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When Dámaso Rodríguez stepped down as artistic director of Artists Repertory Theatre, Portland playgoers winced. During his nine-year tenure at Artists Rep, Rodríguez presided over an explosion of exhilarating productions, including Caught, Everybody, La Ruta and Magellanica.
His 2021 departure amid the company’s costly renovation was a blow softened by the fact that he would remain in the Portland theater community as a vice president at Arts Consulting Group, which provides executive-search and strategic-planning services for arts and culture organizations.
Now, Rodríguez is returning to the role of artistic director...just not in Portland. As of now, he is the artistic director of Seattle Repertory Theatre, where he will oversee a new season already planned by his predecessor, Braden Abraham.
“In selecting Dámaso, the Rep not only benefits from his impressive record of creative productions but also his commitment to engaging the full Seattle community in ‘theatre at the heart of public life,’” said Jarvis Bowers, co-chair of the Seattle Rep board of directors’ search committee, in a statement.
Rodríguez may not entirely disappear from the Portland theater scene; currently, he’s still listed as the director of The Great Divide, a long-in-the-works production of E.M. Lewis’ play inspired by the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
In an interview with American Theatre, Rodríguez, who invariably brought an epic-scale sensibility to his work at Artists Rep, expressed a desire to bring the same style to Seattle.
“Plays have gotten smaller and smaller, and there’s a connection, I think, between making smaller plays and the diminishing of the audience,” he said. “Power and scale and spectacle can really move people. We’ve surrendered the power of many bodies and big stories on the stage.”