Trish Santini, a longtime American theater industry leader who served as the longtime executive director of the $250 million Little Island public park in Manhattan, has been appointed the new managing director of The Old Globe, San Diego’s oldest and largest theater.
Santini will work alongside Barry Edelstein, the Globe’s artistic director since 2012, to run the Balboa Park nonprofit theater, galvanize fundraising and work on long-term strategic planning, among other tasks.
Santini will replace Tim Shields, who last year announced plans to retire after nine years in the role.
Barry Edelstein is the artistic director of The Old Globe. (Dominique Faubert)
Edelstein praised Santini’s qualities as a visionary in bringing to fruition underwriter Barry Diller and his family foundation’s longtime vision for Little Island. The artificial island park at Pier 55 began construction in April 2018 and opened to the public in May 2021. Santini was the project’s inaugural executive director from 2016 to 2023.
“She built an island in the Hudson River … and that is no joke,” Edelstein said. “She’s talented, resourceful, fierce and determined … and she’s not afraid of big ideas.”
Pre-cast concrete “tulip pot” modules comprise the surface structure of the Little Island Park, seen here in May 2021, in Manhattan, New York. (New York Daily News)
More than 100 applicants from different industries applied for the position of managing director at The Old Globe, which the board winnowed to 12 finalists. Santini’s qualifications were exceptional, Edelstein said, but she also had an extensive background in regional theater.
“Someone on the search commmittee asked her ‘what’s the single most important thing a theater needs to do to succeed?’ And her immediate answer was ‘to make great art.’ That’s a business mind that understands that art has to come first,” Edelstein said.
Santini served for nine years as external relations director at The Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, overseeing marketing and communications, visitor services, education, retail, and events. She also served as the Guthrie’s senior producer for several productions and fundraising galas. Santini has also had leadership roles with the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, TMG-The Marketing Group and Dodger Theatricals. She has also worked as an independent producer.
Most recently, Santini and her husband, longtime theater prodution director Frank Butler, co-founded Empire Training Center for the Arts, a workforce development initiative that trains technical and administrative performing arts professionals for careers that do not require a college degree.
Edelstein said Santini’s external communications experience at the Guthrie will be very useful in helping the Globe better tell its institutional story.
“We’re not just a place that puts on ‘The Grinch,’” Edelstein said. “We do arts engagement around town, we have an actor training program and we make new plays. We’re looking for a way to tell the bigger story about what the Globe is, and this is something that’s absolutely in her wheelhouse.”
In a phone interview from New York last week, Santini said she’s excited to start the next chapter of her career at The Old Globe with Edelstein.
“While I’ve had opportunities to do a lot of different things, really I’m a theater person at heart,” Santini said. “I know the reputation of the Old Globe and I’ve been aware of Barry’s work for a long time when he was at the Public Theatre (in New York City). I have a lot of respect for him as an artist and as an arts leader.”
When asked about her years with Little Island, Santini said: “To create something that was solely intended for the purpose of joy is not something most people can say they have a chance to experience.”
“It was a learning process for me, needless to say, as a theater person. But the place that felt familiar was the collaborative spirit of all these creative individuals coming together in service to a greater vision,” she said. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience building a team from the ground up and curating a team that would inherit this project and share it with the public.”
Santini said part of her process for managing the Little Island project was looking years ahead to its opening date in 2021 and then working backward to organize everything that needed to be accomplished to meet that deadline.
Edelstein said that skill is something he hopes Santini can apply to the Old Globe’s approaching milestone, its 100th anniversary celebration in 2035.
“She’s a big thinker who takes a big picture view of things. There is absolutely a piece of her skill set that’s about rolling up her sleeves and solving granular problems,” he said.
Christian Buckley is chair of The Old Globe’s board of directors. (The Old Globe)
Christian Buckley, chair of the Old Globe’s board of directors, said that Santini’s experience will be key in the theater’s long-range planning.
“As we look toward 100 years and continually reimagine what it means to be a great arts institution for San Diego and beyond, it is clear to us that Trish abundantly possesses all of the tangible and intangible qualities to join Barry, the board and our leadership on that journey,” Buckley said in a statement. “The final pool of candidates was extraordinary, which I think bodes well for the future of leading nonprofit regional theater in America, but Trish’s history, experience, and laser focus on how the Globe can evolve in the next decade distinguished her.”
Santini’s first day on board with be May 1, when she’ll begin working remotely from New York in one-on-one training with Shields and Edelstein. Shields will step down on June 30 and her first day working onsite in Balboa Park will be July 1.
On a personal level, Edelstein said he and Santini share the same values as fellow New Jersey natives who are both New Yorkers at heart. “We’re loud and raucous together and she makes me laugh. I am really looking forward to the two of us making some good trouble.”
And Santini said she hopes her synergy with Edelstein will benefit the Globe, its staff and the community at large.
“From our shared commitment to creating a culture of joy and belonging so that artists and staff can do their best work, to recognizing the necessity to train a new generation of theater professionals, to our pursuit of providing access to theater in as many spaces and communities as possible — all of this truly illuminated to me that we are kindred spirits and I can’t wait to get started,” Santini said.