SAN DIEGO REP MANAGING DIRECTOR QUITS

San Diego Repertory Theatre announced the resignation of managing director John McCann this week, less than three weeks after the gala opening of its new home.

McCann, who joined the Rep staff in February, 1984, played an important role in the theater’s drawn-out negotiations with the Centre City Development Corp. and developer Ernest W. Hahn to secure the Rep’s residency and management of the Lyceum Theatre complex, which officially opened May 31 in Horton Plaza.

A statement released by Rep co-founders, producing director Sam Woodhouse and artistic director Douglas Jacobs, praised McCann’s “expertise, energy and commitment to the develop of the Rep.”

“John McCann made a crucial contribution to our theater and to the community, and especially to our board, through his tenacity in helping us to complete the move of the Rep into the new Lyceum theaters,” board chairman John Messner said.

He has no specific plans, McCann said, but simply felt it was time to seek out “a new set of challenges,” citing producing, writing and forming his own theater company as some of the options he’ll be considering.

McCann said he wanted to let the Rep know his intentions before a long-term planning retreat scheduled for this weekend by the theater’s board of trustees.

McCann will continue as managing director for the next few months while a nationwide search is conducted for his replacement.