The legendary Karamu House Theater, the oldest Black producing theater in the country with 110 years in Cleveland’s Fairfax neighborhood, is now in the middle of a leadership transition and preparing for its next chapter.
Earlier this year, Tony Sias, who has led the institution as president and CEO since 2015, stepped into the role of artistic director. Aseelah Shareef, the former chief operating officer, is now serving as interim president and CEO. And the board is preparing to launch a national search for Karamu’s next permanent leader.
To understand where Karamu is headed, it helps to look at where it’s been.
A decade of rebuilding the theater
Sias arrived at Karamu in October 2015 during a period of decline that included a revoked nonprofit tax status, the closing of several programs, and the elimination of about 15 positions, That included an artistic director position whose responsibilities were folded into Sias’ role.
Over the following decade, Sias made facility investment his top priority. He knew Cleveland’s theater market was too competitive for Karamu not to have a space that could stand next to any other house in the region.
“Cleveland is a highly competitive theater market, and it was clear we needed to invest in the facility so we could be competitive and create a state-of-the-art theater in the heart of the Fairfax community,” Sias said. “That became my number one priority,”
That work culminated in a renovation exceeding $10 million, completed with zero debt. Shareef and Board Chair Tamara Horne both point to that renovation as a marker of the institution’s stability.
“A facility of the caliber Karamu has, with zero debt, is a testament to the leadership over the last 10 years,” Horne said.
State-of-the-art theater
Shareef joined Karamu just two weeks after Sias, in October 2015, and the two describe themselves as partners in that decade of rebuilding. During that time, Sias pushed to keep investing in Karamu’s artistic product even while the organization was righting itself financially. Now, almost 11 years in, Shareef is stepping into the interim CEO seat. She is also continuing to manage day-to-day operations while taking on the added work of executing Karamu’s strategic vision and business plan. Asked directly whether she’d want the permanent role, she didn’t shy away from the question. She said she considers every day in the interim seat an audition for the job and that she isn’t ruling herself out.
Sias, meanwhile, is using the shift back to a solely artistic role to focus on a few specific goals:
- building a real pipeline for developing new plays,
- creating professional-development opportunities and master classes for working artists, and
- rethinking what K-12 arts education at Karamu can look like beyond the standard rotation of dance, acting and vocal classes.
“For the majority of the [last] 10 years, I served in both worlds, artistic and presidency,” Sias said. “Now that I am solely in the artistic lane, there are additional systems that I am excited to further develop.”
Visiting theaters across the country
The search itself is still in its early stages. Horne, who has led the board since last July after several years as a member, said the board is considering what Karamu’s next chapter should look like. They are considering not just the leadership role, but the institution’s broader strategic direction. Rather than launch straight into another capital campaign, the board decided this moment called for strengthening operations and fundraising around the new theater space.
“One of the big things that we’re doing is a national scan of theaters across the country to really understand what the new landscape is today for a theater similar to Karamu,” Horne said. “We’re going to actually go visit those theaters to see what best practices are — and that, coupled with an environmental scan of Cleveland, will lay the foundation for what skill sets are required for [our next] leader.”
The search for the next leader
That thinking is shaping how the search is unfolding. The board hasn’t yet settled on a search firm, though conversations are underway. A decision is expected sometime in the fourth quarter of this year. Specific qualifications and “non-negotiables” for candidates, both Horne and Shareef agree, will come once a firm is in place. Shareef noted that searches like this typically take six to nine months once they formally begin.
Both Horne and Shareef were careful to note that community and stakeholder input — from Fairfax neighbors to program participants to funders across individual donors, corporations, government and foundations — will factor into shaping what the board is looking for. And whatever changes come, both were emphatic that Karamu’s identity as a professional producing theater is not up for negotiation.
In the meantime, Shareef and Sias said the message to the community is simple: This is a moment of pride, not uncertainty.
“Change is inevitable, and we have to embrace it,” Sias said. “We’ve hit some incredible milestones. I’m committed to the next leader, and I’m honored to have served 10 years.”
