Amy Wratchford is a seasoned arts leader with over two decades of experience in nonprofit theater. In 2021, Amy founded The Wratchford Group, an arts management consulting company with the vision to transform nonprofit arts organizations creating a stable, thriving, empowering, and equitable industry. Amy specializes in interim executive leadership, financial stabilization plans, Board governance, organizational analysis, and executive coaching. Interim leadership and advisory clients include Virginia Repertory Theatre, Barter Theatre, Virginia Stage Company, Synetic Theatre, the Old Globe, and the Historic Masonic Theatre. Beyond the arts, Amy also advises local nonprofits, including the Arrow Project, LIFEWorks, and New Directions Center.
Amy’s personal mission is to help create a more joyful, wholehearted, courageous world through the power of her example. She spent over ten years as Managing Director of the American Shakespeare Center. As the company’s chief administrative and financial officer, Amy oversaw finance, marketing, development, and other business management functions for ASC. In her first three years, Amy led the company to eliminate $1M in debt and back accounts payable. During her tenure, ASC’s budget grew from $2.4M in 2010 to $4.2M in 2020 (pre-COVID). She was instrumental in ASC’s successful SafeStart Season, becoming one of only a handful of theaters to safely produce for live audiences during the summer of 2020. During this time, she not only successfully garnered almost $2M in COVID relief funding but, also assisted numerous arts organizations in their SVOG and ERTC application processes.
Before joining ASC, Amy served as Managing Director of Synchronicity Theatre in Atlanta. Previously, she worked for 13 years in a number of capacities in theater in New York City including producer, director, and actor. Amy regularly serves on grant panels, including the National Endowment for the Arts and Virginia Commission for the Arts, as well as adjudicating panels, including EdTA China’s 2019 National Young Thespian Festival in Shanghai, as well as state, regional, and national community theater festivals.
She was an elected member of the Staunton City School Board (2018-2022; Vice Chair 2019-2022) and serves as Treasurer for both the Board of the Community Action Partnership of Staunton, Augusta, and Waynesboro (CAPSAW) and the Staunton High School Band Boosters. Amy has previously served on the advisory boards for both the Shenandoah LGBTQ Center and the Shenandoah Valley Governor’s School. She routinely lectures on finance, budgeting, and nonprofit governance for graduate, undergraduate, and high school programs. Amy holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in Acting from the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University and a master of fine arts degree in Performing Arts Management from Brooklyn College.
When not supporting all manner of performing arts, Amy enjoys reading, crocheting, baking, hiking, and riding her motorcycle through the back roads of the Shenandoah Valley.