{"id":18732,"date":"2020-12-24T10:15:54","date_gmt":"2020-12-24T15:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=18732"},"modified":"2020-12-24T10:15:54","modified_gmt":"2020-12-24T15:15:54","slug":"michael-bobbitt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2020\/12\/24\/michael-bobbitt\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Bobbitt To Lead Mass Cultural Council"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Bobbitt\u2014the artistic director at New Repertory Theatre in Watertown since March 2019\u2014has been named the next executive director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the <a href=\"https:\/\/massculturalcouncil.org\/blog\/mass-cultural-council-names-michael-j-bobbitt-next-executive-director\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">state arts agency announced<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The director, choreographer, and playwright will succeed David Slatery, who has served as acting executive director since Anita Walker retired on June 30, 2020, after leading the agency since 2007. Bobbitt is scheduled to begin the job on Feb. 1, 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Bobbitt was selected by unanimous vote of the agency\u2019s governing council during a special meeting on Dec. 18, after a \u201cnationwide search\u201d led by Arts Consulting Group, the agency reported.<\/p>\n<p>Before joining New Rep, the DC native worked as artistic director at the Adventure Theatre MTC in Maryland for 12 years. \u201cHe led a merger with Musical Theater Center, increased the organizational budget and audience, commissioned new works by noted playwrights, transferred two shows to Off-Broadway, built an academy, and earned dozens of Helen Hayes Award Nominations, garnering eight wins,\u201d the MCC reports.<\/p>\n<p>Bobbitt received non-profit arts management training at Harvard Business School\u2019s Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management, the National Arts Strategies Chief Executive Program, and Cornell University\u2019s Diversity and Inclusion Certification Program.<\/p>\n<p>He has served as an associate professor of theater at Boston Conservatory at Berklee and volunteered on non-profit boards at Non-Profit Village, Maryland Citizens for the Arts, Leadership Montgomery, Weissberg Foundation, Watertown Public Art Commission and ArtsBoston. He is a member of MassCreative\u2019s Policy Committee.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Previously:<\/strong><br \/>\nMarch 5, 2020: <a href=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2020\/03\/05\/anita-walker\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mass Cultural Council Chief Anita Walker to Retire<\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/wonderlandlandfanclub\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And <a href=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/subscribe\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sign up for our free, (hopefully) weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don&#8217;t miss any of our reporting. (All content \u00a9Greg Cook 2020 or the respective creators.)<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_18742\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18742\" style=\"width: 745px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/MichaelBobbit_Craig-BaileyPerspectivePhoto_201218w.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-18742\" src=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/MichaelBobbit_Craig-BaileyPerspectivePhoto_201218w-745x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Michael Bobbitt has been named the new executive director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, December 2020. (Craig Bailey | Perspective Photo)\" width=\"745\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/MichaelBobbit_Craig-BaileyPerspectivePhoto_201218w-745x1024.jpg 745w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/MichaelBobbit_Craig-BaileyPerspectivePhoto_201218w-218x300.jpg 218w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/MichaelBobbit_Craig-BaileyPerspectivePhoto_201218w-768x1056.jpg 768w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/MichaelBobbit_Craig-BaileyPerspectivePhoto_201218w-370x509.jpg 370w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/MichaelBobbit_Craig-BaileyPerspectivePhoto_201218w.jpg 1170w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 745px) 100vw, 745px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-18742\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michael Bobbitt has been named the new executive director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, December 2020. (Craig Bailey | Perspective Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Bobbitt\u2014the artistic director at New Repertory Theatre in Watertown since March 2019\u2014has been named the next executive director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the state arts agency announced. The director, choreographer, and playwright will succeed David Slatery, who has served as acting executive director since Anita Walker retired on June 30, 2020, after leading [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18743,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,114],"tags":[244,830],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18732"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18732"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18744,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18732\/revisions\/18744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}