaters in her career,” said Berkeley Rep board president Emily Shanks. “She has been instrumental in building Berkeley Rep into the nationally recognized theater it is today. We have been so fortunate to have had her leadership and partnership with three great artistic directors by her side. She will be dearly missed, but I am happy for her to be starting a new chapter in her life. It is well deserved.”

Medak came to Berkeley Repertory Theatre after stints as managing director of Northlight Theatre in the Chicago area, managing director of People’s Light and Theatre Company in Pennsylvania, and marketing director of Milwaukee Repertory Theater.

The second managing director in Berkeley Rep’s history, she has worked alongside three of the theater’s four artistic directors — first Sharon Ott, then Tony Taccone and now Johanna Pfaelzer. Her departure comes three years after Taccone stepped down after 33 years at the company and 22 years at the artistic helm.

“This is something that I’ve been thinking about and planning for a few years,” Medak says. “There was a point when Tony Taccone and I looked at each other and said, ‘One of us is gonna have to go first.’ We actually had a consultant a few years ago who said that I could be more helpful to a new artistic director than Tony could be to a new managing director, and so I made a commitment to Johanna that I would stay until she was settled in. Nobody expected the pandemic to hit, but I’m quite hopeful that by the time I’m actually out the door, we will be past this current phase, and we’ll know that the theater’s going to be able to survive and I’ll feel like I did my job.”

During Medak’s tenure, Berkeley Rep earned the reputation as a launching pad for big new works, presenting more than 80 world, American, and West Coast premieres, many of which later went to Broadway, including “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations,” “Amelie,” “American Idiot,” and more.

Famed stage director Mary Zimmerman, who has presented several shows at Berkeley Rep, including “Metamorphoses,” “Argonautika,” and “Treasure Island,” among others, said, “Berkeley Rep has been a second home to me for many, many years and a huge part of that has been Susie Medak. She has a kind of genius for life, for artistic collaboration and above all for making community. She understands people and she loves them; loves working with them, connecting them, introducing them to each other. … I have tried to learn from her in many ways.”

Although her decision was already made, Medak says the breakup of routine necessitated by the pandemic has made it easier for her to take this latest big step.

“Not being able to actually be in the building for almost two years was sort of helpful in imagining what life could be like if I wasn’t doing this,” she says. “And I hadn’t really been able to imagine that before.”

A search is underway for a successor who will have some big shoes to fill.

“They may be big, but they’re really well worn,” Medak said with a laugh.

“I am so proud of the people who have come through our doors and have gone on to do wonderful things, whether they’re artists or administrators or artisans. I take enormous pride in creating in an organization that has been invested in its community and has been a leader in effecting change. We made an arts district out of an auto body block!”

Contact Sam Hurwitt at shurwitt@gmail.com, and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.