The man who directed the last two musicals at the Youngstown Playhouse now will direct its administrative path.

Tyler Stouffer is the new managing director for the theater, which is in the middle of its 101st season.

It’s the first managing director at the Playhouse since James McClellan resigned in 2020. Board President John Cox said Kayla Boye handled some of those tasks during the pandemic, but she was working remotely.

“Because of the two stages down on Glenwood (the Playhouse main stage and Moyer Room) and us now taking over the downtown space (in the Morley Building), we’re going to have three different venues, and that’s going to require a little bit more organization, a little bit more of somebody being on top of stuff,” Cox said. “I love my board, but they’re all volunteers.”

Ultimately, the Playhouse would like to hire an artistic director, but that isn’t feasible financially at this time, Cox said, so the theater was looking for someone to handle the day-to-day needs that sometimes were getting overlooked when divided among an all-volunteer board.

For Stouffer it was the perfect opportunity.

“A dream of mine is to be an artistic director for a professional regional theater company,” Stouffer said. “That’s like my ultimate dream, top of the mountain, what I’d love to do with my life. When he started describing what this opportunity would be — it is such a step in that direction, really learning about development and marketing and things like that.”

Stouffer is a Salem native who moved to California for a decade after graduating from Salem High School for college and to pursue singing and acting opportunities. He returned to the area during the COVID-19 pandemic and worked on several Playhouse productions, serving as music director for “Little Shop of Horrors” and “9 to 5” and director for “Oklahoma” and “Singing in the Rain.”

“In that short time, I’ve fallen in love with it, and I’ve fallen in love with the people there,” he said. “It’s such a great community, and just there’s so many patrons that support the Playhouse. It really is a community jewel. The idea of getting to be a bigger part of that also just really drew me to those opportunities.”

Stouffer impressed the Playhouse as well.

“He (directed) two very large shows with a lot of moving parts, and he managed all that stuff pretty well,” Cox said. “Everybody left the show loving their time. They had a great time, so he treated the people around him (well), despite the stress he was going through. He took care of everybody, and that’s not an easy thing to do. Some people just aren’t good at that. So I thought he has the right sensibility and the desire for it, and I thought he’d be the perfect guy to come in and help us this way.”

Stouffer’s responsibilities will include development, marketing, fundraising, social media and theater rentals.

“We are really going to be upping our development game, our fundraising game, making sure that our donors feel seen and appreciated,” Stouffer said.

He will direct “Urinetown: The Musical” in the spring, and said he will have a better idea once he starts full-time how much he’ll be able to direct around his administrative responsibilities.

Stouffer currently works as a special projects coordinator with the Henry H. Stambaugh Auditorium Association. For the next couple of months, he will split his time working part-time for both the Playhouse and Stambaugh before transitioning to the Playhouse full-time by spring 2026.

“I just wanted to make sure that all bridges stayed very much intact and that both organizations felt taken care of and not abandoned,” Stouffer said.