Intendant

   Artistic and managing director of a German theater. The term intendant is of French military derivation: the intendant français militaire was a kind of quartermaster and administrative officer. The German use of the word in a theatrical context came into being in the late 18th century but its first appearance in print was in 1810, when a Prussian administrative order called for a theater administrator to "deal with maintaining peace and order in theaters under the surveillance of police." The term has recently come to mean an artistic administrator with several areas of responsibility at a venue (or venues) where not only spoken drama but also opera, operetta, and dance are performed. Some theaters concentrating on spoken drama have more than one venue, for which the intendant likewise has responsibility for repertoire selection, finances, casting, and general administration.