Joined the Company in 2009

John Krasno joined the Oklahoma City Ballet as Executive Director in July of 2009. He has spent his life primarily in the arts, with special expertise in improving the financial wellbeing of creative companies. He was the Chief Operating Officer of the Drama Department, a New York-based theater company, rescuing them from imminent bankruptcy and paving the way for their subsequent dynamic growth, including the Tribeca Theater Festival produced with Robert DeNiro’s Tribeca Institute. As part of his assignment, he revitalized their creative development process, designed and executed a sustainable approach to off-Broadway theater, and retired the company’s outstanding debt.

John was also President and Chief Operating Officer of Stick Figure Productions, a forward-looking documentary and television production company that produced highly regarded films shown at festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, and Edinburgh, as well as on HBO and PBS.

For more than a decade, John was a Vice President and General Manager at Panavision, the leading manufacturer and distributor of camera equipment and lenses for the motion picture industry. During his tenure there he took the company’s unsuccessful CinePro Division and turned it into Panavision Hollywood, an internationally well-regarded multimillion dollar business unit. John also provided strategic leadership to both domestic and international business units, mentored directors, producers and cinematographers, and helped make hundreds of independent films.

John holds a BA in English from UCLA. Equally importantly, an admitted, “awful” ballet dancer, he studied with Stanley Holden and Margaret Graham Hills of the Royal Ballet, and with Tatiana Riabouchinska of the Ballet Russe.