Jack Viertel is currently the Senior Vice President of Jujamcyn Theaters, which owns and operates five Broadway Theaters, currently presenting The Book of Mormon, Jersey Boys, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Something Rotten!, and Kinky Boots. He is also the Artistic Director of New York City Center's Encores! series, which presents three less-well-known musicals in concert productions every season. In that capacity he has adapted the scripts for shows as diverse as Lady, Be Good! and It's a Bird…It's a Plane…It's Superman!. He spent two years as Dramaturg of the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, and from 1980 to 1985 was the drama critic and arts editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. He was the original conceiver of the Broadway shows Smokey Joe's Cafe and After Midnight. He helped shepherd six of August Wilson's plays to Broadway, as well as Tony Kushner's Angles in America, the original production of Into the Woods, City of Angels, Jelly's Last Jam and Hairspray, among many others. He is an adjunct professor at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, teaching musical theater structure, and began his career playing National Steel-body guitar behind Bonnie Raitt, Son House and the Pointer Sisters. Mr. Viertel is a certified Memphis-in-May contest barbecue judge.