Terence McFarland
Executive Director
LA Stage Alliance
Terence McFarland is executive director of LA Stage Alliance, greater Los Angeles’ largest performing arts service organization, dedicated to building awareness, appreciation, and support for the performing arts in Greater Los Angeles.
McFarland holds both an M.F.A. and B.F.A. from California Institute of the Arts, an associates degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology, and certificates from both Stanford Graduate School of Business Executive Program for Non-Profit Leaders—Arts and Polimoda in Florence, Italy. He is a director, producer, and performer having presented work in many international film festivals and performed or directed throughout Los Angeles. He spent over a decade working in the New York fashion industry.
McFarland is a member of Southern California Leadership Network and currently serves on the boards of Arts for LA, California Arts Advocates, Edgefest: The Edge of the World Theater Festival, and the California Institute of the Arts Alumni Association and was recently named a Trustee by City Councilmember Jose Huizar of the Bringing Back Broadway Initiative—a $40 million public private partnership to revitalize the historic Broadway District of Downtown Los Angeles. McFarland has served as the lead consultant on the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles Arts retention projects in Hollywood and North Hollywood and as a grants panelist for Ventura Arts Council and the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.
McFarland has presented or facilitated workshops on corporate sponsorship, corporate volunteerism, arts marketing and technology, creativity and workforce development, performing arts touring in partnership with the Western Arts Alliance, new play development in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and Arena Stage, and led sessions for arts journalism fellows for both the NEA/USC Arts Journalism fellowship program and the Los Angeles Sister Cities Arts Journalism Fellowship of LA, Inc. and the Los Angeles Visitors and Convention Bureau. Additionally, he has guest lectured at UCLA, USC, LMU, and Occidental College.
McFarland is a resident of Los Angeles with his domestic partner, Dennis Smeal, a lawyer and playwright.