Robert Marx has worked extensively in theatre and opera as an essayist, consultant and producer. He is President of The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, one of New York City’s leading arts philanthropies. Previously, he was Executive Director of Lincoln Center’s New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and director of the theatre programs at both the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. He was a senior member of the producing team that developed the Los Angeles Olympic Arts Festival (part of the 1984 Olympic Games in that city). During those years, he was also Artistic Associate of the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, Co-Producer with Off-Broadway’s Music-Theatre Group, and served on the artistic advisory committee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. With Theatre For A New Audience in New York City, he was Associate Producer on a number of Off-Broadway productions, including Shakespeare’s TROILUS & CRESSIDA (directed by Sir Peter Hall), and the American premiere of WASTE by Harley Granville-Barker (OBIE Award 2000, Best Play, directed by Bartlett Sher). Since 1995, Mr. Marx has appeared regularly on the Metropolitan Opera’s live Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts as an intermission host, commentator and Opera Quiz panelist. A former consulting editor of Opera News, his speaking engagements have included appearances at Lincoln Center, BAM, the Juilliard School, the Salzburg Festival, the Avignon Festival, the 2018 World Opera Forum in Madrid, and the Vail Symposium.