Ralph Remington

Ralph Remington serves as the Director for Musical Theater and Theater at the National Endowment for the Arts. He is responsible for the grantmaking processes for theater and musical theater, developing partnerships to advance the theater field as a whole, and leading large-scale theater projects such as the NEA's New Play Development Program. Most recently, Mr. Remington was a city council member of the City of Minneapolis, representing Ward 10 from 2006 through 2009. From 2001-02, Mr. Remington served as artistic associate and director of community engagement with Arena Stage, overseeing all of the company's outreach and education programs and a staff of 19. While at Arena, he led the Living Stage Theater Company, created and toured a theater movement piece called America: Work in Progress, and directed Dael Orlandersmith's critically acclaimed The Gimmick. In the spring of 2002, Mr. Remington directed a well-received production of Amiri Baraka's Dutchman at the Source Theater in Washington. From October 2000 to May 2001, he was the executive director of the Media Artists Resource Center in St. Paul where he was responsible for fundraising and strategic planning and engineered a successful merger with the Independent Feature Project. In 1992, Mr. Remington founded Pillsbury House Theatre out of the settlement house tradition of community collaboration. Through1999, he served as Pillsbury's producing artistic director, managing a $500,000 budget. He also selected and oversaw a four-to-six play annual series; founded Breaking Ice, a touring multiracial, socio-political improv company for youth and adults; and created the Chicago Avenue Project where children write and perform original plays with professional actors. The program received a Coming Up Taller award in 2005. Presented by the First Lady on behalf of the President's Committee for the Arts and Humanities, Coming Up Taller awards recognize outstanding community arts and humanities programs that celebrate the creativity of America's young people. He received his bachelor of fine arts degree in drama from Howard University in 1984.