Broadway Producer Kristin Caskey Joins Ambassador Theater Group
U.K.-based theater chain Ambassador Theater Group has named new executive leadership to its North American arm — including Kristin Caskey, the Broadway producer who was one of the lead producers on the 2015 Tony Awards champ “Fun Home.”
Caskey will serve as executive vice president, content and creative, of ATG’s North American operations, joining the organization alongside Stephen Lewin, an executive who has spent three decades in the wine and spirit business at companies like Seagram and Clicquot. He and Caskey step into roles at a company that’s rapidly expanded its holdings in the U.S., having acquired what is now Broadway’s Lyric Theater in 2013, soon-to-open Broadway venue the Hudson in 2015, and the holdings of ACE Theatrical Group, which include venues in Brooklyn, New Orleans and San Antonio.
The new hires in North America come soon after the ATG mothership has named a new chairman, Tony Ball, to replace Greg Dyke, who steps down after seven years in the post. Ball is a former chief exec of Sky and is senior adviser at Providence, the private equity firm that acquired ATG in 2013.
The addition of Caskey seems like a move to shore up the Stateside producing activities of a company that’s planted its real-estate flag in the U.S. theater industry but had less success as a producer on Broadway, where ATG-backed shows including “Elling” and “Guys and Dolls” proved disappointments. (ATG subsidiary Sonia Friedman Productions, the company behind the Tony-winning revivals of “Twelfth Night” and “Richard III,” has had much better luck, however.)
Caskey, who’s spent some 20 years at Fox Theatricals, will continue work as a stage producer with Mike Isaacson, the partner with whom she produced the commercial transfer of “Fun Home” as well as titles including “Bring It On,” while also overseeing programming at ATG venues in North America.
ATG bills itself as the world’s largest theater company, with more than 45 venues in the U.K, the U.S. and Australia. The current tenant of Broadway’s Lyric, Cirque du Soleil show “Paramour,” is coming off a strong Thanksgiving week, while the Hudson is due to open in 2017 with an inaugural tenant still to be announced after a Jake Gyllenhaal-led revival of “Burn This” was postponed.
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