The Paper Mill Playhouse has hired a familiar face as its new managing director, it announced recently.
The theater named Mike Stotts, a one-time consultant for institutional planning and advancement for the Millburn-based organization, to the role overseeing its organizational, financial and business affairs.
Stotts has more than 32 years of arts management experience, including work with the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick and Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey in Madison. Most recently, he spent 12 years as managing director of Hartford Stage in Connecticut.
The search committee included James Fakult, president of Jersey Central Power & Light and the Paper Mill’s board chair, as well as Andy Gottesman, CEO of Gottesman Real Estate Partners and the search committee chair.
“Paper Mill Playhouse is in a great place, with a strong financial foundation, national recognition, world-class artistry and award-winning education and access programs,” Fakult said in a prepared statement. “We are extremely pleased to have an accomplished leader like Mike join Mark Hoebee and the outstanding team at Paper Mill, and look forward to building on the tremendous growth and success we have experienced over the past several years.”
Stotts will work alongside Hoebee, the Paper Mill’s producing artistic director, to lead the theater’s next steps forward, it said.
“Mike will be able to hit the ground running, re-establish his deep roots in New Jersey and continue to build on the strong relationships and ties that bind together Paper Mill Playhouse and its community,” Gottesman said in a statement.
The Paper Mill recently launched its 80th anniversary season.
