Arlington Heights theater hires executive operations director

Metropolis Performing Arts Centre on Thursday announced the hiring of a new executive operations director to oversee the business side of the downtown Arlington Heights theater.

Brookes Ebetsch was hired for the new role, following an extensive search by the nonprofit's board of directors. Her first day is Feb. 18.

Joe Keefe, hired in 2015 as Metropolis' executive director, will continue in the role of executive artistic director.

Metropolis board President Steve Daday said board members had been considering reassigning business functions in the executive director's role for some time. The board collected several hundred resumes over the last two years as part of a nationwide search.

"It's basically to allow Joe to concentrate on the artistic side and what's on stage, and siphoning other things obviously he does well, but I think can be handled by someone else," Daday said.

Daday lauded Ebetsch for her business background, including marketing, web design, technology and social media.

"Brookes will be a tremendous asset to the organization," Daday said in a Thursday morning news release. "She brings a tremendous passion for the arts and education component of the institution, and unbelievable enthusiasm."

Ebetsch, a Wheaton resident, spent the last decade at SunstoneFIT, a Dallas-based fitness company, where she has been executive director since 2014. Previously, Ebetsch spent two years as operations and student services manager for the Executive Masters in Business Administration at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business. She spent the previous four years as assistant program manager in the school's Institute for Latino Studies.

Ebetsch holds a masters in nonprofit business administration, a bachelor of fine arts in studio art, and a second major in Spanish language - all from Notre Dame. She also received a Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education.