Fountain Theatre Leadership Transition

Raymond O. Caldwell selected to succeed Stephen Sachs as artistic director of Fountain Theatre

The Fountain Theatre hosted a gala event Saturday night, November 16, at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel to celebrate the legacy of retiring founding artistic director Stephen Sachs, during which the board of directors announced the selection of Raymond O. Caldwell as Sachs’ successor.

“After a deep, nationwide search, the board is confident that Mr. Caldwell is the leader who will burnish the Fountain’s traditions and bring the creative and innovative energy needed to ensure a vibrant future,” stated board chair Dorothy Wolpert. “We congratulate him and eagerly anticipate a thrilling partnership.”

Caldwell’s appointment follows a national search led by an internal search committee comprised of members of the Fountain Theatre’s board of directors. The Fountain engaged Artistic Logistics to assist with the ten-month search, application, and hiring process. Artistic Logistics partners with non-profit arts organizations to facilitate strategic planning, implement structural changes and leadership succession grounded in an organization’s values.

Sachs will stay on through March 31 to assist Caldwell in the transition. Caldwell will assume duties as sole artistic director on April 1, the anniversary of the Fountain’s founding by Sachs and the late Deborah Culver Lawlor.

“As an admirer of the work the Fountain Theatre has committed to for the past 34 years, I’m deeply honored and humbled to have been chosen to be the next artistic director,” said Caldwell. “I’m excited to continue creating work that celebrates Los Angeles’ incredible diversity, asks vital questions, provokes new ideas, and inspires civic engagement and action. It’s my belief that community-driven spaces like the Fountain Theatre are vital as we confront the greatest pandemic of our times: loneliness.”

Now living in Los Angeles, Caldwell has spent the last 16 years in Washington, DC as a director, writer, producer, and educator. He is the 2023 SDCF Zelda Fichandler Award recipient for his creativity and deep investments in the community. He has received Helen Hayes awards for directing, writing, and producing and was a regular recipient of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Artist Fellowship.

His most recent directing credits include Romeo & Juliet at Folger Shakespeare Library, Look Both Ways at The Kennedy Center, Poetry for the People at Theater Alliance, Skeleton Crew at The Contemporary Theatre of Ohio, and Passing Strange at Signature Theatre. He has written and adapted new works for Theater Alliance and the Kennedy Center, including Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks from the book by 2024 MacArthur recipient Jason Reynolds. A national tour is planned for early 2025. Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience, which he created alongside renowned composer Adrienne Torf, received the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Adaptation.

Caldwell was the artistic director at Washington DC’s Theater Alliance for six seasons, where he directed, developed, and produced socially conscious, thought-provoking programming that transformed the region and had global impact. Under his leadership, Theater Alliance was chosen to lead an American Arts Envoy with the US Department of State. He devised and directed the new work, A Global I.D.E.A., with 23 artists and activists from Bangladesh, Nepal, India, and the U.S. that explores what “Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility” mean on the global stage. He’s developed and led similar international programming promoting cultural preservation, LGTBQIA+ rights, disability advocacy, peacebuilding, and countering violent extremism, human trafficking, and gender-based violence. In addition to his international work as an educator, Raymond was a faculty member and resident director at Howard University’s Department of Theatre Arts. He was part of the National Arts Strategy Executive Leadership group at Harvard, holds an MFA in Acting/New Play Development from Ohio State University, and a BFA in Acting from the University of Florida.

The Fountain Theatre creates, develops, and produces new plays that bring to life the urgent social, political, and cultural issues of our time, reflecting the vibrant diversity of Los Angeles and the nation. Its educational outreach programs inspire young people to become engaged citizens and leaders of tomorrow. The L.A. City Council commended the Fountain for “achieving a position of leadership in the Los Angeles theatre community… producing meaningful new plays of social and political importance that enrich the lives of the citizens of Los Angeles.” The Fountain is the recipient of the Los Angeles Drama Critic Circle’s Margaret Harford Award for sustained excellence in theater, presented for “outstanding productions of meaningful new plays and first-class performances spanning three decades.” Los Angeles Times theater critic Charles McNulty hailed the Fountain, stating, “No L.A. theater has done a better job of asking us to reexamine our lives through the lens of acute contemporary drama.” The Fountain Theatre’s most recent world premiere, Fatherland, conceived and directed by Sachs, just closed an off-Broadway run at Manhattan Theatre Club (New York City Center) with the original cast, where it received rave reviews as well as national and international coverage including from The New York Times, MSNBC, NPR and PBS.