Delaware Shakespeare announces its new leadership.
Delaware’s largest professional Shakespeare company adds two new leaders.
Mariah Ghant is named Artistic Director. Ghant comes from Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater where she was the artistic associate and literary manager. Ghant has creative credentials with DelShakes, playing Hippolyta/Titania in its recent production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the title role in Macbeth this past summer.
Robert Tombari is DelShakes’ new Managing Director. He was most recently the program director at the Goshen Theater in Indiana.
The two take over from outgoing leader David Stradley, who says the new dual leadership set-up is designed to strengthen attendance.
"Those two things will just happen naturally together to help that process back of rebuilding the audience after the pandemic and convincing people that coming out and having a shared experience is a great thing to do - don’t just rely on Netflix."
During Stradley’s tenure, the company added the Delaware Shakespeare Community Tour, and art programming throughout the state. He says the leadership split promises a new chapter.
"As the company has grown so much over the years, it really had reached an inflection point where the board and the organization was like ‘Wow, to really kind of continue and take the next step forward, we do need to split these two roles, so there’s somebody dedicated to the artistic and somebody dedicated to the management.’"
Ghant and Tombari are expected to announce plans for the upcoming Del Shakes’ season early in 2024.
Delaware Public Media' s arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
