Kallish Takes Leadership Post at Victory Gardens

BY Carrie L .Kaufman

Kallish

Jan Kallish cannot escape the dust. Everywhere she goes there are architects and building engineers, concrete pourers and electricians. It started in downtown Chicago, when, as executive director of the Auditorium Theatre in the mid-’90s, she presided over a $14 million renovation. Then, in 2006, she went to China where, as part of her duties as CEO of Nederlander Broadway China, she oversaw the renovation of the Shanghai Majestic Theatre.

Now, Kallish is the new executive director of Victory Gardens Theater and, even though the new Biograph space opened two and a half years ago, she’s taking over her job just as the upstairs studio space is being built out.

“Tuesday was my first day, and of course the first thing I had was a meeting with the architect,” Kallish said. “All this renovation—it just never leaves.”

Kallish is just glad to be back in Chicago every day. Not only did she spend a year in China, but Kallish’s other producing and consulting jobs have taken her all over the country. Kallish was one of the producers of The Color Purple and A Catered Affair on Broadway, as well as a consultant to Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, which produced U.S. tours of Edward Scissorhands and Car Man.

Which is what makes Kallish’s choice of Victory Gardens—and their choice of her—so surprising. Regional theatre producers usually move to the commercial realm, not the other way around.

“It was somewhat of a stretch going into an institutional situation,” said Kallish. But she pointed out that commercial theatre these days is often safe. What she sees in regional theatre is exciting.

“There’s a lot of gutsy work that can be done on the regional theatre level.”

Kallish says that VG has a “crackerjack team” and she’s grateful she’s walking into a place with good fundraising and a good marketing plan. But that didn’t stop her from adding some funding just in her first week. Her goal is to raise the profile of the organization, position it better on the world stage.

“I’ve lived in a number of different worlds and dealt with a lot of for-profit theatres,” Kallish said. “My reach of people and contacts is broad.”