La Jolla Playhouse Names Eric Keen-Louie Producing Director

La Jolla Playhouse announces the appointment of Eric Keen-Louie as Producing Director. Keen-Louie will take over the reins producing the Playhouse's subscription season from Associate Artistic Director Jaime Castañeda, who will be departing the Playhouse next month to pursue freelance directing projects for theatre and television in Los Angeles.

"Over the past four years, Jaime has been a wonderful artistic collaborator and a catalyst for new voices at the Playhouse. His innovative productions of Guards at the Taj, Tiger Style!, At the Old Place, and most recently Seize the King, have electrified audiences, and we are honored to have experienced his bold aesthetic and strong administrative leadership," noted Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley. "At the same time, we are delighted to bring Eric Keen-Louie on board. Eric brings a wealth of producing and arts engagement experience from his prior positions at The Old Globe and The Public Theatre, and we look forward to welcoming him to the Playhouse family."

Eric Keen-Louie joins the Playhouse after seven years at The Old Globe, where he started as Associate Producer and later became Associate Artistic Director. At the Globe, he helped guide nearly fifty productions, eleven of which moved to Broadway or off-Broadway, including Bright Star, Allegiance and the Tony Award-winning A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. He co-created the theater's new play development initiative The Powers New Voices Festival and helped launch the arts engagement programs Community Voices and Globe for All. Keen-Louie spent three years at The Public Theater as the Assistant to the Associate Producer and then Director of Special Projects, working on world premieres by Stephen Sondheim, Richard Nelson and Suzan-Lori Parks, as well as the Broadway revival of Hair and the creation of The Mobile Unit. Independently, he produced Kingdom and the GLAAD Media Award-winning when last we flew. He also assisted Broadway producer Margo Lion on Hairspray and Caroline, or Change. He is a recipient of The Edward & Sally Van Lier Arts Fellowship for Producing, an alumnus of American Express' Leadership Academy, and served on NAMT's Festival Committee and New Works Committee. He graduated with a B.A. in Dramatic Literature from New York University and an M.F.A. in Theatre Management and Producing from Columbia University, where he received a Dean's fellowship. He shares his commute to La Jolla with his husband Anthony Keen-Louie, an administrator in student affairs at UC San Diego.

La Jolla Playhouse is a place where artists and audiences come together to create what's new and next in the American theatre, from Tony Award-winning productions, to imaginative programs for young audiences, to interactive experiences outside our theatre walls. Currently led by 2017 Tony Award-winning Artistic Director Christopher Ashley and Managing Director Debby Buchholz, the Playhouse was founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer. Playhouse artists and audiences have taken part in the development of new plays and musicals, including mounting 95 world premieres, commissioning 50 new works, and sending 32 productions to Broadway, among them the currently-running hit musicals Come From Away and SUMMER: The Donna Summer Musical - garnering a total of 38 Tony Awards, including the 1993 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre.