Jerry Manning is Seattle Rep's new artistic director

Seattle Repertory Theatre has appointed a new artistic director, one from within its ranks. The new honcho will be Jerry Manning, a respected staffer at the Tony Award-winning Seattle company since 2001.

For the past two seasons, Manning has run the company's creative operations on an interim basis as producing artistic director. And despite layoffs and budget cuts, the Rep has enjoyed critical and box-office success under his guidance.

Manning, 54, was one of five top candidates vying to steer the 47-year-old company, which, with its $7 million annual budget, is Seattle's flagship playhouse.

Brent Johnson, incoming president of the Rep's board and co-chairman of the board search committee, said Manning's five-year contract will begin July 1.

Manning beat out the other finalists, chosen from around the U.S., because "we felt Jerry would continue the positive momentum of this season into the future," Johnson said. "He put great work on stage, his collaboration with artists was outstanding and he really engaged with our audience and staff."

Manning said he was delighted to stay at the Rep, and in Seattle: "This is where I'm supposed to be. I love this community."

His priorities include making the theater "a real home for Seattle artists," and continuing to revive the Rep's New Plays division, which in past years developed Wendy Wasserstein's "The Heidi Chronicles," among other hit works.

Manning is the first artistic head promoted from within the Rep since Daniel Sullivan won the post in 1981.

A native New Yorker and Marquette University graduate, Manning has directed two mainstage shows at the Rep ("boom" and "Thom Pain"). But he's best known nationally as a producer, casting director and dramaturge.

Before joining the Rep as associate artistic director, he served in those roles at two leading East Coast theaters: Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., for 11 seasons, and Off Broadway's New York Theatre Workshop for seven seasons; there he worked on premieres by such noted writers as John Guare and Nilo Cruz.

At the Rep, the Queen Anne resident has produced more than two dozen shows and championed hiring more local actors, designers and directors.

He is also credited with helping the Rep regain its financial and artistic footing after previous artistic director David Esjbornson left in 2008 — by mutual agreement with the board — after fulfilling three years of his four-year contract.

In the face of declining revenues and ticket sales, Manning and Rep managing director Benjamin Moore instituted major budget cuts and the theater finished the 2008-2009 season without a deficit.

According to Moore, the 2009-2010 season is on track to finish without a deficit. Every show has made its box-office goal, including the world debut of "An Iliad," by Lisa Peterson and Denis O'Hare, which closes Sunday.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com