William B. Conner Jr. has been named president and chief executive officer of CAPA, the Columbus, Ohio-based arts presenter that operates the Chicago Theatre.
Currently president of Clear Channel Entertainment–Boston, and formerly an executive with the defunct Toronto-based theater producer Livent, Conner, 50, replaces Douglas F. Kridler, who left CAPA for a job with the Columbus Foundation.
Under Kridler, CAPA emphasized dance and music and regarded theater as a small part of its mission. But Conner is very much a creature of the commercial American theater who spent the early part of his career in Chicago.
In 1985 and 1986 Conner was a producer of the Chicago International Theatre Festival, which is defunct. He also was managing director of Court Theatre from 1981 to ’85. In 1980 and ’81 he ran the St. Nicholas Theatre Company on the North Side. At Livent he was largely responsible for the long-running production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”
“I’m an odd commodity,” Conner said. “In the non-profit world, I’ve been seen as commercial. In the commercial world, I tend to be seen as a non-profit guy. So working with an entrepreneurial non-profit like CAPA is just a great fit for me.”
