Former PerformInk publisher and editor Carrie Kaufman is the new general manager at Porchlight Music Theatre, effective today. Kaufman took over PerformInk in 1992, ultimately turning it into an online-only publication with dreams of going national. That didn’t work out; Kaufman says she stopped posting stories on the PerformInk website in the summer of 2011 and halted the site’s once-vital audition notices at the end of last year. ReelChicago publisher Ruth Ratny has taken over the PerformInk brand.
The new GM says she’s a longtime Porchlight fan, further impressed when Michael Weber came on as artistic director last year. Porchlight, in its 18th season, has full-time staff of just three, and is a resident company at Stage 773.
Kaufman’s never run a theater company, but—after decades of reporting on Chicago’s theater landscape—has an encyclopedic knowledge of the business. It’ll be interesting to see how that translates.