The Board of Directors of the Connecticut Arts Alliance (CAA) is pleased to announce that Darren Farrington has been appointed the first Administrator of the advocacy organization and has begun in the position this month.
“I’m thrilled to have been selected as the first administrator for the CAA, and I’m prepared to take on the challenge of increasing the visibility, the efforts, and the impact of this organization in this new chapter of its history. It’s exciting to me too that this position combines my passion and experience in the arts with the advocacy skills I learned and used as an attorney.”
Farrington is a theater producer, director, and consultant who has worked in professional, community, and youth theaters for over two decades. Among the theaters and organizations that he has worked with are Manhattan Theatre Club, the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, the Warner Theatre in Torrington, and several small companies in New York City. Currently, he is Executive and Artistic Director of New Britain Youth Theater, and he will continue in that position while also with the CAA. As an arts management consultant, Farrington has worked with several Connecticut nonprofits independently and as an advisor for the Peer Advisor Network of the Connecticut Office of the Arts.
Farrington earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University School of the Arts in Theater Management and Production. He is also a non-practicing attorney with a degree from Fordham University School of Law, and his past practice included entertainment law, commercial litigation, and appeals. He received his undergraduate degree from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where his activities included serving as president of an extracurricular theater group and as mentor for bilingual inner-city children. Darren is a native of Litchfield County, where he again resides with his wife and daughter.
The CAA was founded in 2005 as an advocacy organization to ensure that the arts remain central to life in Connecticut. The organization strives to promote and underscore the value of all achievements of the arts industry and all of the ways in which the arts improve daily life for residents of the State. Among its most visible programs are assisting with workshops for the annual Connecticut Arts Day at the Capitol organized by the Connecticut Office of the Arts, and providing advocacy guidance and resources in concert with the Office of the Arts and regional arts service organizations. The Administrator will work with the CAA Board of Directors to foster public education and awareness of the arts, to increase funding for the arts, and to influence public funding decisions and actions that affect the arts.
