ATCA Members Kelundra Smith and Jerald Raymond Pierce receive promotions at TCG

ATCA Members Kelundra Smith and Jerald Raymond Pierce receive promotions at TCG

American Theatre magazine announced several Theatre Communications Group (TCG) staff promotions on September 10, 2024. The full article can be found here.

ATCA member Kelundra Smith was named director of publishing for TCG Books and American Theatre magazine., to organize the overall TCG publication structure, which currently includes American Theatre magazine, advertising (including ARTSEARCH), and independent publishing arm TCG Books.

“Kelundra has done an amazing job as managing editor for American Theatre, helping us to navigate the evolving theater landscape in a way that reflects our industry’s needs,” said TCG co-executive directors Emilya Cachapero and LaTeshia Ellerson in a joint statement. Prior to being named publisher, Smith served as managing editor of American Theatre. She is an Atlanta-based journalist, playwright, and storyteller with bylines in The New York Times, ESPN’s Andscape, and Food & Wine, among others. Her play The Wash is receiving a National New Play Network rolling world premiere.

Said Smith in a statement, “As a career journalist and a lover of dramatic literature, I feel honored that TCG trusts me to lead the publications department into this new era. My hope is to build on the legacies of my predecessors by amplifying the work of our playwrights and authors, creating new opportunities for writers from marginalized communities, and being more intentional about looking at plays across the entire country.”

ATCA member Jerald Raymond Pierce, formerly the American Theatre‘s Chicago editor, has been named managing editor. Pierce reviews for the Chicago Tribune, wrote for The Seattle Times, and served as Chicago correspondent for American Theatre.

Said Pierce in a statement, “I feel incredibly lucky, as a former actor, stage manager, and general theater artist, to have been able to call American Theatre my journalistic home for the majority of my career. Now, to have an opportunity to help steward a magazine that covers an industry that has supported me for so many years, I can’t express the honor I feel. I look forward to continuing the magazine’s decades-long tradition of covering theater around the country, especially as I get to do so from my home base in Chicago, and bringing American Theatre in print to theater makers and theater leaders around the country.”