Arts Agenda - Leaving the stage

It’s no joke. Sean Daniels, artistic director of Dad’s Garage Theatre, has stepped down to accept a new position as resident director and associate artistic director of San Francisco’s California Shakespeare Theater.

As a performer, director and community leader, Daniels, 31, proved a tireless advocate for new plays, improv comedy and original ways to reach young audiences. Daniels and seven classmates from Florida State University founded Dad’s Garage Theatre in June 1995, taking over an Inman Park playhouse vacated by Actor’s Express upon its move to the King Plow Arts Center.

Daniels officially steps down in August, and his departure promises to diminish the vitality of the Atlanta theater scene. Deborah Marshall, president of the Dad’s Garage board of directors, says that the theater will implement a national search for Daniels’ replacement and hopes to find a person by the beginning of the 2004-05 season in September.

Daniels directed Cal Shakes’ current show, a highly praised, puppet-heavy version of Comedy of Errors, and on the play’s opening night, the theater management offered him the position. Daniels calls it “the toughest job in the world to turn down.” Daniels will direct one play a season for the theater and take over the company’s “New Plays, New Communities” program, while having the freedom to direct plays at other theaters around the country.

The news, however sad, doesn’t exactly come as a shock. Daniels and Dad’s Garage both have developed a national reputation for attracting theater-goers in the 20s and 30s age range. In 2000, American Theatre magazine named Daniels one of 15 “up-and-coming” theater professionals under the age of 30. Daniels has worked with both the Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, N.Y., and the California Shakespeare Theater to provide infusions of new blood. Like a teenager growing up and moving out of his parents’ house, it was only a matter of time until a bigger organization wooed Daniels to leave Dad’s.