S2: Ep 17: Jonathan Moscone and Yerba Buena Center For the Arts
Season 2 episode 17: Jonathan Moscone and YBCA
Jonathan Moscone is a champion of arts and activism. A long-time theater director and current Chief Producer at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), he has devoted his career to interweaving arts organizations with civic life and community in an impactful way. With his Civic Engagement practice at YBCA, Moscone has created youth fellowships, artist residencies in the City’s public schools, programs to help artists lead financially sustainable lives, and ballot measures to restore city funding to arts and homeless family services. He also serves on numerous community boards, such as the Alice Waters’ Edible Schoolyard Project, the Homeless Prenatal Program, and leads the San Francisco Grants for the Arts advisory panel.
Moscone’s gratifying career would not be complete without his extensive experience in theater production. Before his time at YBCA, Jonathan was the Artistic Director of the California Shakespeare Theater in Berkeley and Orinda for 16 years. He works throughout the Bay Area as a freelance director, putting on shows like The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby for CalShakes in 2005, Bruce Norris’ Clybourne Park for the American Conservatory Theater (ACT) in 2011, and Candida (2011), for which he won the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Award as Best Director of the year. In 2009, Moscone received the inaugural Zelda Fichandler Award from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation for his transformative work in theater. He is also an adjunct faculty member at the ACT’s Masters of Fine Arts Program.
All successes aside, Jonathan Moscone is one of the kindest people one has the privilege of meeting. He is smart, funny, and genuinely himself in any setting. His down to earth temperament has not only made him an affable director, but a beloved leader in his community. Artists contribute so much to a community’s vitality, and through YBCA, Moscone is utilizing his talents and passions to lead the way in Bay Area arts activism.
For more information about Jonathan Moscone, please visit: https://ybca.org/person/jonathan-moscone/
Meet Jonathan Moscone!
