Arts center names new president

Managing director of playhouse in Houston will lead Costa Mesa music and theater venue.Terrence W. Dwyer, a longtime theater managing director and A 25-year veteran of the entertainment world, has been appointed as the new president and chief operating officer of the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Dwyer, the managing director of the Alley Theatre in Houston plans to begin his work at the performing arts center April 20. He is the fourth president of the center since its opening in 1986, following predecessor Jerry Mandel, who stepped down in July. Judith O’Dea Morr has served as interim president since then.

For Dwyer, 50, taking the reins of the Performing Arts Center was a longtime dream.

“I spent a long time in San Diego working at the La Jolla Playhouse, and I’ve been an attendee [at the center] and admirer from afar for many years,” Dwyer said. “It’s a center that stands for excellence in a number of art forms.”

Upon Mandel’s departure, the arts center’s board began interviewing candidates from across the country to fill the vacancy. Michael Gordon, the chairman of the board, said Dwyer beat out a tight group of competitors.

“We were looking for somebody with substantial background in arts management, someone with a vision of where art should be in society, someone with a lot of energy and a solid record of accomplishment,” he said.

Dwyer joins the Orange County Performing Arts Center at a heady moment in its history. In September, the center plans to open a pair of major new venues: the 2,000-seat Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall and the 500-seat Samueli Theater. Apart from shows, the facilities will allow the center to expand its educational programs.

In 2004 and 2005, the arts center set a new record for ticket sales with $22 million, aided largely by the Orange County premiere of “The Lion King” in March. For the last 19 fiscal years, the center -- which houses the Pacific Symphony, Opera Pacific, the Philharmonic Society of Orange County and the Pacific Chorale -- has finished in the black.

Dwyer didn’t outline specific plans for his first months in office but said the arts center’s educational and charity programs were part of what inspired him to apply for the job.

“Artistic excellence and strong relationships with the community will be preeminent,” he said.

Dwyer, born and raised in New Jersey, earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Notre Dame and went on to get a pair of master’s degrees: in theater directing at the University of Missouri and in theater management at Yale University. He started his managing career in New York in the 1980s with the Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians and the Off-Broadway Circle Repertory Company.