Theater News

Dallas Summer Musicals lands impressive new president after nationwide search

Don't let his name fool you: Kenneth T. Novice sounds extremely qualified to be the next president of Dallas Summer Musicals. The arts organization, which unexpectedly fired longtime leader Michael Jenkins in May 2016, announced the hiring of Novice following a 10-month nationwide search.

Novice was previously based in California, where he had served as the managing director of both the Geffen Playhouse and Pasadena Playhouse. He's also worked at the Tony Award-winning Old Globe in San Diego and Circle Repertory Theatre in New York. For California State University Long Beach's Theatre Management MFA/MBA program, Novice served as Head of Theatre Management, designing curriculum and teaching courses.

"Ken has an engaging personality, as well as a broad vision of where we can and should go as an organization," says Ted Munselle, DSM board chair, in a release. "His ability to think outside of the box will help keep DSM relevant and exciting for future generations of arts patrons. We sincerely believe that Ken is the best person to take us forward into our next 77 years, continuing and expanding DSM’s great legacy, while ensuring DSM’s financial and artistic success in the future."

Novice will assume the position on May 1 and continue the work that DSM interim managing director David Hyslop started last year on "instilling stability and sustainability for the organization," according to the release.

That's good, because the plan has already proven impressive. After several lackluster seasons, Dallas Summer Musicals revealed a hot lineup of current Broadway hits, including Waitress, The Color Purple, On Your Feet!, and School of Rock. Longtime favorites Les Miserables, Irving Berlin's White Christmas, and Disney's The Lion King are also on the schedule, along with Love Never Dies, the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera.

But the real clincher was the two shows announced for the 2018-19 season: Disney's Aladdin and the unstoppable smash Hamilton. In order to guarantee tickets to these coveted musicals, patrons are required to become season subscribers this year. Smart, smart, smart.

"Dallas Summer Musicals has been the crown jewel of the Dallas arts community for decades; the opportunity to lead this venerable company into the future with new partner Broadway Across America and the dedicated board and staff is an honor," says Novice. "I look forward to engaging deeply with the Dallas community, building community and business partnerships, and deepening the positive impact that the best of Broadway can have on young people through education and outreach initiatives."

Dallas Summer Musicals will bring Hamilton to town with the 2018-19 season.

Photo by Joan Marcus

Dallas Summer Musicals will bring Hamilton to town with the 2018-19 season.

theater

GIFTED AND TALENTED

SMU historian Ariel Ron wins prestigious $800k MacArthur genius grant

Photo courtesy of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

SMU historian Ariel Ron will receive $800,000 — no strings attached.

Three Texans have been named 2026 MacArthur Fellows, one of the most prestigious honors in the U.S. for artists, scientists, and scholars. Among them is Dallas historian and author Ariel Ron, who directs the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University.

San Antonio's Vincent Valdez and San Marcos-based anthropologist Kate Spradley were also on the 2026 list of 20 recipients of the “genius grants” given by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Each fellow will receive $800,000 over five years, with no strings attached.

Individuals do not apply for the honor. The grants are awarded via a confidential, multi-step process managed by the foundation, and many recipients express surprise that they were considered for the fellowship.

“While individuals will have a track record of significant achievement, the fellowship is not a lifetime achievement award — it is an investment in a person's originality, insight, and potential,” wrote MacArthur on its website. “The Fellows Program is proactively working to foster and enable innovative, imaginative, and ground-breaking ideas, thinking, and strategies.”

Ron's research focuses on how Northern agriculture shaped economic growth and federal power in 19th-century America. Grassroots Leviathan: Agricultural Reform and the Rural North in the Slaveholding Republic, his 2020 book, challenges the notion of an industrial North versus an agrarian South.

"My approach is to identify and look carefully at things that everyone knows to be important but are somehow too obvious-seeming to look at closely," Ron says in a video on the MacArthur Foundation's website. "If you scratch the surface a little bit, you discover that there are a lot of interesting things that might change the way we think about bigger questions."

Valdez, who splits his time between San Antonio and Houston, is known for large, hyperrealistic drawings and paintings of Mexican American life. More recently, he has turned his focus to broader sociopolitical issues in works like The Strangest Fruit, a series of paintings confronting the lynching of Latinos.

At Texas State University in San Marcos, forensic anthropologist Spradley founded Operation Identification in 2013 — a program that identifies and repatriates the remains of migrants who died along the Texas-Mexico border. She is also a cofounder of the Forensic Border Coalition, which pushes for policy changes at the local and national levels. Spradley is the school’s first MacArthur Fellow.

A full list of the 2026 MacArthur Fellows can be found online.

arts grants macarthur grants southern methodist university visual arts