Steppenwolf’s New Business Boss
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After graduating from Notre Dame, Gennaro worked as an actor, appearing in various off-Broadway productions and national touring companies of shows as disparate as Godspell and Julius Caesar. He eventually turned from acting to law, earning a law degree from Fordham University and practicing as an entertainment attorney before moving into arts administration. After a couple years as general manager of a small regional theater company in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Gennaro became managing director at Ford’s Theatre, the site of Lincoln’s assassination and still one of D.C.’s preeminent theaters, where he stayed for four years. According to Ford’s producing artistic director Frankie Hewitt, “Michael was a very stabilizing influence here, and he watched the money like crazy.”
Steppenwolf’s new managing director claims his decision to leave the Pennsylvania Ballet wasn’t prompted by dissatisfaction with his position there, but rather by the mystique surrounding the company he’s set to join. “The Steppenwolf name always meant a lot to someone who had been an actor,” says Gennaro. “I have followed the company since its beginning.” Pennsylvania Ballet board chairman Milton Rock says he’s sorry to see Gennaro go, especially before the three-year plan they’d devised to put the ballet company back on sound financial footing could be fully implemented. “Gennaro was smart, and he knew something about an arts organization,” Rock says.
One source close to the New York production attributed the show’s short run to the lukewarm reception it got from critics, while some observers believe the show’s director and cast weren’t ideally suited to the material. Others point to the choice of an off-Broadway theater to house the production, a first for a Neil Simon play and a decision that producer Manny Azenberg said was made to circumvent the high cost of mounting plays on Broadway. But all of Simon’s fans apparently weren’t ready to follow him off-Broadway. Azenberg brought London Suite in for $650,000, but managed to recoup only 65 percent of the show’s capitalization.
