Huntington's Managing Director Michael Maso Named HSTF Inspiring Leader of the Year

Huntington Theatre Company Managing Director Michael Maso will receive the 2014 Hyde Square Task Force Inspiring Leader Award, to be presented on Wednesday, November 5 at the organization's Annual Making Change Happen Breakfast. The award is presented annually to an experienced and successful leader in the community who embodies the values of Hyde Square Task Force. Hyde Square Task Force (HSTF) has been working for more than two decades to develop the skills of youth and their families so they are empowered to enhance their own lives and build a strong and vibrant urban community.

Hyde Square Task Force's arts mastery programs act as a vehicle for disenfranchised, low-income youth to find their voice, understand the value of discipline, develop confidence, and become civic leaders in our community. The theme of the Breakfast, New Voices, New Possibilities, highlights the power of the arts to unleash Boston urban youths' potential and creativity so they can take leadership in creating safe and vibrant communities.

"As the managing director of the Huntington Theatre Company for more than thirty years, Michael's work mirrors our dedication to cultivating Boston's rising artists and to using arts as a means for social change," says HSTF Executive Director Claudio Martinez. "Examples such as the Huntington's longstanding relationship with Pulitzer Prize winning playwright August Wilson, welcoming Melinda Lopez as the theatre's inaugural playwright-in-residence, and the award-winning partnership with the Codman Academy Charter Public School all showcase the theatre's significant contribution to Boston's artistic landscape and its commitment to embracing diverse artistic perspectives. Michael wholeheartedly exemplifies the spirit of the Inspiring Leader Award."

The Hyde Square Task Force Emerging Leader Award will also be presented at the Breakfast. Given annually to an HSTF alumnus who is making a difference at his school, in the community, or at work, this year's recipient is Eury Ortiz ('11), who is currently finishing his associates degree in graphic design at Bunker Hill Community College while dancing and touring internationally with the Boston-based professional dance company Mambo Revelation..

Champion and Leading Sponsors of the Breakfast are Bank of America, WilmerHale, Dana and Robert Smith, and the Trustees of the Huntington Theatre Company.

ABOUT MICHAEL MASO

Michael Maso has led the Huntington's administrative and financial operations since 1982, producing more than 190 plays in partnership with three artistic directors and leading the Huntington's ten-year drive to build the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, which opened in September 2004. In recognition of these efforts, Boston Herald honored him as 2004's Theatre Man of the Year.

From 1997 to 2005 Mr. Maso served as the president of the League of Resident Theatres (LORT), an association of 70 of the country's major not-for-profit professional theatres. In 2005, he was named as one of a dozen members of the inaugural class of the Barr Fellows Program.

He currently serves on the Boston Cultural Planning Steering Committee and previously served as a member of the board of directors of ArtsBoston; as a Board Member for Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national service organization for not-for-profit theatre; as a site visitor, panelist, and panel chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts; as chairman of the Cultural and Scientific Directors Group; as a member of Mayor Menino's Advisory Task Force for Cultural Planning; as a trustee of the Massachusetts Advocates for the Arts, Sciences, and Humanities (MAASH); as a board member of StageSource; as a member of the Boston Foundation's Cultural Task Force; and as program consultant for the Arts Leadership Initiative of Business Volunteers for the Arts.

He is the recipient of TCG's 2012 Theatre Practitioner Award, the Huntington's 2012 Wimberly Award, StageSource's 2010 Theatre Hero Award, the 2005 Commonwealth Award (the state's highest arts honor) in the category of Catalyst, and the 2000 Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence from the Boston Theatre Critics Association.

Prior to coming to the Huntington, Mr. Maso spent three seasons as the managing director of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. He has also served as the general manager of New York's Roundabout Theatre Company, business manager for PAF Playhouse on Long Island, and an independent arts management consultant based in Taos, New Mexico. Mr. Maso is an associate professor of theatre at Boston University.

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