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Portland Center Stage is losing one of its founding mothers. The company has announced that managing director Cynthia Fuhrman, who helped start PCS in 1988, is leaving her post.
“I’m profoundly grateful for my partnership and deep collaboration with Cynthia in my first few—wildly eventful—years at PCS,” artistic director Marissa Wolf said in a press release. “She’s the best damn co-pilot I could have asked for, and I’ve learned so much from her generous, innovative leadership that I will carry with me forever.”
Management shakeups may be de rigueur in the arts world, but Fuhrman has been an extraordinarily influential force at PCS since its inception, when it was the Portland branch of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
In 1994, Fuhrman oversaw PCS’s tradition to independent organization. She ultimately left the company but returned in a variety of roles, including director of marketing and chief managing officer. In 2017, she was named manager director.
“It can be hard to separate the history of PCS from Cynthia, as she has been a significant force in the growth and success of the company,” said PCS board chair Stacey Caldwell Roberts. “A legacy of that success is the strong management team she has helped build at the theater.”
Fuhrman will leave PCS in April. She has accepted the position of vice president of executive search at Tom O’Connor Consulting Group, a New York City-based arts consulting firm.
“It has been a great joy in my life to have had such a wonderful journey with Portland Center Stage over so many years,” said Fuhrman. “The past four years working with Marissa have been a gift, and I could not have asked for a better partner with whom to navigate the COVID impacts on our company. I have every confidence that PCS will continue to thrive and be a leader in the exciting national change happening in the theater industry under her vision.”