After 19 years at Capital Stage, Managing Director Keith Riedell is passing his baton on to Liz Gray. Riedell is retiring at the end of August but will guide Gray through the principal managing director’s duties, and introduce her to the theater staff, local actors and artists, local theater connections and community supporters.
Gray, who brings experience and creative ideas for expanding Capital Stage’s outreach, is getting to know the theater and the city of Sacramento. Recently, the two sat down with Solving Sacramento and exchanged stories of their personal histories, theater experiences, managing director roles and hopes for the future.
Gray is the third managing director in the theater company’s 20-year history. Founded in 2005, Capital Stage has staged 128 full-length main stage productions overall, averaging seven each year, as well as various concerts and special events. They also offer apprenticeships and internships to aspiring actors
Keith Riedell
Riedell has been intrigued with theater since his childhood in Connecticut, going from Charlie Brown school skits to seeing Broadway shows. In college, he took all his electives in theater but graduated with an engineering degree.
“I came from a generation where I was expected to do what my parents expected me to do,” Riedell said. “So, I became an engineer.”
Engineering brought him to Los Angeles, where he got involved with a theater in the Thousand Oaks area. But that changed when his engineering company transferred him to Tucson, Arizona.
“I directed a play out there for 17 days with a local gay theater,” he said. “It was quite a good show.”
He left engineering and theater for a while to get his counseling degree and became a therapist, but would later return to the theater world and move to Sacramento where his now-husband, David Fulk, was based.
Riedell became managing director for River Stage at Cosumnes River College where Fulk was the technical director for 30 years. He then pivoted to Capital Stage in 2007. He was appointed general manager in 2014 and managing director in 2021, where he led the development of a five-year strategic planning process. During his tenure, he also created and implemented the theater’s five-year strategic plan working with the DeVos Institute of Arts & Non-Profit Management
Liz Gray
Gray has also had a career that has taken her down different paths. She started her journey by trying her acting skills in New York and found that it never led to a sustainable income. Then, she taught theater to middle and high school students in Pittsburgh and finally landed in Durango, Colorado, where she became a company and communications manager for a community theater company.
That’s where Gray learned theater management while teaching drama at a local college, and later pursued an MFA in theater arts and leadership at Virginia Tech, focusing on fundraising and strategic planning. She described it as a crash course in everything related to arts: arts finance; arts marketing; working with a board; governance; and development.
Gray and Riedell talked about Capital Stage’s hiring process for a new managing director and the theater’s future growth.
Riedell described his various responsibilities, including managing a $2 million annual budget, and overseeing insurance policies, property taxes, the audit, and supervise the front of the house, and the box office. He also was instrumental in expanding Capital Stage’s artistic and educational programing, and is credited with creating and implementing the theater’s five-year strategic plan.
“I had a heavy hand in putting together the job description we posted,” Riedell said. “I wrote it not as replacing me, but rather I wanted someone better than me.”
The search was conducted nationwide, with a diverse pool of applicants. According to Riedell, Liz was chosen for her skills and potential, her experience in development and marketing, and her knowledge of change management.
“Most importantly, she listens, takes notes, and asks questions,” said Riedell. “Plus, it’s the energy she brings into a room.”
Gray chose to apply to Capital Stage because they have the same set of values that resonated with her.
“One of the first things that hit me while examining the job description was in their mission statement, where they focused on social justice-based theater and theater that challenges,” she said. “It’s part of my ethos of the arts. Especially in this current climate: Theater that is both connective and destructive — that puts a mirror on us and on society. I think theater empathizes and promotes social change.”
Gray also has a significant interest in accessibility so that everyone can be welcome into the theater.
“I felt very much from an early age that the power of storytelling has a significant social impact,” she said. “I want the theater to be a place that welcomes everyone.”
Riedell agrees.
“I think we can change the world one performance at a time, one production at a time, and I hope you leave this theater a changed person. That you go out and treat people differently, to see the world differently, with empathy.”
Gray and Riedell are working together to map out a plan incorporating things that worked in the past with new ideas for the future.
“It will take time to get my hands around everything, to get my head around everything,” said Gray. “This is a company that challenges perspectives and invites the community into meaningful dialogue through impactful storytelling,” Gray said.
“I am excited for this new chapter for Capital Stage,” said Riedell. “Liz brings a fresh voice and energy to the company. Her arts leadership, marketing, fundraising, and change management expertise will be invaluable.”
Board President Kathryn Doi and Artistic Director Michael Stevenson are looking forward to the changes they say will build on Capital Stage’s legacy and trust Gray’s experience and knowledge .
“Liz brings a new set of eyes as well as a creative spirit to meet the challenges of running a bold, risk-taking theatre, and to help lead the company into our third decade,” said Stevenson.
This story is part of the Solving Sacramento journalism collaborative. This story was funded by the City of Sacramento’s Arts and Creative Economy Journalism Grant to Solving Sacramento. Following our journalism code of ethics, the city had no editorial influence over this story. Our partners include California Groundbreakers, Capital Public Radio, Hmong Daily News, Outword, Russian America Media, Sacramento Business Journal, Sacramento News & Review and Sacramento Observer. Sign up for our “Sac Art Pulse” newsletter here.
By Patti Roberts
