Associate Producers Lamar Perry and Kim Montelibano Heil

LAMAR PERRY PROMOTED TO ROLE OF ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
AND WILL BE JOINED BY KIM MONTELIBANO HEIL

SAN DIEGO (May 26, 2021)—The Old Globe’s Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Barry Edelstein today announced the appointments of Lamar Perry and Kim Montelibano Heil as Associate Producers. These new positions will be central to the Globe’s artistic producing operation. Heil returns to the Globe, where she previously worked in the Artistic Department and then served as Education Programs Manager, and she joins the recently promoted Perry, who has been at the Globe since 2018. Perry will produce a number of upcoming projects, both digital and live, even as he continues his work in new play development and outreach to Globe-affiliated playwrights and artists around the country. Heil will also produce and support additional sets of shows at the Globe. These appointments will result in a powerful and effective new approach to the way the Globe shepherds artistic work through every phase of the production process across all platforms. Perry has begun work in this new capacity, and Heil will begin on June 1.

”As the Globe resumes live performance, we’ve been examining our internal systems and processes so we can strengthen every aspect of the way we do things,” said Edelstein. “Promoting Lamar to Associate Producer and bringing Kim back to the Globe in that position makes huge sense and will greatly enhance our capacity and our support of the artists who work here. Lamar is a gracious and warm presence, a deep thinker, a resourceful problem solver, and a voice of conscience in our ongoing social justice work. Kim is a leading figure in our local theatre scene and will bring a range of skill sets and a rich sensibility to our artistic operations. I’m proud and pleased to have these talented and passionate theatre makers in key positions at our theatre. They make the Globe better.”

Perry said, “During this moment of shutdown, I’ve committed to using the language of ‘inviting folks to imagination’ as we consider the future of the American theatre, one that exists outside of the harm and violence that our traditional systems have caused. I’m grateful to be surrounded by a team here at The Old Globe that has made space for me to be both unapologetically Black and queer while aiding in our collective reimagination, and I’m honored to accept this promotion to Associate Producer.”

“I’m thrilled to return to The Old Globe, where I began my San Diego theatre career back in 2004,” said Heil. “The Globe has long been an artistic home, where I grew as a theatre worker and was inspired by mentors like Craig Noel, Jack O’Brien, and Jerry Patch. It’s my honor to join the Globe family once again as Associate Producer, and I look forward to collaborating with Barry Edelstein and his incredible staff to make important and transformative theatre for San Diego.”

Lamar Perry (he/him/his) is a Queer Black director, producer, and writer originally from Connecticut. In addition to working as a freelance director and educator, he currently serves as Associate Producer at the Tony Award–winning theatre The Old Globe, having formerly served as Producing Associate at Classical Theatre of Harlem. Perry recently worked as the associate director on Shirley Graham Du Bois’s I Gotta Home (Roundabout Theatre Company’s The Refocus Project). He debuted his new class Queering the Canon, a workshop on approaching adaptation through the lens of cultural transposition, at UC San Diego this spring. Currently he is directing a workshop of Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop with the UC Irvine graduate acting program. His recent directing projects include Aurin Squire’s Run/Fire (Cygnet Theatre Company/The Finish Line commission), Dea Hurston’s In Sickness and in Health as a part of an An Evening with the San Diego Black Artist Collective (The Old Globe’s Powers New Voices Festival, which Perry also produced), and the audio plays Punchbowl Spaces and The Family Sound (Blindspot Collective/La Jolla Playhouse). Prior to shutdown he also served as assistant director, under longtime friend/mentor Steve H. Broadnax III, on the world premiere of Katori Hall’s The Hot Wing King (Signature Theatre). Perry is the creator, writer, producer, and co-host of both of the Globe’s podcasts Cocktails with the Canon and Gather Round!, which are available on Apple Podcasts, Google, and Spotify. Later this fall he will reprise his role as guest artist at UC San Diego, where he will return to teach and direct first year M.F.A. acting candidates in a devised-theatre class. He is a 2020–2021 Roundabout Directors Group member and a 2020 National Alliance for Musical Theatre Observer. Perry has developed, directed, or assisted on work at Diversionary Theatre’s Spark Festival, UC San Diego’s Wagner New Play Festival, Chautauqua Theater Company, San Diego Repertory Theatre, The Juilliard School, Classical Theatre of Harlem, and St. John’s University. Having recently been featured in American Theatre magazine’s “Roll Call: People to Watch,” he is an alumnus of Schusterman Family Foundation’s REALITY Storytellers program (2019) and is a member of For(bes) The Culture. Perry holds a bachelor of science from St. John’s University and is an alumnus of both The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and Public Allies Connecticut (AmeriCorps).

Kim Montelibano Heil, CSA worked at The Old Globe from 2004 to 2013 during the tenures of Craig Noel, Jack O’Brien, and Jerry Patch. She served most recently as Associate Producer for San Diego Repertory Theatre and as Education Director at San Diego Junior Theatre. Currently she works as Casting Director for San Diego REP and as a consultant to San Diego State University’s New Musical Initiative. Her recent casting credits include the new musical adaptation of Farewell My Concubine by Jason Robert Brown and Kenneth Lin, and The Secret Club,a short film by actress Kathy Najimy. Prior to working in San Diego, Heil was an associate for Broadway producer Arielle Tepper, and she also served as Associate Producer/Dramaturg for Second Generation Theatre’s In the Works reading series, where she produced workshops of plays by emerging Asian American playwrights. She currently serves on the board of the National New Play Network and has also served on the boards of Diversionary Theatre and Blindspot Collective. Heil recently completed her term as an inaugural Ambassador for the newly formed San Diego Performing Arts League’s Theatre Alliance. As a passionate advocate of equity, diversity, and inclusion, Heil founded The Nuance on Instagram (@thenuance2020), where she interviews artists about their financial experiences in order to dispel the myth of the “starving artist.” Heil holds an M.A. in Performance Studies from New York University.

The Tony Award–winning The Old Globe is one of the country’s leading professional not-for-profit regional theatres. Now in its 86th year, the Globe is San Diego’s flagship performing arts institution, and it serves a vibrant community with theatre as a public good. Under the leadership of Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Barry Edelstein and the Audrey S. Geisel Managing Director Timothy J. Shields, The Old Globe produces a year-round season of 16 productions of classic, contemporary, and new works on its three Balboa Park stages, including its internationally renowned Shakespeare Festival. More than 250,000 people annually attend Globe productions and participate in the theatre’s artistic and arts engagement programs. Its nationally prominent Arts Engagement Department provides an array of participatory programs that make theatre matter to more people in neighborhoods throughout the region. Humanities programs at the Globe and around the city broaden the community’s understanding of theatre art in all its forms. The Globe also boasts a range of new play development programs with professional and community-based writers, as well as the renowned The Old Globe and University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theatre Program. Numerous world premieres—such as 2014 Tony Award winner for Best Musical A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Bright Star, The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas!—have been developed at The Old Globe and have gone on to highly successful runs on Broadway and at regional theatres across the country.

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