Culture & Community | International Festival of Arts & Ideas | Arts & Culture
Top: Rev. Kevin Ewing, former interim director at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, at a 30th anniversary gala last year. In a press release in late December, he called the temporary role “one of the greatest honors of my career." Judy Rosenthal File Photo. Bottom: Members of the junkyard orchestra SQUONK at the 2025 Festival on the New Haven Green. Claire Armstrong & Neena Hodgins File Photo.
The International Festival of Arts & Ideas has announced the departure of its interim director—three months after the fact—and launch of a national search to find its next nonprofit leader. As that process begins, a transition team of board and staff members has stepped up to be the bridge to the summer 2026 season.
That news came from the Festival late last month, in a press release and series of follow-up interviews with board co-chairs Annie Lin and Risë Nelson and Managing Director Melissa Huber. As the leadership search begins this year, they and staff have begun mapping out festival programming, from the National Endowment for the Arts’ “Big Read” to fine and performing arts events on the New Haven Green.
Nelson declined to comment on the search firm that the Festival has hired, but did say that “they specialize in values-aligned leadership" and have worked closely with the organization before. Previously, Arts & Ideas worked with Arts Consulting Group to find Executive Director Shelley Quiala, who was selected after an international search in early 2020 and remained in the position through August 2024.
“We are in an environment where we [arts organizations] don't always get to enjoy a slow process,” Lin said in a phone call just before the Christmas holiday. “We are seeing a lot of our fellow organizations being thrown into crisis mode, and I think we are in a very privileged position. We are so excited to be looking for our next executive director, and excited to see where that's gonna go.”
“The Festival is evolving with purpose, and I'm excited by what we will create next,” said Roslyn Milstein Meyer, who in 1995 co-founded Arts & Ideas with Anne Tyler Calabresi and the late Jean Handley. “The future depends on imagination, inclusion, and courage, and that's exactly what this next chapter represents. Our path forward is one of deepened connection to one another and renewed belief in the power of the arts. We're looking ahead, ready to spark wonder and delight, to share the joy of artistic expression with more people than ever before.”
Shelley Quiala, Carlah Esdaile Bragg, Dr. Pamela Monk Kelley and Sophie Edelstein at the Hill Neighborhood Festival in 2024. Alisha Martindale File Photo.
It marks the latest step in over a year of transition for the Festival, which announced in August 2024 that Quiala would be stepping down after four years in the role. At that time, arts champion and then-Board Chair Rev. Kevin Ewing came in as interim director, shepherding the summertime arts festival through its 30th season and pearl-festooned gala that raised over $35,000 in a single evening.
Even amidst scaled-back programming, federal funding cuts, and the loss of longtime and beloved staff member Denise Santisteban, the organization persevered, with celebrations of community that ranged from circus troupes and orchestral magic on the New Haven Green to storytelling at the Mary Wade Home to chances to cuddle cockroaches at the New Haven Agricultural Station.
Only after it was over did Ewing and the board formally part ways; Lin confirmed that his last day at the Festival was Sept. 30. The Festival did not announce his departure until almost three months later, on Dec. 22. Quiala, who had for months remained onboard in an advisory capacity, is also no longer working for the festival.
“As I step away, I do so filled with gratitude and pride for the artists, staff, and supporters who make this Festival thrive," Ewing said. "We can create something truly impactful through resilience, creativity, and community. Our work proves that connection is the way to break through the forces that seek to divide us."
Since that time, members of both the Festival’s staff and board of directors have worked together to form an “Interim Management Team” that meets biweekly “to provide collaborative leadership” and ensure continuity of programming, Nelson said. The board has also brought on Interim Program Lead Thérèse LaGamma, a Boston-based cultural producer who most recently served as the director of public programs and social impact at The John F. Kennedy Center.
In part, the team is also working to make sure that the organization remains financially stable at a time when federal funding is drying up, grants are suddenly more competitive, and people are giving less often, because they have fewer discretionary dollars to spend. The Festival is currently working with a roughly $2.7 million operating budget, which is significantly tighter than in years past.
“Many arts organizations across the city and across the country are feeling the impact of rapidly changing funding landscapes and that presents a significant challenge for our work,” Nelson said, adding that the Festival plans to respond to community need as much as it can in its upcoming season. “We're meeting that with determination.”
Anne Cubberly's Giant Puppets at the 2024 International Festival of Arts & Ideas, which lost $65,000 in NEA grant funding last year. Lucy Gellman File Photo.
In a moment that might otherwise feel uncertain, the interim management team has created new openings for collaboration and “left the staff with the ability to really focus on creating a really good and interesting festival,” Huber said.
Over the past several months, she’s watched colleagues like Associate Director of Development Bobby DellaCamera, Community Impact Manager Shannon Miller, Associate Director of Marketing & Communications Yvette Hicks, and Associate Director of Technology & New Media Tiffany Hopkins meet the moment, helping to push programming forward and sustain the organization. She had especially high praise for Miller, who has grown her role since the departure of Sha McAllister, now the city’s chief of cultural affairs, earlier this year.
She added that the Festival is excited to bring back a signature piece of its programming: the NEA Big Read, this year funded by a $20,000 grant from Arts Midwest and dedicated to Sandra Cisneros’ 1983 book The House on Mango Street. The book, a collection of short stories woven together, tells the story of Esperanza Cordero, a Latina coming of age in Chicago in the 1980s.
Events affiliated with the program will include a conversation with Cisneros, over four decades after the book originally made its debut.
Huber, who has worn many hats at the festival in over two decades there, said that staff saw it as a “really lovely way to highlight America250,” celebrating the semiquincentennial of the United States and its significance in a city that is as diverse and polyphonic as New Haven. While the story may unfold in Chicago, it resonates with the Festival’s mission and vision, including events like the Caribbean Heritage Festival and Juneteenth weekend on which it has become a trusted collaborator.
“These stories of family, of sharing space” aren’t so different from the work the Festival does, she said. “We get to work with and highlight so many parts of our city.”