Gladys Ramirez has some big shoes to fill, taking over for City Theater founder Susi Westfall, a fact Ramirez knows well.
“It’s big shoes to fill, everybody knows Susie, so very big shoes to fill,” says Ramirez. “Susie came to head a major cultural institution in Miami when that wasn’t a thing.” Ramirez adds, “When I graduated from the New World School of the Arts, there weren’t many women in leadership, much less Latina women. For me to be a Latina woman in this position now, I have a lot to live for. So I don’t want to let the community down.”
A fixture in Miami’s arts community theater, Ramirez realizes that so many members of the community are involved in City Theater in one way or another, and says, “Susie has been great about letting me do things mine and turn the chapter. into this new era of City Theatre. She has been very encouraging and we have worked well together.”
Westfall will remain on the City Theater board of directors, leaving the organization in more than capable hands. Ramirez’s life in theater began at the age of 10 when she was in a school production of Eni. But she wasn’t interested in playing the red-headed lead; she was a fan of another role.
“I saw Carol Burnett play Mrs. Hannigan and I auditioned and got the part in the school production. It was my first taste of theater in fifth grade, and that’s where a lot of my personal passion comes from,” says Ramirez.
She continued to perform in plays throughout high school, and her connection with City Theater began soon after she did six seasons of Shorts Gone Wild, the company’s LGBTQ series. She was also working with Fantasy Theater Factory.
“I was going wherever I could find work and I ended up getting hired for Shorts Gone Wild and I really enjoyed it. That experience allowed me to play a wide range of characters instead of being stereotyped to play the Latina girl,” says Ramirez. .
Margaret Ledford, the artistic director of the City Theatre, gave Ramirez her first opportunity to direct, leading to five or six other directing positions.
Prior to her role at City Theatre, she worked in community engagement and public programming at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami in the Design District and the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach, where she was director of audience engagement.
“The whole thing was a great learning experience. I got to see things from the other side, learn about organization and management as well as managing bigger budgets,” she says.
Then, like many people, the pandemic changed things for her and she felt she had to return to her first love: theatre.
“I felt like I had achieved a lot. I knew I wanted to do my own thing, then Margaret and I started talking. She mentioned that Susi was thinking about moving on and I came to the City Theater in October 2021 as general manager.” says Ramirez.
During that year, when Ramirez was general manager, she says, “Susi started looking at everything that was needed for the transition.”
Being in charge also comes with personal goals and missions, of which as CEO, Ramirez has many.
She wants to put “the city” in the City Theater and invest in the community. As the launch pad for Hollywood darling Oscar Isaac, who made a summer short as well as the careers of other playwrights, Ramirez knows they have nationwide support.
“My role now is the perfect storm, leveraging my community engagement and programming with a theater background and making what we produce and how we present it a huge investment,” she says.
This includes further developing their successful City Reads program, expanding it to other cities and counties and for other ages, eventually developing community partnerships.
“We want to use our platform to expand the conversation. These kinds of ideas are what we want to move forward with,” says Ramirez.
She also wants to see how City Theater’s programs fit together and how they’re reaching audiences from a developmental standpoint as well, and continue the momentum of Give Miami Day where “what we stood for was phenomenal for our size”, she. say.
Finally, “we need to work on the talent pool both onstage and behind the scenes—what can we do to bring the theater community together to have these resources, to have local people in these roles, and to find ways to collaborate with the community theater”, she says
Ramirez is up to the task, saying, “I’m entering the stage in my life where I want to put my head down and do this, take ownership.”
– Josie Gullisen, ArtburstMiami.com
